SCHLACHTSTERN
FALLSCHIRMJÄGER SUPPORT CRAFT
(1942)
By Rob Arndt
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WARNING: All information on this craft is speculative and based solely on the depiction alone plus unconfirmed references. The date is approximate as a "mid-war" design and the title is descriptive only and not a manufacturer designation. It is not clear if this is technically considered an aerial craft or just an air-dropped armored support vehicle. I have chosen to place it here with the other German Aerial Oddities.
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What looks impossibly like a German World War II lunar-lander is in fact an atmospheric German battle lander proposed in the middle of the war for dropping behind enemy lines.
The Schlachtstern (Battlestar) lander was to be armed with two MGs on a rotating upper turret to support Fallschirmjägers which would probably be landing with these strange machines.
Initially dropped (from God knows what aircraft) with parachute deployed, the lander, once on the ground, would be capable of limited thrusting maneuvers for moving about the rear, just slightly off the ground in support of German troops.
No one knows why this was proposed, but it is pretty obvious that the machines would be too impractical and technologically a waste of time and manpower at such a critical point of the war.
Just developing an aircraft to carry it would be trouble enough as no known aircraft of that time period would be up to the job except maybe the Me-323 which would have to land to disgorge them. But the drawing shows it being parachuted into action… a total mystery.
An interesting concept, the Schlachtstern remained a drawing board project.
