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Bachem Ba 349 Natter
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Bachem Ba 349 Natter
The Bachem Ba 349 Natter (English: Colubrid, grass-snake) is a German rocket-powered point-defence interceptor that was developed during the latter portion of the Second World War.
The Ba 349 was to be deployed in a very similar way to a manned version of the surface-to-air missiles under development in the Reich. A typical mission profile started with a rapid vertical take-off (the time to altitude being 62 seconds to 12 km (39,000 ft), which eliminated the need for conventional airfields, while the majority of the flight towards Allied bombers was to be controlled by an autopilot, making it feasible to be flown by relatively untrained pilots. The primary role of the pilot was to aim the aircraft at a target bomber and to fire rockets housed in the aircraft's nose cone. After completing their attack run, the pilot would dive their Natter to a lower altitude before, using separate parachutes, the pilot and the fuselage containing the rocket engine would land separately and be recovered. The nose section was disposable, hence the aircraft being classified as being semi-expendible.
The Natter was first conceived of during August 1944 as the BP-20 by Erich Bachem amid a pressing military need to counter the Allied strategic bombing offensive being waged against Nazi Germany. While not designed to fulfil the specification for the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed for the same purpose. Accordingly, the Natter was designed to be constructed by unskilled labour using low-tech tooling and affordable materials wherever possible, being largely composed of wood. After securing the backing of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the BP-20 was quickly refined into the Ba 349; the first experimental prototype Natter, Versuchsmuster 1 was completed on 4 October 1944. Several prototypes underwent testing in level flight, towed and free gliding, and unmanned vertical flights. The first and only manned vertical take-off flight, conducted on 1 March 1945 near Stetten am kalten Markt, ended in the death of the test pilot, Lothar Sieber, due to a canopy failure. During the one-minute flight, about 14 kilometres (7+1⁄2 nmi) were travelled in total, at a calculated average speed of about 800 km/h (430 kn). No operational flights were ever conducted; at least one Natter was transported to the US for evaluation after the end of the conflict.
In 1943, the air superiority of the Luftwaffe was being challenged by Allied aircraft over the Reich; seeking to overcome this crisis, German officials urgently sought out radical innovations and unconventional solutions to respond to the threat posed by Allied airpower. The emerging field of surface-to-air missiles appeared to be a promising approach against the Allied strategic bombing offensive; a variety of projects were started, but invariably problems with the guidance and homing systems prevented any of these from attaining operational status. Providing the missile with a pilot, who could operate a weapon during the brief terminal approach phase, offered a solution.
Submissions for a simple target defence interceptor were requested by the Luftwaffe in early 1944 under the umbrella of the Jägernotprogramm, literally "Emergency Fighter Program". A number of simple designs were proposed, including the Heinkel P.1077 Julia, in which the pilot lay prone (on his stomach), to reduce the frontal area. Following a series of evaluations by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, Ministry of Aviation), the Julia would become the front-runner to fulfil this requirement in autumn 1944. The initial plan was to launch the aircraft vertically, but this concept was later changed to a conventional horizontal take-off from a tricycle-wheeled trolley, similar to that used by the first eight prototypes of the Arado Ar 234 Blitz jet reconnaissance bomber.
The Natter was first conceived by the aeronautical engineer Erich Bachem in August 1944, after witnessing an American bombing raid on a major German city. He believed there ought to be a way to break up these large formations of bombers. His BP-20 ("Natter") was a development from a design he had worked on at Fieseler, the Fi 166 concept, but considerably more radical than the other submissions. It was built using glued and nailed wooden parts with an armour-plated bulkhead and bulletproof glass windshield at the front of the cockpit. The initial plan was to power the aircraft with a Walter HWK 109-509A-2 rocket engine; however, only the 109-509A-1, as used in the Me 163, was available. It had a sea level thrust variable between 100 kg (220 lb) at "idle" to 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) at full power, with the Natter's intended quartet of rear flank-mount Schmidding SG34 solid fuel rocket boosters used in its vertical launch to provide an additional 4,800 kg (10,600 lb) thrust for ten seconds before they burned out and were jettisoned. The experimental prototypes slid up a 20 m (66 ft)-tall vertical steel launch tower for a maximum sliding length of 17 m (56 ft) in three guideways, one for each wing tip and one for the lower tip of the ventral tail fin. By the time the aircraft left the tower it was hoped that it would have achieved sufficient speed to allow its aerodynamic surfaces to provide stable flight.
