Messer Me-321 & 323 Gigant, assault transporters.

[Panzerknacker]

Messerschmitt Me-321 & 323 Gigant

Making its first flight in March 1941 behind a Junkers Ju 90 tug, the Messerschmitt Me 321 (a massive welded steel and wood glider with mixed ply and fabric covering) had surprisingly only one pilot on board, a man of sufficient stature to use the controls by physical means alone since there was no power assistance, although later three crew members became the accepted complement.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/JG_Meyer/Ju290.jpg

Designed to transport a company of soldiers, or an anti-aircraft gun, or a tracked vehicle or the equivalent weight of freight, the Me 321A initial version was supported on the groundby a multi-wheel bogie at each side, although in the later Me 32IB a more conventional type with two largediameter wheels was adopted.

Even with a tow provided by means of three Messerschmitt Bf 110s or one Heinkel He 111Z at maximum load there was often insufficient power to lift the huge glider off the ground, so auxiliary rockets were provided. Trials were also made with pulsejets to increase range after release from the tow.

Me-321 cockpit with armored seats.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2117/11fs7.jpg

This problem led to the evolution of the similar Me 323D 'powered glider'
series with six piston engines and a suitably-strengthened airframe,
although the prototype was fitted with only four motors. Structurally similar to the earlier design, all the powered variants retained the clamshell doors in the nose and reverted to the bogie
landing gear, and in this form the type was capable of providing transport for a minimum of 130 troops and a crew which was now increased to five on the Me 323D-6 variant which appeared in
December 1942.

The additional members were a pair of engineers to look after the problem of engine synchronization, while in the later Me 323E-1 version with engines of increased power this number was augmented by a further pair of men to operate an extra two gun turrets.

Production was planned to continue into 1945, but it in fact ceased in the spring of the previous year when less than 200 examples had been delivered of the powered type.

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/9103/megigantxy5.jpg

Specification Messerschmitt Me 323D-6

Type: heavy assault transport
Powerplant: six 850. l-kW(l, 140-hp)
Gnome-Rhône 14N 14-cylinder aircooled
radial piston engines
Performance: maximum speed
285 km/h (177 mph) at sea level; range
1100 km (684 miles)
Weights: empty 27330 kg (60,252 lb);
maximum take-off 43000 kg (94,799 lb)
Dimensions: span 55.00 m (180 ft
5,4 in); length 28.15 m (92 ft 4,3 in);
height 8.30 m (27 ft 2.8 in); wing area
300 m

[Panzerknacker]

Two images of the dangerous "troika schlepp" triple tow use din the Me-321 coupled with 3 Me-110s, the "troika" was after a russian carriage wich used 3 horses.

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/7598/1troikauq1.jpg



http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6814/59188798hk0.jpg

[Chevan]

Oh i guess it was damn danger and hard:)
To pull the One aircraft by the troika of Me-110:)
Who have invented such crazy idea?
I 'm not sure it could be even theoretically useful in front:)

[Drake]

They dropped the idea anyway and put engines on the thing ;)

[Chevan]

They dropped the idea anyway and put engines on the thing ;)
That's right.
I know the Allies had a special airborn disposable gliders - they used it in Italy and Normand.
So many airborners perished having landing in this shit that was pulled behind the transport airplain like C-47.

[windrider]

There's a movie on Youtube with that same sequence as the first picture.
Very interesting interview.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=utWz_e1BFu4

[Panzerknacker]

Very nice video !! thanks Windrider.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/6469/dibujons0.jpg

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/9591/dibujo2bv4.jpg


Oh i guess it was damn danger and hard
To pull the One aircraft by the troika of Me-110
Who have invented such crazy idea?
I 'm not sure it could be even theoretically useful in front


I believe that the troika was never used in the front, probably remains for experimental purposes.

[HG]

Nice Very nice indeed.

[windrider]

About the video
That Hanna Reichst was a real crackpot, wasn't she?;)

Unfortunately for those soldiers that were cramed into these giants,
they were easy prey for the Royal air force when they tried to cross the mediteranean to reinforce Rommel's army. Escorting them with bf-110s did nothing to help...
Russian fighters had also a field day with them when they tried to supply Stalingrad.

[Panzerknacker]

Well, a B-24 was also vulnerable to fighter so..is a little tricky to demand more of a slow transport like the Me-323.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/524/me32301ud0.jpg



http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/7553/me32302pf6.jpg




http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/5362/me32303fs6.jpg

[windrider]

here's some other pics I found...

[Panzerknacker]

Very good pictures, you can argue if was a practical asset in the battlefield but you cannot argue about his load capacity...it was enormous.

The gun emplacements in the Me-323, with MG 131 machineguns.


http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6146/dibujovl6.jpg


Side:

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/7170/20410988zv5.jpg


The gunner in the side fuselage emplacement. note the beautiful anti glare glasses, I want a pair or those, also the discarded cases and links conduct can be seen at the right of the MG 131.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1797/artillerolateraljz6.jpg

[Major Walter Schmidt]

must be awfuly noisy for the guys in the wings.

