Messerschmitt Enzian

The Messerschmitt Enzian was a German surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile of the Second World War, and the first missile to use a radio-controlled guidance system. It grew out of the difficulty of using the Me 163 rocket interceptor against Allied bombers, and was proposed in 1943 by Dr. Herman Wurster of Messerschmitt as the Flak Rakete 1. The unpiloted rocket was meant to fly just in front of a bomber and detonate a 500 kg warhead, helped off the ground by four Schmidding solid fuel boosters and climbing on a liquid fuelled Walther sustainer motor. The airframe used as much wood as possible, strongly resembled a small Me 163 with swept wings and elevons, and was steered by an operator on the ground. Sixty airframes were complete by May 1944 and 38 flight tests followed, but the engine lagged, a Konrad motor replaced the Walther design in the E-4 version, and the Luftwaffe cancelled the programme on 17 January 1945 before it became operational. Only two Enzian missiles are known to survive, at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford and in the Australian War Memorial's Treloar Resource Centre.