When they say “Truth is stranger than fiction”, sometimes, they aren’t kidding! The desperate last days of WWII in Germany saw any and all ideas for defence of the Reich at least given consideration, no matter how outlandish they were. That some of these ideas were greenlighted, and even made it to the flying stage, says a lot about the state of Germany’s science and politics in the early-middle ‘40s.
One of the weirder and more dangerous vehicles to make the leap from napkin to launchpad was the Bachem Ba-349, or BP-20, “Natter”. A vertically-launched, tiny, rocket-propelled point-defence interceptor, it was the original “missile with a man in it”. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of kits of this weird contraption, and one of the newer ones is the Brengun model in 1/72. This comes in a bunch of realistic and “What-If” flavours. The one I opted for was Mustermaschine M23, which is the first, and only, Natter to launch with a human pilot on board.
Check out this neat little kit at the link below, and tell me what you think: Red or Black for the underside?