Video: German superiority: invention of the giant aircraft Messerschmitt 323
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
A captured French tankette Renault UE Chenillette retracts from the inside of a giant Messerschmitt Me 323 aircraft. Tunisia, January 1943
The 1930s and 40s in Germany were a period of rapid development of the army, aviation and navy. At this time, thousands of soldiers were preparing for the capture of Europe, and engineers created the latest military equipment for them. When it came to the landing, it turned out that the Germans simply did not have enough transport aircraft. And then a huge, flying whale-like Messerschmitt 323 appeared.
By 1940, Nazi Germany had already occupied half of Europe and the seizure of Great Britain was on the "agenda". It was not easy to land on the Island with a weaker fleet, and then the Germans decided to develop a new type of air transport - heavy gliders. Already in 1941 Messerschmitt Me.321made the first flight, and this was a really huge machine. Its length is 28, 15 meters, its height is 10 m, and its wingspan is 55 m.
At the front of the fuselage of the Me.321 there are swing doors, behind which a hinged ramp is installed. The cargo compartment is 6 meters high and has an area of about 100 sq. M. An empty aircraft weighs 12.2 tons, but it can lift more than 20 tons of cargo into the sky. These are 200 armed soldiers or one PzKpfw IV tank. Numerous windows, made in the fuselage, simultaneously served as loopholes, from where the paratroopers could conduct defensive machine-gun fire.
The Me.321 glider is towed by three Bf.110C (top) and He.111Z Zwilling (bottom).
To rise into the sky, a tug aircraft was attached to the Messerschmitt 321 glider. It could be a two-hull 5-engine Heinkel He 111Z Zwilling, a four-engine passenger airliner Junkers Ju.90, or three Bf.110 fighters at once, hooked into one "team". Rocket boosters were also launched at the start. Any of these schemes had flaws and caused a lot of complaints from the pilots. Then the idea arose to convert the Me.321 glider into a full-fledged aircraft.
So the Germans had a six-engine transport aircraft already in 1942. Messerschmitt Me.323 with a carrying capacity of 10-12 tons or 120-130 paratroopers. The car received an official nickname "Gigant", 6 Gnome-Rhône 14N engines with 1180 hp. each and a complete chassis.
Like the glider, the Me.323 had a tubular steel fuselage sheathed with canvas and plywood. Because of this, the aircraft was often called "rag" or "adhesive plaster bomber". It was believed that the plane burns very quickly. However, this design proved to be very cheap and maintainable.
The Giants never took part in the landing in Britain, as it was canceled. But the world's largest military transport aircraft were used in North Africa, Italy, on the Eastern Front (in the USSR). In total, about 200 huge machines were built, which were all destroyed in a couple of years. The clumsiness of the huge aircraft did not give it a chance to survive when encountering fighters, and it was quite easy to bomb it on the ground.
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