Heinkel He 343 (Strahlbomber / Strabo 16)

History of Heinkel He 343 (Jet Bomber / Strabo 16)

Towards the end of World War II, there was a final shift in German thinking, from piston-powered aircraft to jet-powered aircraft. Many well-known German companies - Arado, Blohm and Voss, Heinkel, Junkers, Messerschmitt - offered new turbojet-powered gun mount programs to meet the enormous demands of the shrinking Luftwaffe. Daily and nightly Allied airstrikes on German war infrastructure took a toll and limited the German war machine to critical levels. While many of these designs ended up as "paper airplanes" on the engineering team's drawing boards or models in wind tunnel testing, some of them entered mass production before the war ended in 1945. Some are in prototype stage, ready to take it to the next level as circumstances warrant, while others go further, with production in the hundreds - although Germany doesn't have the experienced pilots and the necessary fuel to make it effective s solution.

The more successful late-war products were the Messerschmitt Me 262 "Schwalbe", the Heinkel He 162 "Volksjager" and the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet". The development of the jet fighter designed by Heinkel - the He 280 - lost to the Me 262, which left a bad impression on the company in the Luftwaffe.

So any future design considerations will require some extra persuasion.

In addition to successes and failures, there was the Heinkel He 343 - a promising design. This budget-conscious aircraft was designed by the Heinkel Group (official project name "He P. 343") in early 1944 and followed the line of the existing and further developed Arado Ar 234 "Blitz".

For convenience, Jet Bomber ("Jet Bomber"). Its purpose was to provide the Luftwaffe with a powerful, fast-flying four-engine bomb platform that could evade enemy airstrikes and land-based defenses at will. The airframe was able to provide multiple functions to keep costs down, and four different versions of the plane were soon planned - what was then known as the "Strabo 16". It was only later, after the RLM reviewed the proposal, that the project was designated "He 343".

Construction began in February 1944. The four models considered are the He 343A-1 basic bomber, the He 343A-1 reconnaissance version, the He 343A-3 heavy fighter and the similar He 343B-1 heavy fighter.

Bomber and reconnaissance versions could be used for quick strikes and routs of Allied positions and factories, while heavy fighters could be sent high up to intercept swarms of Allied bombers skimming German airfields, railways, bridges and factories - they The weaponry includes destroying larger targets. In German nomenclature, heavy fighter jets were called "Zerstorer", which led to the collective term "Zerstorer" being used to describe the aircraft type.

The Messerschmitt Bf 110 "Zerstorer" at the beginning of the war is an example of such an aircraft.

Weaponry between all four aircraft types will vary slightly based on their respective intended roles. The He 343A-1 bomber was defensive in nature, using a pair of fixed rear-firing 20mm MG-151 cannons to protect vulnerable rear areas from enemy fighters (if Allied aircraft managed to catch up to the He 343).

Similarly, the He 343A-2 reconnaissance model will use the same defensive weapons for self-defense. The two heavy "Zerstorer" fighter models, He 343A-3 and He 343B-1, were of course equipped with heavier weapons.

The A-3 will receive 2 x 20mm MG-151 cannons and 2 x 30mm MK-103 cannons, or a full set of 4 x 30mm MK-103 cannons, all in front fixed firing positions to fight Allied bombers absorbed in their large frame Lots of damage. The A-3 will retain the rear-firing 2 x 20mm MG 151 guns for basic defensive purposes. The B-1 heavy fighter will follow the same weapon line as the A-3 but with a remotely operated FHL 151Z powered turret (aimed via a periscope in the cockpit, like the Arado Ar 234 "Blitz") for 2 x 20mm MG The -151 gun is designed to replace the 2 x 20mm MG-151 static gun configuration on the A-3 model.

To compensate for the wide firing arc of the turret, the vertical twin tail stabilizer assembly needs to be developed and fully tested prior to mass production. Both destroyers were fitted with dive flaps for attack.

By the end of 1944, work on He 343 was steadily advancing. By this time, however, the German authorities had drawn up a new fighter program, shifting priorities to jet fighters to defend Germany itself. The move, collectively known as the "Emergency Fighter Program," soon saw a flurry of new designs to charge for lucrative defense contracts across the country (despite the deteriorating war effort, competition among German companies, and funding boosting business) ). As a result, resources (and the benefits associated with it) were withdrawn from existing programs including the He 343, although an initial order for 20 such aircraft had been secured.

Heinkel-Werke has already started production of the parts needed for the He 343 airframe, and although sources have disputed this, the prototype may have been completed and destroyed in the Allied bombing. All these efforts failed due to the forced cancellation of the He 343 project. However, Heinkel's He 162 "Volksjager" (the "Volksjager" was intended to be piloted by undertrained German civilians and Hitler youth, hence the "Volksjager") product launched in early 1945 with limited success.

The He 162 existed as a single-engine, single-seat jet fighter of which only 170 were produced by the end of the war.

In May 1945, Germany was excluded and the invading Soviet Army asked Heinkel for some He 343 data. After extensive research on the German design, Soviet engineers began work on a similar turbojet, soon to be named the "Ilyushin Il-22". Only one prototype was built and tested (this was on July 24, 1947), and it became the Soviet Union's first jet bomber.

Although it never entered mass production, information and data gathered from its development led to the design and production of the more powerful Ilushin Il 28 "Beagle", which entered service with the Soviet Air Force in 1950 - just in time for the Cold War escalation Tension continued. Some 6,731 examples of this type were eventually produced, proving Soviet Cold War success and, in a sense, validating the original Heinkel design.

He 343 received the project name "P. 1068" under the nomenclature system of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Segelflug (DFS), a German glider institute founded in 1933, but was also known as He 343.

The second reported that the completed He 343 prototype bomber and the semi-finished reconnaissance fuselage were destroyed in a fire at the Heinkel-Wrede factory.

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