Non-German wartime rocket fighters

Abstract

Also during the Second World War the Japanese and the Russians were actively pursuing rocket and rocket aircraft technology. In both cases this was to make up for ineffective conventional air power, but for the Japanese this necessity grew towards the end of the war whereas for the Russians the need was much more urgent during the disastrous early years of the German invasion. The accomplishments of both of these countries have been largely overshadowed by the well-known developments in Germany but are nevertheless impressive. However, as with many of the German concepts, the rush to get rocket aircraft with spectacular performance into operation led to hasty designs that lacked many of the refmements required to make the aircraft safe and of military value. Uniquely, the Japanese created a rocket vehicle that was actually intended not to be safe: a manned suicide missile. The pilots of some of the planned German rocket planes would have had little chance of surviving a mission but at least they were not specifically required to die.