During the initial drive, the unit participated in action along the central and northern parts of the front, including a brief time in support of the fighting around
Leningrad, and participating in the battles for
Bryansk and
Vyazma. The first weeks revealed problems associated with using the Bf 109E which was plagued by undercarriage and engine problems in the fighter-bomber role. Its liquid-cooled
inline engine was also more vulnerable to small arms fire than the Hs 123's
radial.
The winter brought hardship to all German forces in Russia, and the pilots in the open cockpits of the Henschels suffered accordingly. Despite this, they took part in the
Battle of Moscow. In January, the unit was re-designated as the first dedicated ground attack wing (in German
Schlachtgeschwader 1,
SchlG 1). The Hs 123 became a part of
7./SchlG 1.
This "new" unit participated in operations in
Crimea in May 1942, after which it operated on the southern sector for some time, participating in the
Second Battle of Kharkov and going on to take part in the
Battle of Stalingrad. In the meantime, the small number of operational Hs 123 continued to slowly dwindle. Aircraft had been salvaged from training schools and even derelict dumps all over Germany to replace losses.
[3] The aircraft that had supposedly replaced the Hs 123, the Ju 87, also started to be assigned to ground support units, leaving tactical bombing to newer aircraft.
The greatest tribute to the Hs 123 usefulness came in January 1943 when Generaloberst Wolfram von Richthofen, then commander-in-chief of Luftflotte 4, asked whether production of the Hs 123 could be restarted because the Hs 123 performed well in a theater where mud, snow, rain and ice took a heavy toll on the serviceability of more advanced aircraft. However, the Henschel factory had already dismantled all tools and jigs in 1940.[3]
After taking part in the
Battle of Kursk, SG 1 returned to Crimea, and there during late spring 1944, they finally gave up the aircraft that had served all over Europe from Spain to Leningrad. 7./SG 1 traded its last Hs 123s in mid-1944, for Ju 87s, a type that was to have replaced it back in 1937.