FLAKPANTHER WITH 8.8cm FLAKRAKETE - RHEINTOCHTER I - 1945

Description

Anti-Air System designed by German engineers at the end of the Second World War. The transport chassis was a Panther medium tank. the anti-aircraft weapon was the Rheintochter, a German surface-to-air missile developed during the World War Two. Its name comes from the mythical Rheintöchter (Girls of the Rhine) of Richard Wagner’s opera The Ring of Nibelung. The Wehrmacht initiated the development of the Rheintochter in November 1942. From August 1943, 82 test shots were made, and an air-to-air version was also designed. This ground-to-air missile was designed to strike Allied air formations up to an altitude of 12,000 meters at a speed of 1,080 km / h. Loaded with 135 kg of explosive, he had to destroy any aircraft that would pass within 7 meters of his acoustic field. The project was canceled on February 6, 1945. Copies of this missile can be seen at the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. (Scale : 1/35e)