Secret Luftwaffe Emergency Fighters 1944-45

During mid-to-late 1944, the German military became increasingly concerned that the USAAF was about to deploy high-flying Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers over Europe and decided to take urgent action. The Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) or German Air Ministry produced a set of specifications for a new fighter aircraft propelled by a single turbojet engine that would be capable of tackling the new threat. All the largest German aircraft manufacturers were called upon to put forward designs for this ‘Emergency Fighter Competition’. The winning design would be expected to not only take on the B-29 but also defeat high-altitude fast piston-engine types such as the British de Havilland Mosquito and the Lockheed P-38 Lightning too. The resulting designs were right at the cutting edge of what was technically possible in 1944 – Focke-Wulf offered what would become the Ta 183, Blohm und Voss the radical P.212, Junkers the advanced EF.128 and Messerschmitt a whole range of designs beginning with the P.1101 and progressing through the P.1106, P.1110 and P.1111. The specification called with these aircraft to be equipped with heavy cannon but the companies also considered how to arm them with the then-high-tech air-to-air rockets and missiles such as the X-4. Luftwaffe Emergency Fighters 1944-45 examines the history of this extraordinary fighter competition and looks at the aircraft designs put forward for what might have been Germany’s last hope in the air war.