Taifun (German for "typhoon") was a German

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...

unguided

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

system. Waves of small, relatively cheap, Taifun

flak Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-bas ...

rockets were to be launched en masse into Allied

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...

formations. Although never deployed operationally, the Taifun was further developed in the US as the 76mm HEAA T220 "Loki" Rocket.

Design and development

Development of the Taifun project started towards the end of 1944. , an officer at

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, ) is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. It is part of the ''Amt (country subdivision), Amt'' (collective municipality) of Used ...

, had been working on the Wasserfall guided missile but had become dissatisfied with the project's complexity and proposed a cheap unguided rocket as an alternative. Designs were submitted to the

Ministry of Aviation The Ministry of Aviation was a department of the United Kingdom government established in 1959. Its responsibilities included the regulation of civil aviation and the supply of military aircraft, which it took on from the Ministry of Supply. ...

in September 1944 with Scheufelen named as the administrative officer in charge of development. The Taifun proposal was developed by a small team at

and its manufacturing arm (the Electromechanische Werke in Karlshagen). Their design was a long, spin stabilized unguided rocket with four small fins at the base. The rockets were fired from either a 30 or 50 barrel launcher mounted on an adapted 88 mm gun mounting. The rocket was driven by a liquid fueled engine. The liquid propellant used was a

hypergolic A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...

mixture consisting of an

Oxidizer An oxidizing agent (also known as an oxidant, oxidizer, electron recipient, or electron acceptor) is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or " accepts"/"receives" an electron from a (called the , , or ''electron donor''). In ot ...

and a

Fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

. Salbei (Red Fuming Nitric Acid) oxidizer was mixed with a Visol (Vinyl Ether) based fuel (some sources give the fuel as Tonka 250 or Dibutyl Ether). The fuel and oxidizer were fed into the combustion chamber under pressure. The pressure was provided by small

cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in Britain since 1889 to replace black powder as a military firearm propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burni ...

charges fired into the fuel tanks, in the process bursting a pair of thin diaphragms to allow the fuel and oxidizer to flow into the combustion chamber, propelling the rocket. A

solid propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or another motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, th ...

version of the Taifun, called the Wirbelsturm (German for "Tornado"), was designed in parallel with the liquid fueled models but was not put into production. Post war, the unbuilt solid propellant version was used as the basis of design for the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

R-103 and R-110 unguided surface-to-air rockets. The Taifun's nose was fitted with a contact fuze. One of the two contact fuze designs, developed by Mende Radio of

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

, used a condenser, charged by the

ionization Ionization or ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive Electric charge, charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged at ...

of the exhaust gas stream, discharging through a tube in rocket's nose, the other, developed by

Rheinmetall-Borsig Rheinmetall AG () is a German automotive and arms manufacturer, headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was promoted to the DAX, Germany's leading stock market index, in March 2023. It is the largest German and fifth largest Europe ...

used a conventional impact fuze design. A timed self destruct fuze was fitted to the rear of the Taifun to destroy the rocket if it failed to hit a target. The Taifun's developers believed contact fuzes were superior to time fuzes against large

bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strategic bombing is ...

flying in formation (a view widely held among German flak specialists). Production began in January 1945. More than 600 of an initial batch of 10,000 were completed by

VE day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official surrender of all German military operations ...

. No Taifun rockets were deployed operationally.

Survivors

Two Taifun rockets are displayed at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, UK.

References

{{reflist Surface-to-air missiles of Germany

Design and development

Survivors

See also

References