The Messerschmitt Me 310 was a
prototype German heavy fighter
A heavy fighter is a historic category of fighter aircraft produced in the 1930s and 1940s, designed to carry heavier weapons, and/or operate at longer ranges than light fighter aircraft. To achieve performance, most heavy fighters were twin-eng ...
of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. It was a project to save the aerodynamically troubled
Me 210
The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. Design started before the war, as a replacement for the Bf 110. The first examples were ready in 1939, but they proved to have unacceptably poor f ...
.
Design and development
The armament was to be the same as the Me 210 A-1: two 20 mm
MG 151/20 cannon, two 7.92 mm (.312 in)
MG 17 machine guns, and two remotely controlled, rearward-firing 13 mm (.51 in)
MG 131 machine gun
The MG 131 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr'' 131, or "Machine gun 131") was a German 13 mm caliber machine gun developed in 1938 by Rheinmetall-Borsig and produced from 1940 to 1945. The MG 131 was designed for use at fixed, flexible ...
s.
A single aircraft was built by converting Me 210 V13 (code GI+SQ). It had a
pressurised cockpit and was powered by two 1,380 kW (1,850 hp)
Daimler-Benz DB 603
The Daimler-Benz DB 603 was a German aircraft engine used during World War II. It was a liquid-cooled 12-cylinder inverted V12 enlargement of the DB 601, which was in itself a development of the DB 600. Production of the DB 603 commenced in ...
A
inline engines. The Me 310 first flew on 11 September 1943, but the project was cancelled later the same year, as it showed hardly any aerodynamic improvement over the Me 210. A subsequent prototype, the
Me 410, showed sufficient improvement in its aerodynamics to be put into production.
[Mankau, Heinz. "Messerschmitt Bf 110, Me 210, Me 410: an illustrated history". Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub., 2003. ]
Specifications (Me 310)
See also
References
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_me_310.html
Me 310
1940s German fighter aircraft
Abandoned military aircraft projects of Germany
Low-wing aircraft
Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft
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