15 cm Nebelwerfer 41
rocket artillery
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 thrower".
Allied troops nicknamed it Screaming Mimi and Moaning Minnie due to its distinctive sound.
Development
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 metres (7,500 yds), 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.
Ammunition
Like virtually all German rocket designs, 15 cm Wurfgranate 41 projectiles were spin-stabilized to increase accuracy.
“15 cm Nebelwerfer 41” enters the record as rocket artillery. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nebelwerfer, rocket and artillery can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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