Intended use for Ju-287 jet bomber ?

[PlaneKrazy]

The Ju-287 was a very odd jet bomber design. It had forward swept wings, with two engines hung beneath the wing and another two along the forward fuselage. It's body was a cut down He-177 Grieff bomber's fuselage, with a Ju-388 tail and assorted fixed undercarriage. The V1 prototype flew 17 test flights from August 1944 to April 1945.

The V2 was fitted with retractable undercarriage, but the factory was captured by the soviets. Subsequently the design was developed further by the Soviets as the IL-28 (Nato codename Beagle).

"Ju-287, The World's First Swept Wing Jet Aircraft," by Horst Lommel, Published by Schiffer, ISBN 9-7643-2059-9, observes that the Ju-287 had a bomb bay identical to the He-177 V38 aircraft. The V38 and two other He-177 aircraft were developed from 1942 in Prague as deratives of the usual He-177.

These three aircraft were intended to carry nuclear weapons. They had an unusual 5 metre long bomb bay, for intended bomb payloads of 4,000kg. The Ju-287 shared this bomb bay.

I came across this fact whilst researching whether the Nazis came close to developing an atomic weapon. I am already satisfied that germany developed the Harteck centrifuge process to enrich uranium, subsequently copied by South Africa and Pakistan after the war. Now being used by Iran. I am aware that Germany had refined at least 1100 tons of uranium (probably from Czechoslovakian mines at Jach-ymore) at the Auer Gesellschaft refinery at Oranienburg north of Berlin. From November 1943 Germany was even exporting uranium by u-boat to Penang for Japan's atomic bomb project.

I am not sure if I am telling the story, or asking the question, but I welcome imput from others. Does anybody know more about the intended mission of the Ju-287 and for that matter why development appeared to be so slow when other projects advanced so fast ?

Also please, I gather conventional German bombers could not penetrate British airspace from 1943 onwards ?

Is that correct ?

Anyone care to comment ?