The Blohm & Voss BV 143 was an early prototype rocket-assisted glide bomb developed by the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

design

The Bv 143 was designed to be air-dropped from beyond the range of antiaircraft guns, glide towards the target, engage its solid rocket motor below the line of fire of guns, and commence a short (30 second, maximum) high speed dash to the target, striking 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) above the waterline. The first design, with straight wings and cross-like tail,[3] featured a 2-meter instrumented "feeler probe" suspended from the body, designed to start the rocket on contacting the sea surface.[4] A pitch-only autopilot then maintained the bomb at the 2 m probe length until striking the target. The first working prototypes of this design were completed in February 1941. Tests during 1943[5] showed the probe-based design to be unworkable and after additional design time it was replaced with a radio altimeter, which although being less fragile also ultimately proved unsatisfactory.

The bomb proved consistently unable to reliably maintain altitude stability with either design, with rocket misfires and failures also proving troublesome. After building and testing 157 examples, the project was eventually abandoned in favor of the Henschel Hs 293

variants

BV 143-B

authors note

When dropping this on a bomber make sure to trim down an turn ag5 on other wise itll be stuck