ENZIAN
This is the third AA rocket sponsored by GL Flak E5. It was designed by Dr. Wurster, chief test pilot of Messerschmitt and holder of the 1936 world's speed record in the Me-109. The development was begun in November, 1943. Work was interrupted by the destruction of the Messerschmitt plant at Augsburg in February, 1944.
The project was moved to Sonthofen and later to Schlosswirtschaft Linderhof near Oberammergau. A document dated 22 January 1945, said that 23 missiles had been launched, all without control, and that 14 were failures.
On 24 February 1945, the aerodynamics man Neuschutz wrote in an internal memorandum, "for the further work a clear leadership must be created with definition of responsibility. Dr. Wurster, Dr. Thiel. Dr. Thun, and Mr. Muhlberg now have some authoritative influence without a plan of organization and without a leader. The previous lack of success does not lie in the technical sector but is solely in question of leadership.
"No information on aerodynamic and flight performance has been obtained from the test firings because the firings were marred by explosions, failures of launching rockets. etc."
The work was ordered stopped on 17 January 1945. Messerschmitt intervened and took the matter to Hitler himself but the work was finally stopped about the middle of March.
There were several designs of Enzian. The subsonic version was similar in design to the Me-163 airplane which has no horizontal tail surface. It was 90 cm in diameter, 365 cm long, starting weight 1600 kg, final weight 690 kg with pay load of 300 kg of explosive. Its maximum speed was about 270 m/ sec, maximum altitude 13.8 km, range 25.3 km.
In the tests a conventional radio control was used. It was intended to use an acoustic homing device or an infrared homing device.
A larger supersonic version with pay load of500 kg was also designed.
