Sombold So 344 | WW2 German Interceptor | 28mm

The Sombold So 344 was initially designed in 1943 as a parasite fighter, armed with two machine guns and possibly a cannon. However, as the months ticked by and the RLM became more and more desperate, the design was altered to become more... strange. Designed by Heinz Sombold of the Bley sailplane company, the So 344 was at first a rather reasonable design. The aircraft was a small parasite of wooden construction, powered by a single Walter liquid-fuel rocket and armed with twin machine guns (and possibly a twenty- or thirty-millimeter cannon in the nose). The design, however, did not gain traction. In January 1944, Sombold radically redesigned parts of the vehicle, completely altering its method of destroying bombers to be much more... ludicrous. The nose was shortened and given an attachment point for a much larger nosecone. This nosecone would become the primary mode of attack, as this somewhat aerodynamic piece was detachable, had an integrated rocket motor, and was packed with four-hundred kilograms of TNT. The aircraft would be carried towards a bomber formation by a sort of mothership and be deployed at an altitude roughly one kilometer higher than that of the bombers. The 344 would make a diving attack and literally shoot the nosecone into the bomber formation before hopefully being able to attain a safe distance from the explosion. With what fuel remained, the fighter would be able to make multiple further attack runs with its machine guns before gliding back to an airfield. In postwar documents from the Allies, the 344 is often referred to as a suicide weapon... it wasn't designed to be, but given the nose being explosive, the difficulty of clearing the explosive radius, and the change in center of mass and aerodynamic profile when the ... front of the aircraft breaks off ... the survivability is rather dubious. Work on the So 344 continued at the Bley facility right up until the Red Army overran the plant, with the design going as far as 1/5th scale wind tunnel testing. No other designs from Sombold are known of.