Field Rocket Equipment of the German Army 1939 - 1945

London: Almark Publishing Co., Ltd, 1972. Presumed First Paperback Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Good. Kenneth M. Jones (cover art). Format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.25 inches. Illustrated covers. 72 pages. Illustrations. Technical Specifications. Some cover wear and sticker residue at back. This book sets out to show how one nation, Germany, employed the solid fuel rocket as part of its national field armory. as such it confines itself to weapons used on the battlefield and only encroaches onto the anti-aircraft role when the rockets do employed were also used as ground-to-ground weapons. However, to 'complete the story' in some cases, mention has been made of the airborne use of some of these weapons. Covers organization, units, uniforms and much detailed information on the various types of rocket weapons, from the simple Panzerfaust to the ubiquitous Nebelwerfer 41. Rocket development had begun during the 1920s and reached fruition in the late-1930s. These offered the opportunity for the Nebeltruppen to deliver large quantities of poison gas or smoke simultaneously. The first weapon to be delivered to the troops was the 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41 in 1940, after the Battle of France, a purpose-designed rocket with gas, smoke, and high-explosive warheads. It was fired from a six-tube launcher mounted on a towed carriage adapted from that used by the 3.7 cm PaK 36 to a range of 6,900 meters (7,500 yards), later also mounted on a halftrack as Panzerwerfer 42. Almost five and a half million 15 cm rockets and six thousand launchers were manufactured over the course of the war. The 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41 (15 cm NbW 41) was a German multiple rocket launcher used in the Second World War. It served with units of the Nebeltruppen, German Chemical Corps units that had the responsibility for poison gas and smoke weapons that were also used to deliver high-explosives during the war. The name Nebelwerfer is best translated as "smoke mortar". Allied troops nicknamed it Screaming Mimi and Moaning Minnie due to its distinctive sound.