PROJEKT NATTER Last of the Wonder Weapons

In 1944 in response to the bombing of German, cities and factories by the allied strategic bomber offensive, the little-known firm of Bachem Werk in Waldsee in south-west Germany developed an extraordinary, highly secret, vertical take-off, single-seat rocket ‘fighter’ intended to offer high-speed defence of key targets. Known as ‘Projekt Natter’ (‘Project Viper’), this radical aircraft was the brainchild of Dipl.-Ing.

Erich Bachem who offered the commander of the Luftwaffe Fighter Arm, General Adolf Galland, an inexpensive means with which to intercept and attack allied heavy bombers using a vertically launched, semi-expendable machine built of wood and armed with a nose-mounted ‘honeycomb’ battery of spin-stabilized air-to-air rocket shells or two machine cannons. No less a figure than the feared head of the SS, Reichsfiihrer Heinrich Himmler, showed interest in the project, and through the offices of the SS, Bachem was able to move forward swiftly with his design under the programme for an economical target-defence interceptor.

Once blasted into the air from its 15-metre vertical launch pole, the pilot of the Natter was to climb under autopilot control towards an enemy bomber formation using an internal rocket with a rate of climb of 11,600 metres per minute. The pilot would then target an enemy bomber and fire his battery of 24 rockets. Immediately he would dive his little craft down to a lower altitude, level off and prepare to leave the machine. By pulling a lever, the nose would fly off and a parachute would deploy from the rear fuselage which would slow the Natter abruptly.

The pilot would continue forwards leaving the cockpit under his own inertia, whereupon he would open his personal parachute. The rear portion of the machine would also float to earth where, along with the rocket motor, it would be salvaged for reuse. This book which may be considered as the most comprehensive likely to date is the result of ten years’ research on the part of the author who has worked from the manufacturer’s documents and test reports.