• Xanthrax
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    555 months ago

    “The primary role of the relatively untrained pilot was to aim the aircraft at its target bomber and fire its armament of rockets. The pilot and the fuselage containing the rocket engine would then land using separate parachutes, while the nose section was disposable.”

    I was picturing something more like a Kamikaze.

      • @yesman
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        75 months ago

        IDK the reason they didn’t deploy that thing, but it certainly wasn’t prudence or concern for pilot safety because the Me163 rocket plane was used.

        • Schiffsmädchenjunge
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          105 months ago

          The Me163 was supposed to be reusable, including the pilot, the Reichenberg was one time use only, including the pilot.

          • @ChickenLadyLovesLife
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            65 months ago

            The Me163 was supposed to be reusable, including the pilot

            The pilot was reusable, if you count fertilizer as a re-use.

      • @General_Effort
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        35 months ago

        There were a small number of kamikaze attacks against Oder bridges in conventional planes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_Squadron#Oder_bridge_attack_missions,_April_1945

        There also was a squadron of conventional fighters dedicated to fly ramming attacks against bombers, which was used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_Elbe

        Eventually, these tactics are not that crazy. In war, lives and machines are expended to reach a goal. If some tactics seem crazy, then only because that fundamental fact is harder to ignore.

        • @[email protected]
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          45 months ago

          I think it is important to add, that, in contrast to japanese tactics, the german pilots were not necessarily expected to die. It was “just” extremely risky and a bunch of them did actually survive.

          The pilots were expected to parachute out either just before or after they had collided with their target.

          • @General_Effort
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            25 months ago

            The fighter pilots ramming bombers were expected to bail out. There were survivors.

            The pilots of the Leonidas squadron were expected to “self-sacrifice” in their attacks on bridges. They faced rather less social pressure than Japanese pilots, though.