Dangerous to Allied bombers as well as the ground crews that maintained it and the pilots that flew it, the tiny Me-163 had an amazing climb rate and top speed thanks to its unique rocket engine ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. One of the most remarkable of the ...

The Me 163 Komet is the only rocket-powered fighter to ever enter operational service. The short-range German interceptor was the fastest and one of the most radical aircraft of World War II. Despite ...

Over the course of World War II, the Nazis invented a lot of different weapons to get an upper hand. Some fundamentally changed combat forever, like the V2 rocket, the first operational ballistic ...

Designed as a dedicated point defense interceptor, the Komet was the only rocket-powered fighter to ever enter operational service. My colleague Peter Suciu hits the nail on the head when he sums up ...

Key Point: The Me 163 was too fast to be a good bomber destroyer. Nazi Germany pursued numerous ambitious and impractical weapon programs over the course of World War II. One of the few that saw ...

It takes more than a few mental gymnastics to appreciate the scale of the achievement of the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet rocket interceptor. Then again, seeing the less-than-stellar-looking example at ...