Under operational conditions, once the Natter had left the launcher, it would be guided to the proximity of the Allied bombers by an autopilot with the possibility of an added beam guidance similar to that used in some V-2 rocket launches. Only then would the pilot take control, aim and fire the armament, which was originally proposed to be a salvo of nineteen 55 mm (2.2 in) R4M rockets. Later, 28 R4Ms or a number of the larger, 73 mm (2.9 in) Henschel Hs 297 Föhn rockets were suggested, with either variety of unguided rocket fired from the Natter's nose-mounted cellular launch tubes. The Natter was intended to fly up and over the bombers, by which time its Walter engine would probably be out of propellant. Following its one-time attack with its rockets, the pilot would dive his Natter, now effectively a glider, to an altitude of around 3,000 m (10,000 ft), flatten out, release the nose of the aircraft and a small braking parachute from the rear fuselage. The fuselage would decelerate and the pilot would be ejected forwards by his own momentum and land by means of a personal parachute.
In an early proposal in August 1944, the Natter design featured a concrete nose; it was suggested that the aircraft might ram enemy bombers, but this proposal was subsequently withdrawn in later Project Natter outlines. Bachem stated clearly in the initial proposal that the Natter was not a suicide weapon and much effort went into designing safety features for the pilot. However, owing to the potential dangers for the pilot inherent in the operation of this precarious aircraft, the Natter has sometimes been listed as a suicide craft. The design had one decisive advantage over its competitors – it eliminated the necessity to land an unpowered glider at an airbase, which, as the history of the Me 163 rocket interceptor had clearly demonstrated, left an aircraft extremely vulnerable to attack by Allied fighters.
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Bachem Ba 349 Natter
The Bachem Ba 349 Natter (English: Colubrid, grass-snake) is a German rocket-powered point-defence interceptor that was developed during the latter portion of the Second World War.
The Ba 349 was to be deployed in a very similar way to a manned version of the surface-to-air missiles under development in the Reich. A typical mission profile started with a rapid vertical take-off (the time to altitude being 62 seconds to 12 km (39,000 ft), which eliminated the need for conventional airfields, while the majority of the flight towards Allied bombers was to be controlled by an autopilot, making it feasible to be flown by relatively untrained pilots. The primary role of the pilot was to aim the aircraft at a target bomber and to fire rockets housed in the aircraft's nose cone. After completing their attack run, the pilot would dive their Natter to a lower altitude before, using separate parachutes, the pilot and the fuselage containing the rocket engine would land separately and be recovered. The nose section was disposable, hence the aircraft being classified as being semi-expendible.
The Natter was first conceived of during August 1944 as the BP-20 by Erich Bachem amid a pressing military need to counter the Allied strategic bombing offensive being waged against Nazi Germany. While not designed to fulfil the specification for the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed for the same purpose. Accordingly, the Natter was designed to be constructed by unskilled labour using low-tech tooling and affordable materials wherever possible, being largely composed of wood. After securing the backing of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the BP-20 was quickly refined into the Ba 349; the first experimental prototype Natter, Versuchsmuster 1 was completed on 4 October 1944. Several prototypes underwent testing in level flight, towed and free gliding, and unmanned vertical flights. The first and only manned vertical take-off flight, conducted on 1 March 1945 near Stetten am kalten Markt, ended in the death of the test pilot, Lothar Sieber, due to a canopy failure. During the one-minute flight, about 14 kilometres (7+1⁄2 nmi) were travelled in total, at a calculated average speed of about 800 km/h (430 kn). No operational flights were ever conducted; at least one Natter was transported to the US for evaluation after the end of the conflict.
