Zeppelin Rammer

The Zeppelin Rammer, in German the Rammjäger, was an in-development rocket-powered aircraft of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, on which design work began in the latter half of 1944. Its intended attack on the Allied bombers raiding Nazi Germany was a first pass firing 14 R4M 55-millimetre rockets from the nose, then a second pass ending in a deliberate ramming of the bomber tail or wings, after which the aircraft was to glide back unpowered so that it could be reused. Some sources call it a suicide weapon, but that was not an expressed intention of the design. It was to be flown by one pilot and powered by a single Schmidding 533 solid-propellant rocket motor, accelerating to as much as 970 kilometres an hour after release from a towing fighter, and it had an armoured cockpit and a largely steel structure. The company issued its proposal in November 1944 and received an order for sixteen prototypes two months later, but all work ended when the Zeppelin factory was destroyed by a USAAF air raid.