Messerschmitt Bf 162 “Jaguar”

This one’s purely for fun. I just did a fighter, which is all well and good… but I prefer flying low and taking out ground targets. And behold; here’s the Bf162 Jaguar.
The plane is actually semi-fictional. The Bf162 existed; it was designed in 1935 in response to a request for a light, fast bomber for the luftwaffe. Messerschmitt entered the Bf162, which was based on the Bf110’s airframe. Its competors were a Henschel design and the Junkers 88. We all know how that turned out; the Ju-88 won, and over 15000 were built, whereas the Bf162’s career ended with the prototype. It made a brief “ghost appearance” though; as a disinformation tactic, pictures were spread in the press with the caption “the luftwaffe’s new Messerschmitt Jaguar”. Yes, they did have fake news in those days as well…

Flying it/controls

There’s not much to tell; the plane is easy enough to fly. Just add a bit of rudder at takeoff to keep it on track, and it’s all smooth sailing after that. The plane is somewhat heavier than a Bf110 because of the weapons load, which makes it relatively sluggish until its load is dropped. Controls;

AG1 : Open/close main canopy. You should do that before taking off, since the plane automatically spawns with open canopy. But then again, the canopy will close anyway once you start the takeoff run.

AG2 : Use this only with the main canopy closed. This opens the rear gunner’s station canopy, allowing a bit (but not much) wider field of fire.

AG3 : Press this when you want to use the nose or rear gunner’s stations. It will freeze out the plane’s controls, activates a gyro, and lets you control the MG15’s.

AG4 : You will notice engine smoke effects sometimes. Looks neat, but still… you can switch them off with AG4. The build has realistic weight, power and fuel load; the smoke effect unfortunately uses up quite a bit of fuel… and so it’s really only useful to take pictures.

AG8 : Wingtip lights on/off

Other than that, everything’s standard… trim, VTOL down for flaps and so on.

There are camera views for the cockpit (of course), the rear gunner's station and the glazed nose. Actually, the nose has two; one cam for bombing raids, another one for use with the MG15.
There's also two bomb camera's, but those are only useful if you want to ride a bomb down to its target, Dr. Strangelove-style...

Armament

And now for the fun part -my reason for building the Bf162 in the first place. The “Jaguar” never entered service, so it never got a full complement of weaponry. In other words: I was free to deck it out with whatever hardware seemed reasonable (or fun)…

• Two MG15 machine guns (7.92 mm) - both the rear gunner and the bombardier have single MG15’s to fend off enemy fighters.

• Two PC500 “bunker buster” bombs; these things will penetrate concrete and armor, and will easily sink large ships.

• A Rheinmetall “Bordkanone” Bk-5. This was actually a modified 50mm KwK39 tank gun, originally from the Panzer III tank, and designed for use against allied bomber formations in the Messerschmitt Me 410 bomber destroyer. Putting one of these on the Bf162 is not really far-fetched. A heavy hitter, but it only has 22 rounds in the magazine.

• To cause some extra mayhem, the Bf162 comes equipped with 16 unguided rockets. The R4M “Panzerblitz” was originally designed for use against Allied bomber formations, but was also available with a somewhat larger shaped charge for use against armored ground targets. These rockets pack a punch, but are not very accurate and should be used from a relatively close distance only (meaning: don’t even think about aiming with these things).

Mods

I used one mod for the cockpit instruments; these look way better than anything self-made. The mode is not necessary to fly the plane, but it doesn make the cockpit look nicer -so it’s recommended.

Enjoy your flight!