In 1943, the air superiority of the Luftwaffe was being challenged by Allied aircraft over the Reich; seeking to overcome this crisis, German officials urgently sought out radical innovations and unconventional solutions to respond to the threat posed by Allied airpower. The emerging field of surface-to-air missiles appeared to be a promising approach against the Allied strategic bombing offensive; a variety of projects were started, but invariably problems with the guidance and homing systems prevented any of these from attaining operational status. Providing the missile with a pilot, who could operate a weapon during the brief terminal approach phase, offered a solution.
Submissions for a simple target defence interceptor were requested by the Luftwaffe in early 1944 under the umbrella of the Jägernotprogramm, literally "Emergency Fighter Program". A number of simple designs were proposed, including the Heinkel P.1077 Julia, in which the pilot lay prone (on his stomach), to reduce the frontal area. Following a series of evaluations by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, Ministry of Aviation), the Julia would become the front-runner to fulfil this requirement in autumn 1944. The initial plan was to launch the aircraft vertically, but this concept was later changed to a conventional horizontal take-off from a tricycle-wheeled trolley, similar to that used by the first eight prototypes of the Arado Ar 234 Blitz jet reconnaissance bomber.
The Natter was first conceived by the aeronautical engineer Erich Bachem in August 1944, after witnessing an American bombing raid on a major German city. He believed there ought to be a way to break up these large formations of bombers. His BP-20 ("Natter") was a development from a design he had worked on at Fieseler, the Fi 166 concept, but considerably more radical than the other submissions. It was built using glued and nailed wooden parts with an armour-plated bulkhead and bulletproof glass windshield at the front of the cockpit. The initial plan was to power the aircraft with a Walter HWK 109-509A-2 rocket engine; however, only the 109-509A-1, as used in the Me 163, was available. It had a sea level thrust variable between 100 kg (220 lb) at "idle" to 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) at full power, with the Natter's intended quartet of rear flank-mount Schmidding SG34 solid fuel rocket boosters used in its vertical launch to provide an additional 4,800 kg (10,600 lb) thrust for ten seconds before they burned out and were jettisoned. The experimental prototypes slid up a 20 m (66 ft)-tall vertical steel launch tower for a maximum sliding length of 17 m (56 ft) in three guideways, one for each wing tip and one for the lower tip of the ventral tail fin. By the time the aircraft left the tower it was hoped that it would have achieved sufficient speed to allow its aerodynamic surfaces to provide stable flight.
Under operational conditions, once the Natter had left the launcher, it would be guided to the proximity of the Allied bombers by an autopilot with the possibility of an added beam guidance similar to that used in some V-2 rocket launches. Only then would the pilot take control, aim and fire the armament, which was originally proposed to be a salvo of nineteen 55 mm (2.2 in) R4M rockets. Later, 28 R4Ms or a number of the larger, 73 mm (2.9 in) Henschel Hs 297 Föhn rockets were suggested, with either variety of unguided rocket fired from the Natter's nose-mounted cellular launch tubes. The Natter was intended to fly up and over the bombers, by which time its Walter engine would probably be out of propellant. Following its one-time attack with its rockets, the pilot would dive his Natter, now effectively a glider, to an altitude of around 3,000 m (10,000 ft), flatten out, release the nose of the aircraft and a small braking parachute from the rear fuselage. The fuselage would decelerate and the pilot would be ejected forwards by his own momentum and land by means of a personal parachute.
In an early proposal in August 1944, the Natter design featured a concrete nose; it was suggested that the aircraft might ram enemy bombers, but this proposal was subsequently withdrawn in later Project Natter outlines. Bachem stated clearly in the initial proposal that the Natter was not a suicide weapon and much effort went into designing safety features for the pilot. However, owing to the potential dangers for the pilot inherent in the operation of this precarious aircraft, the Natter has sometimes been listed as a suicide craft. The design had one decisive advantage over its competitors – it eliminated the necessity to land an unpowered glider at an airbase, which, as the history of the Me 163 rocket interceptor had clearly demonstrated, left an aircraft extremely vulnerable to attack by Allied fighters.
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