The engines drove the propellers using a complicated and controversial method which was designed back in 1941. Basically the right angle gear boxes and long drive shafts connected the propellers to the engines mounted in the fuselage. Theoretically this system was going to radically reduce the drag caused by the larger wing engine nacelles and kept the engines more protected within the fuselage.
The E.654 had a single vertical fin and rudder with the tailplane set at the top of the fin. That's where the nickname of this airplane comes from, because in some handwritten notes from Walter Blume himself, show that the streamlined body on top of the junction with the vertical tail, resembled the sting of an scorpion. Wings were straight and showed taper both on leading and trailing edges. A trycicle configuration based landing gear was chosen with the two frontal main wheel retracting into the engine nacelles and the smaller tail one retracting into the fuselage.
The crew of two, one pilot and a radio/radar operator who also acted as a gunner sat back to back inside the cockpit located at the frontal part of the fuselage. It was armed with six 30mm MK103 cannons mounted in two cheeks located at the bottom part of the nose and, the defensive armament consisted in two remote-controlled turrets containing each of them two 13mm MG131 machine guns. It had also a hardpoint under the main part of the fuselage in order to carry some bombs (or, as we imagined it, a torpedo, which it's just a work of our imagination as there were no references to a torpedo bomber version).
Junkers and Dornier had already experimented with the shaft drive systems and obtained satisfactory results when using short shafts. Anyway there were no practical experiencies available yet with the right angle gear boxes and long multisection drive shafts that had to be able of absorbing the engine power and passing it to the propellers while keeping the vibration under control. However, Walter Blume tried to find an engineering-based solution to those problems but, just like happened with another of his previous Zerstörer designs, the E.561, it was abandoned due to the lack of interest of the RLM in this kind of system.
Edit: We have redrawn the Hypothetical naval version in order to equip it with the fearsome Fritz X anti-ship guided bomb.
Sources:
1. http://www.luft46.com/arado/are654.html
2. Midland Publishing - Luftwaffe Secret Projects - Ground Assault & Special Purpose Aircraft
thanks WD!
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