The KDF Scheuch tractor

[Björn Schewe]

In the early 1940, the small company Scheuch in Triptis built round about 500 Scheuch tractors with KDF engine and transmission. During the war, they made three-wheel tractors for the Wehrmacht who used these tractors for the V2 rocket and the Messerschmitt 163 Komet - the first jet ever built.

As we know, only four Schech tractors exist in the world - two tree-wheel Wehrmacht tractors and two four wheelers in the lokel museum of Triptis and the Technikmuseum Berlin. The first known war tractor Christian Grundmann and me found in the late 1990s in Wolfsburg area - before it was lokated in Neuburg am Inn in south bavaria. Now it is sold to a private Volkswagen collection in the USA, because we had the chance to buy the secound one, which is freshly restaured.

Does anybody has more informations about the Scheuch tractors - or does anybody know something about another survived Scheuch someone in the world?

[Björn Schewe]

...the Scheuch tractor in action during the war

And an interesting link about the Me 163:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~robdebie/me163.htm

[johnshenry]

Too cool!!! Tell me it has a K manifold! I want one! (they're small,,,,,,,,!)
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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[Brezelwerks]

Wow, neat tractor, but scarier is what its pulling in the photos, clearly the later part of the war, Nazis experimenting with jet aircraft, amongst other high tech weapons, I've read about it but never saw the proto photos, I've read this knowledge of their tecn advancements, and as I recall this was the underlying reason for executing Dday asap.

[kdfkid]

Hi, interesting is that the factory got in the war engines and gear boxes from the VW factory to build the traktors. They are about 36 km fast.
They used kdf industriel engines .
The schlepper i sold is goeing to a good home in the staates Dr. Mac Jones!
This will be part of his KDF collection and propably some of you will see it at shows in the staats next year.
Bye Christian

[jfpvw]

i think its pulling one of those small, rocket- powered, bomber interceptors. they could only carry enough fuel for one or two sweeps on bomber formations. but they could climb like hell and would take off just as bombers were almost over-head. comets, i think they were called.
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Cars and metal rust and are destroyed, but the Word of God will never pass away.

[ScrapJunkie]

There is one of those airplanes here in town at our air and space museum. They've got some cool stuff there, including the original Apollo 13 capsule. Lots of neat history at that place, I love it.

www.cosmo.org
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(O\U|U/O) Top Vw (o\UU/o)

[VW Baron]

Cool stuff. I'm a bit of a warbird aficionado (when not obsessing about VWs, of course. ), so I enjoy seeing pics like that. Hopefully I'll run across one of those tractors sometime.

Yeah, that's a Me-163 Komet rocket (not jet)-fighter (check Bjorn's link). I think it was the He-280 was the first jet fighter, with the Me-262 being the first one in operational service. Anyway, the 163 was used as a bomber interceptor, but it really wasn't as successful as it was hoped to be. It was probably just as dangerous to the pilot as to bombers it was supposed to intercept. Once it's fuel (supposedly corrosive enough to melt flesh and bone) ran out, it glided back to good ol terra firma and landed on a skid. It was also very compact, and considering it's volatile fuel, it couldn't withstand much damage.

[johnshenry]

Cool stuff Baron.

So what did it have for weaponry/defense? ANd it would seem that a one use rocket wouldn't be very manueverable (especially with that limited wing area)
_________________
John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[johnshenry]

Nver mind. Gotta love the web:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~robdebie/me163.htm
_________________
John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[Rick]

[VW Baron]

Mr. Henry, as you probably already know, the Komet had 2 very formidable 30mm cannon, and you're right in that it wasn't particularly manueverable. Speed was the name of the game. It was used in slashing attack against bombers. In that I mean that it would streak above the bombers and dive down on them, firing away. It would make several passes like this until it's fuel was expended. The plane was so fast and so small, it was often hard for bomber gunners to track and shoot.


Rick, you're probably referring to the He-162 Volksjaeger, or "people's fighter", and yes the Luftwaffe was extremely desperate in the late stages of the war. Unlike the Komet, the 162 was a single-engined jet-fighter. Many late-war German aircraft had wooden components, but the Germans apparently never quite perfected durable adhesives to hold the wood together. Structurally, they weren't quite as strong and they also simply didn't hold up well over time. Wooden components on an aircraft was certainly not unheard of in WWII, but they are generally associated with early-war aircraft and were generally of better quality since production didn't have the pressure that late-war German factories had to contend with. The He-162 was designed and constructed in an extremely short time. I want to say within a month or two, it went from the drawing board to operational service. It was something like that. Very impressive considering aircraft development would normally take a year or more back then (and decades nowadays ). The 162 was designed to be as simple as possible to both cut down on production time and to be accessible to barely trained pilots and civilians alike. Quantity over quality was what the Germans were striving for. The He-162 did see operational service, but like the 163, not in the numbers that were hoped for and there are no confirmed reports of enemy action. There were rumors that some 163s shot down some Russian and British aircraft, on the Eastern and Western fronts respectively, but as I said (as far as I know) nothing was ever confirmed*.

Incidentally (and typical of German ingenuity), the He-162 was the first jet to employ ejection seats, and if I'm not mistaken, is only 1 of two WWII-era aircraft to have such a feature. The Do-335 also employed ejection seats, but it wasn't a jet.

*EDIT: I mis-spoke here. It was the He-162 that had no confirmed kills. The Me-163 did shoot down some bombers...

[ubercrap]