It contained major changes that included the 600 hp (450 kW) Wright R-1510-98 radial engine, single-leg cantilever main landing-gear units, a slight increase in the interplane gap, metal- rather than fabric-covered control surfaces, and armament based on two .30 in (7.62 mm) fixed forward-firing machine guns supplemented by a hardpoint under the fuselage for the carriage of a 474 lb (215 kg) bomb, or an auxiliary fuel tank.

This had a Wright R-1820-78 Cyclone engine, slightly longer main landing-gear legs carrying wheels with low-pressure tires, a tailwheel in place of the tailskid, fabric-covered control surfaces on the tail, and external provision for underwing racks for light bombs as well as an under-fuselage hardpoint for either a 50 gal (189 L) fuel tank or the crutch that would swing a bomb clear of the propeller disc before release in a dive-bombing attack.

Hawk II squadron commander Captain Chan Kee-Wong of the 28th Squadron, 5th Fighter Group based at Chuyung Airbase for the defense of Nanking at the outbreak of the war against the Imperial Japanese invasion, made a partial claim in the shooting-down of a Mitsubishi G3M medium-heavy bomber on 15 August, 1937.

He and half of his squadron were soon dispatched to Taiyuan in the northern front of the war in China, and famously shot down Major Hiroshi Miwa (former military flight instructor for Zhang Xueliang's Fengtian Army air corps),[4] commander of the 16th Hiko Rentai, 1st Daitai squadron of Kawasaki Ki-10 fighters during the Battle of Taiyuan[5] It was the main battlefield of the F11C in World War II.

[6] Thai Hawk IIIs saw action during World War II, including against the Royal Air Force.

[7] During the spring of 1933, Franz Muller who was a senior official in the Reich Air Ministry, informed Göring that he was approached by Udet to seek approval for the purchase of two Goshawks for dive bombing trials.

[8] Udet used one of these Goshawks (designated D-IRIK) in aerobatic exhibitions held during the 1936 Summer Olympics, the aircraft survived the war, was eventually found in a field outside Kraków,[9] now on display in the Polish Aviation Museum.