The Messerschmitt Me.264 was a long-range German strategic bomber developed during World War 2. It was intended to be Luftwaffe's main strategic bomber.
Its origins came from Messerschmitt's long-range reconnaissance aircraft project, named P.1061 in the late 1930s, a variant of which was the P.1062, with only two engines, against the P.1061 four engines. However, those two engines were the more powerful Daimler-Benz DB.606 'Power Systems', each comprising a pair of DB.601 inverted V-12 engines. This system was already successfully employed in the Messerschmitt Me.261 long-range reconnaissance aircraft. This engine system was also installed in a variant of the Heinkel He.177A, but it was denigrated by Hermann Göring. In early 1941 six P.1061 prototypes were ordered from Messerschmitt. This order was eventually reduced to three prototypes.
The progress of the project was initially slow, but when Germany declared war on the United States, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM - Reich's Aviation Ministry) endorsed the Amerikabomber programme in the spring of 1942 for a very long range bomber capable of reaching the United States' east coast from bases in France or Azores Islands. Proposals were put forward for the Junkers Ju.390, the Focke-Wulf Ta.400, a redesign of the incomplete and never-built Heinkel He.277 and a design study for an extended-wingspan six-engine Messerschmitt Me.264B. The need for six engines was prompted by the inability of German aircraft engine manufacturers to create a 1.5 kW (2.011 Hp) combat-reliable powerplants. As the Junkers Ju.390 was itself a redesign of the Junkers Ju.290 already in use, that design was chosen. This did not mean the abandonment of the Me.264, as the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) separately demanded a long-range maritime patrol aircraft with attack capabilities to replace the Focke-Wulf Fw.200. This was endorsed by an opinion given by Generalmajor von Gablenz in May 1942 about the viability of the Amerikabomber. As a result the two pending prototypes were ordered to be completed as an ultra long-range reconnaissance aircraft.
The Me.264 was an all-metal high-wing four-engine heavy bomber of traditional design. The fuselage was round in cross section and had a cabin in a glazed nose, making for a stepless cockpit with no separate windscreen section for the pilots. This design, common in many German bombers, like the Heinkel He.111, resembled the cockpit of the Boeing B-29, of slightly earlier design. The wing had a slightly swept leading edge and a straight trailing edge. The tail section had double tail fins and undercarriage was a retractable tricycle gear with large diameter wheels on the wing mounted main gear.
Planned defensive armament consisted on four 13 mm (0.51 in) MG 131 and two 20 mm (0.78 in) MG 151/20 cannons distributed as follows:
- Two MG 131 in dorsal turrets, one located just aft the cockpit and another one on the middle section plus two more in waist positions.
- One MG 151/20 remotely operated placed in the tail plus another ventral one, remotely operated too.
Overall, it carried very little armour and relatively few guns, in order to increase fuel capacity and achieve the intended range of 15.000 km (9.321 milles) with an endurance of 45 hours.
The first prototype, called Me.264 V1 was initially fitted with four Junkers Jumo 211 engines with an engine setting made standard by the Junkers Ju.88A. However, inadequate power from the Jumo engines, forced their replacement on the Me.264 V1 with four similarly unitized 1.676 hp (1.250 kW) BMW 801G engines. In order to provide comfort for the long-range missions, it also featured bunk-beds and a small galley complete with hot plates.
The first prototype, registered as RE+EN, flew for the first time on 23rd December 1942. Trials showed numerous minor faults and handling was found to be difficult. The design had to cope with very high wind loading rates, when fully loaded. Comparable aircraft, such as the B-29, the Heinkel He.277 or the Ju.390 had lower loading. This setback caused poor climbing performance, loss of manoeuvrability, stability and high take-off and landing speeds. The first prototype had no armour on the engines nor defensive armament, but the following prototype, Me.264 V2 had armour on the engines while the third prototype, Me.264 V3, was going to have defensive armament as well.
In 1943 the Kriegsmarine withdrew their interest on the Me.264 in favour of the Ju.290 and the planned Ju.390, while the Luftwaffe showed interest on the design of the Focke-Wulf Ta.400 and the Heinkel He.277 as Amerikabomber candidates in May 1943, based on performance estimations, so further payments to Messerschmitt for work on the project were cut out so Erhard Milch, ordered further development of the Me.264 to stop, in order to concentrate on the jet-powered Messerschmitt Me.262 fighter.
Late in 1943, the Me.264 V2 was destroyed during a bombardment. On 18th July 1944, the first prototype, which was assigned to Transportstaffel 5 (Transport Squadron 5) as a transport airplane, was damaged during an Allied bombing raid and was not repaired. That same raid destroyed the third unfinished prototype.
After the cancellation of the competing He.277 in April 1944, on 23rd September 1944, work on the Me.264 was officially cancelled. Messerschmitt proposed a six-engine version, the Me.264/6m (or, unofficially, the Me.364) but it didn't go beyond the project stage.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_264
2. https://www.valka.cz/Messerschmitt-Me-264-t14202
3. Osprey Publishing - X-Planes 2 - Messerschmitt Me 264 Amerikabomber
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