[B-17engineer]

Here are more

[Firefly]

Nice pics all. My old Squadron had a pic on its wall of a Beaufighter shooting one of these babies down in the Med, every time I passed it I thought, I should scan this baby in one day. Sadly I never did get round to it.

[B-17engineer]

That's really cool......was there a tug too?

[Panzerknacker]

There was.

By the way, the normal Me-323 had not gun emplacements in the wings, that was the Me-323 WT "waffentrager" ,weapons carrier, teorically should be used for escorting other transports, it had a enormours array of cannons and armor.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/342/me323wt01ks7.jpg

[B-17engineer]

Those are some interesting photos

[Panzerknacker]

More images inside the heavily armed Me-323 WT.

Side fuselage emplacement for MG-151/20, note the heavy armored glass
thickness...120 mm!!

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1313/mg151gg2.jpg


MG-131 in the side of the nose,with its electrical wiring for ammo ignition and reflex gunsight.

http://img465.imageshack.us/img465/390/mg131ix2.jpg


Close up to the wing electrical operated turret with 20 mm Mauser cannon.

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/7452/torreala1xx3.jpg


Inside the wing, view of the wing gunner seat, armament wiring and fuses panel.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/9659/me323wt08bx4.jpg

[windrider]

Wow! amazing pictures...
How many guns did it carried in all ?

[Panzerknacker]

I believe there were 10 Mg-151 20mm and 4 MG-131 13 mm

Armored ventral emplecement MG-13

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9101/me323wt06bj4.jpg




Side ( amidship) emplacements with MG-151/20 Mauser.

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5688/me323wt11wd6.jpg

[Major Walter Schmidt]

That's really cool......was there a tug too?

The Heinkel 111Z, the supposed inspiration of the "twin mustang".
http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/6254/he111z21ca3.jpg

[Panzerknacker]

Several twin A/C design come out in WW2 and not all are necessary related each other.

[snebold]

With so many pictures of the Me321/323 I suspect you might also have some of the Ju 322!? I´ve only seen one, grainy picture.
Junkers was instructed to built the 322 of wood and came up with a visually interesting design, but the wooden construction came with severe penalties. I don´t know if Luftwaffe found out if the 322 had awful flight characteristics or needed a more powerful tug than the Ju 90 (more pwrful was not to be had in Germany for some time to come...), but I guess they didn´t need to as it more or less flunked on payload (after structural strengthening) and the Me 321 kinda worked. The sole complete 322 became firewood. I would have liked to see one with engines, probably a difficult proposition...

Anybody ever heard of Allied plans for giants gliders (larger than the Hamilcar)?

[Panzerknacker]

I have some illustrations of the ju-322 but first those need to hit the scanner. :rolleyes:

[Panzerknacker]

The Ju-322:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9471/ju322pi2.jpg



http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/2076/ju322bqf0.jpg



http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5562/ju322cdu0.jpg





http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4931/ju322dxw6.jpg


Source:

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/6222/74853670sa2.jpg

[Panzerknacker]

The Ju-322, Part II.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1094/43411537jn4.jpg



http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7381/11rc7.jpg



heavy camouflage netting in this one.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1389/111fv4.jpg


In flight towed by the suffered Ju-90.

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9316/1111dv4.jpg

Sources: www.luftarchiv.de (http://www.luftarchiv.de)

www.lautecmedien.de

[Major Walter Schmidt]

wow! It flew at all?

[snebold]

Thanks a lot! Great!
And the source is a book with the XF5U on the cover, that showes some style :D

(Pzknacker, I have a (kinda stupid) question for you on the Ju 290 conspiracy-thread)

[Panzerknacker]

wow! It flew at all?


Just once...then became firewood.

Thanks a lot! Great!
And the source is a book with the XF5U on the cover, that showes some style :D

(Pzknacker, I have a (kinda stupid) question for you on the Ju 290 conspiracy-thread)


Anytime. I am a man with stile, I didnt see your question but I going to have a look right now.

[Major Walter Schmidt]

I wonder, did the hortens designs and stuff like the mammut influence the northrop desiners in building stuff like the XB-35?

[snebold]

Northrop developed their wings from 1929 (if memory serves), and flew two different scale models/proof of concept demonstrators (in all likelyhood before anybody in the USA had heard about the Horten brothers). The XB-35 was complete in design before information from the Horten designs was available. Northrop also built a rocket powered wing and glide bomb-wings before the end of the war.
I think there was no influence from Horten in the XB-35/YB-49 wings. The B-35 was not suitable for precision bombing with free fall bombs and apart from the B-2 and a few odd gliders (some of direct Horten descendance) there´s been scant interest in wings ever since. So the Horten wings (said to be more advanced than Northrops) left remarkably little influence on aircraft design. (Which is a pity, if for no other reason than that I like flying wings, The Ho 229 V1 (unpowered) is the most beautiful aircraft ever, in my opinion).

Back to the gliders:
I think I know only one post war assault glider. A Swedish design, that did glide very well, but the Swedes lost interest (as did soon everybody else). Helicopters took their job, but (again) it´s hard to find info on glider designs. One would think that the allies did contempate big gliders for the planned invasion of Europe, but I haven´t found any.

