jfb@ihlpm.att.com (Joseph F Baugher) (07/16/90)
From: jfb@ihlpm.att.com (Joseph F Baugher) In view of all the recent discussion of assault gliders of all sorts in sci.military, I thought that you might be interested in the following description of the Messerschmitt Me 321 which I summarized from William Green's "The Warplanes of the Third Reich". The Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant (Giant) was the product of a requirement for an assault glider that would participate in Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of England. The initial requirement was issued in October of 1940, and specified a need for a glider capable of carrying a PzKW IV tank, a self-propelled gun with ammunition, crew, and fuel, or an 88-mm anticraft gun. Both Messerschmitt and Junkers submitted proposals, and 200 machines were ordered from each manufacturer in November 1940. Messerschmitt's proposal (Me 263) was of steel tube construction, whereas Junkers's entry (Ju 322) was entirely of wood (more about the Ju 322 in another posting). The first Me 263 was ready for flight test in February 1941. In the meantime, the designation of the glider had been changed to Me 321. The wingspan was 180 ft 5 in, the length was 92 ft 4 in, and the height was 33 ft 3 in. The cargo hold was 36 feet long and 10 feet wide, and the cargo floor was capable of supporting loads of up to 44,000 pounds. Access to the cargo hold was by a pair of large clamshell doors in the nose. With an auxiliary deck mounted, the glider was estimated to be capable of carrying 200 troops. The pilot sat in a small cubicle above the main fuselage just in front of the leading edge of the wing. The glider landed on a set of sprung skids and took off on a jettisonable dolly. Provision was made for the mounting of hydrogen peroxide rockets under the wings to aid in takeoff. At the time, the Me 321 glider was the second-largest aircraft ever to be built, surpassed in size only by the Tupolev ANT-20bis "Maxim Gorky". For the first trials, a Ju 90 was used as the towplane. The Ju 90 was barely powerful enough to do this job for even a moderately-loaded glider, and it was decided to switch to the He 111Z "twin" (two He 111 fuselages attached together on a common wing with five engines) as the towplane. Since the He 111Z would not be ready for use for quite some time, an interim solution to the towplane power problem was to use a triplet of Bf 110C fighters to tow the Me 321. It is an understatement to say that this towing arrangement was tricky, especially in turbulent air. The test program was punctuated with frequent accidents. The worst one took place with a load of 120 troops aboard. The takeoff rockets under one of the wings failed to ignite on takeoff, and the glider veered left. This forced the three Bf 110 fighters to collide, and the entire assembly crashed near the end of the runway. 129 people were killed. Two hundred Me 321 gliders were ordered into production in November 1940. Production Me 321 gliders were fitted with an armament of two machine guns firing through holes in the clamshell doors. If troops were onboard, this firepower could be supplemented by infantry firing their machine guns from windows in the sides of the fuselage. Six crew were carried (pilot, copilot, radio operator, loading officer, and two gunners). When Operation Sea Lion was indefinitely postponed, the production Me 321s were transferred to the Eastern Front where they were used for routine cargo and resupply operations. The range of the glider when the trio of Bf 110Cs was used as the tug was limited to 250 miles, far too short to be really useful on the vast reaches of the Russian front. In addition, the handling of the gliders and their tugs required special equipment that had to be present at all airfields where the gliders paid call. The Me 321 did participate in several assault operations on the Eastern front, but the units operating the gliders were disbanded in December 1941. The Me 321s were pulled out of frontline service early in 1942 in preparation for the assault on Malta. In the meantime, the He 111Z had finally become available to fill the role of towplane. However, the assault on Malta was canceled. Also canceled were some airborne assaults on oilfields in the Eastern Front. It was even planned to use Me 321s in the relief of besieged German forces at Stalingrad, but the gliders were delayed en route to the city by overcrowded conditions at intermediate airfields and arrived too late to be of any help. Apart from some isolated transport duties, the gliders saw little further service. Many Me 321s were transferred to France and were assigned the task of ferrying troops and supplies to Sicily. However, the range was found to be too great for the He 111Z towplanes to reach, and the operation had to be scrubbed. In operations on the Eastern Front, it was found that for satisfactory logistical support it was necessary to have an aircraft capable of both landing AND TAKING OFF under its own power. The handling of huge gliders, rocket engines, and towplanes under the conditions of general bedlam at unimproved forward airfields in combat zones had proven to be a nightmare. This led Messerschmitt to consider mounting engines on its giant glider. This led to the Me 323, of which more in a subsequent posting. Joe Baugher ************************************* AT&T Bell Laboratories * "Make it so, Mister Crusher! * 200 Park Plaza ************************************* Naperville, Illinois 60566-7050 (708) 713 4548 ihlpm!jfb jfb200@cbnewsd.att.com Who, me? Speak for AT&T? Surely you jest!