Gotha P.54 Rammer (Speculative drawings)
On October 10, 1944, the company Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG proposed to the RLM building a sophisticated rocket rammer designed by Dipl. Ing. Walter Wundes. Unlike other projects of ramming aircraft already rejected by the Technisches Amt, the new rammer was endowed with several anti-shock devices to improve the chances of survival of the pilot after the impact. Two versions are known.
The Gotha P.54
Entwurf I was designed to destroy the tail surfaces of a bomber, attacking from behind to minimize the impact speed. It was towed to the combat zone by a Focke Wulf Fw 190; the mother plane located after the formation of bombers to carry out the launch and the rammer used a Schmidding 109-553 rocket engine to reach the last aircraft of the most delayed 'box' hitting the tail surfaces of one of them at an estimated speed between 160 to 200 kph.
The Luftwaffe Aviation Medicine Branch had established that a pilot could endure up to 20 g for 0.1 seconds, but only when using a vertical launched ejector seat. It was estimated that the impact of 'Entwurf I' against the bomber would last 0.04 seconds and Gotha designers devised a seat that rotated 90 degrees backward at the time of impact, aligning the spine of the pilot with the fuselage axis. Additionally, the seat base was equipped with a powerful sprung shock-absorbing device.
The entire system was mechanically activated by a trigger located to the extreme nose of the rammer. The pilot stayed in an armoured artillery shell shaped capsule, attached to the main wing spar by another shock-absorbing device. After impact, the armoured cockpit was detached from the airframe by the action of various explosive bolts and freely fell to 9,000 ft. The pilot then left its protection completing the descent with his own parachute.
The variant
Entwurf II was designed to impact laterally against the fuselage of a bomber in the area between the bomb bay and tailplane, in an angle close to 90 degrees, in order to cut the control wires. This type of ramming attack was considered difficult due to the relative speeds of both aircraft and possible evading manoeuvres of the bomber. The special configuration of
Entwurf II allowed two types of attack: If the impact was produced against the fuselage of circular section of a B-17, the lower section of the rammer crushed against the bomber, while the pilot capsule was released and 'jumped' over (the bomber) to freely fall while the bomber exploded.
If the target was a B-24, which fuselage was deeper and with flat sides, it was planned that the armoured capsule could get through it almost without any resistance. A small explosive charge with impact fuse was installed in the extreme nose to that purpose. It fractured the light alloy structure of the bomber, thus allowing the penetration by the capsule that had already detached from the rest of the airframe with the impact. It was estimated that thanks to the gained momentum before the impact, the capsule would completely go through the B-24 with a minimal loss of speed, while the rest of the rammer completed the destruction.
The 'blunt nosed' configuration of the lower element seems to suggest that contained a warhead. According to this hypothesis,
Entwurf II would have a dual use as rammer and as
Pulkzerstörer. If the attacked B-24 was in the centre of the 'box', triggering the explosion of their bombs could achieve a
Herausschuss effect, breaking the cohesion of the box, damaging other bombers and exposing them to the action of the conventional German fighters during the return flight to their bases.
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