[Egorka]

Here is a video with a lot of photage of Me-323:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avytZ8LTyoA&feature=related

My grand dad saw how such a moster crushed during take off into Ju-88. It was near Odessa in 1942.

[Major Walter Schmidt]

OMG the thing is huge! was your father of the Great Patriotic War?

[Egorka]

I mixed up the things a bit.
That is what my granddad wrote:
Working on the farm, which was located next to the Odessa airfield I was witness to numerous aircrushes of the German, Romanian and even Italian military airplanes.

Once I was a witness to a rare incident: midair of two airplanes on the opposing course. The German bomber Heinkel-111 was taking off while Ju-52 was about to land. A huge fireball apeared in the sky in front of my eyes...

I also saw how the newest German air giant Me-323 could excellently burn. That was a 6 propeller engine super airplane that could lift up to 200 troops. When it took off it looked like it was hoovering above the ground and the engine thunder shaked everything around. It appered in the begining of 1944 and it was an eye catcher. And such a "handsome" once crushed at take off burying under it's own wreckage more than 200 Romanian troops, that were to be relocated to Crimea for resistance to the advance of Soviet Army.

[larryparamedic]

must be awfuly noisy for the guys in the wings.
I lol at that thinking the same thing when I saw the floor plan for the men seated in the first section of each wing, even manning machinegun points on the top of each wing.
Anyway an interesting subject. I see their creative thought in modern machines right here today that are practically copies of their ideas. Impractical? Absolutely. But ahead of it's time.
btw I personally thought the way the front splits to load was ingenious.

[Panzerknacker]

A weird experiment, a Me-321 packed with several rockets and towed by a single Me-110. In the end the Me-110 cannot cope with the weight and the Me-321 made a forced landing.

http://i26.tinypic.com/11l0ltd.jpg



http://i26.tinypic.com/wkpkr5.jpg



http://i26.tinypic.com/2b3a0h.jpg

[Major Walter Schmidt]

Hmmm...　maybe they should have put more rockets and use it as an interceptor....:)

[Panzerknacker]

Talking about flying wings and heavy transports, look at this interesting projekt by Messerschmitt.

Messerschmitt Me P.08

In early 1939, Dr. Alexander Lippisch moved to the Messerschmitt Aircraft Company in Augsburg with most of his closest coworkers. Dr. Wurster designed the P.08.01 in September 1941, which was basically a flying wing design. The wing featured two different sweepback angles, and contained the armored fuel tanks. The fuel could also be jettisoned if need be. Four Daimler Benz DB 615 engines (or DB 613 if teh DB 615 engines were not ready in time), mounted on the wing trailing edge, provided the power. The engine radiators were located in the wing's leading edge and a huge bomb bay/cargo area was to be found in the central fuselage area. A tricycle landing gear arrangement was chosen, with the main gear having double wheels. The cockpit was pressurized and a provision was made for remote controlled defensive armament in the nose and tail. Underwing weapons or loads could also be carried.

The diagram to the right shows a tank being loaded into the cargo bay of the Messerschmitt Me P.08.01

http://www.luft46.com/mess/mep08-1.jpg


http://www.luft46.com/mess/mep08.html

[redcoat]

One thing has always puzzled me about the Me 321:confused:

Didn't anyone realise while they were designing it, that they didn't have a plane powerful enough to safely tow it :rolleyes:

[Panzerknacker]

I suppose they think eventually The Lufwaffe would manage some heavy towing aircraft. The JU-90 was capable to do it in the early days but very few of these A7C were made. Other suggested in 1941 was the FW 200 Condor but again few Condors were available.

http://www.seelowe.4thperrus.com/IIGM-12oclockhigh/me%20323%20giant_archivos/image009.jpg

[redcoat]

Other suggested in 1941 was the FW 200 Condor but again few Condors were available.


Given the Fw 200's well know structural problems that might have been interesting ;)

[Panzerknacker]

Yea, I read that problem several times but unfortunately I have no furthers details or pictures about those incidents with Fw-200. To be honest I think is a little overrated considering the long range missions performed by that recce-bomber airplane.

[redcoat]

Yea, I read that problem several times but unfortunately I have no furthers details or pictures about those incidents with Fw-200. To be honest I think is a little overrated considering the long range missions performed by that recce-bomber airplane.http://inlinethumb51.webshots.com/18482/2816761490103014230S425x425Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2816761490103014230Gdsmot)
Braking their backs on landing was not unknown,

[mike r.]

Well, there was a means by which towing could be accomplished, but with great risk. The "Troika Schlepp"..............3 Me110's harnessed to towed aircraft.

If you google.......Hanna Reitsch, you can read and hear about her experience with that towing method while piloting the Gigant.

Regards,
Mike R.

[Panzerknacker]

Braking their backs on landing was not unknown,


Hrrrg..that hurts :)

Good picture there Redcoat.

There is pictures of the troka schlepp in page 1 of this topic.