Messerschmitt Me 328

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The Messerschmitt Me 328 was originally designed as a parasite fighter to protect Luftwaffe bomber formations during World War II. During its protracted development, a wide variety of other roles were suggested for it. Late in the war, the design was resurrected for consideration as a selbstopfer (suicide weapon or kamikaze) aircraft, but was judged unsuitable even for this purpose. The tiny fighter was to have been propelled by pulsejets, but the unsuitability of these engines doomed the Me 328 from the start.

The aircraft was designed as Messerschmitt project P.1073 in 1941 and handed over to the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS - German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight) for development. In late 1943, gliding tests were undertaken, with the Me 328 carried aloft by a Dornier Do 217E or launched from a catapult on the ground. These were followed by powered tests with two Argus As 014 pulsejets, as used on the V1 flying bomb. The extreme vibration created by the pulsejets proved highly detrimental to the Me 328's light wooden airframe, and two prototypes were destroyed by this alone.

Nevertheless, a wide variety of roles were suggested for the aircraft, ranging from a point-defence interceptor, to a U-Boat defence system, to a ground-attack machine. Various modifications to the prototypes were made to evaluate their suitability for these missions, and different engine configurations were trialled. Despite all this, the vibration problem simply could not be overcome and the program was abandoned in early 1944, even as production facilities were being readied to construct the aircraft at the Jacob Schweyer sailplane factory.