www.militaar.net

Here's a little more background and info on the recently
discussed Nebelwerfer.

First, the basic term -
Nebelwerfer wherein Nebel means fog and Werfer can be translated
thrower, launcher, or projector. Nebel is natural fog whereas
Rauch is the word for smoke generated from a fire. The soldiers
that manned the Nebelwerfer were part of the Nebeltruppe which
were responsible for smoke and chemical warfare. The Versailles
accord prohibited the Germans from having chemical weapons so
that as well as for security reasons, one finds no mention of the
word chemical in their title. In this case, I suppose the more
logical title would have been Rauchtruppe, but perhaps this evoked
the unprofessional image of soldiers smoking and joking as
soldiers are wont to, so Nebeltruppe seemed better?

The equipment -
In addtion to smoke pots, smoke grenades, smoke candles, etc, there
were two types of Nebelwerfer (fog projector), the
Granatwerfer (mortar, literally grenade launcher) and the Raketen-
werfer (rocket launcher). The Granatwerfer came first and looked
more or less like a regular mortar, in this case, it was 10cm. It
was issued in both a light and heavy version. The heavier version
saw service with Luftwaffe Field Divisions and the Hungarian
Army.

During experiments with rockets for military use (these, like
Nebel were not prohibited by Versailles) it was realized that rockets
were well-suited and more effective for laying down smoke on an
area target than mortars. The same high potential existed for their
use in chemical warfare. For secrecy purposes, both to hide their
nature as rockets and their possible use for CW, the Raketenwerfer
were organized under the Nebeltruppe as Nebelwerfer. A thin veneer
of secrecy you might think, but then German barracks in the 1930's
weren't the most accessbile of places to snoop around.

Myths about the origin of Nebelwerfer -
The naming of the Nebelwerfer was NOT related to rocket scientist
Rudolf Nebel. The Nebelwerfer was NOT named such because of the
smoke trails the rockets left behind, HOWEVER this belief may
stemmed from the fact that an early model rocket launcher was
called a Rauchspurgeraet or smoke-trail device (bizarre, huh?).

Smoke Trails and Propellants -
The early war Nebelwerfer rockets did leave an impressive smoke trail
behind them as they flew to their targets. This was due to the
black powder-based propellant. The trails look pretty in pictures but
made the launch site very obvious to the enemy. They also made
it painfully obvious when a launcher crew failed to properly lay their
launcher with the rest of the battery. (Imagine the laughs of derision!)
By 1941, the Germans
had developed a stable, smokeless diglycol propellant and the black
powder propellant production was halted in its favor. The difference
can be seen in pictures where the rockets have a much shorter flame
trail and a barely visible smoke trail behind them. However, a dust cloud
still gets kicked up around the launchers themselves which
made them more vulnerable to aerial observation than conventional tube
artillery.

Other Official Names and Nicknames -
The first and most common standard-issue 15cm Nebelwerfer 41, a
six-barrel launcher, was known as the Do-Werfer in honor of its developer
Walter Dornberger, later of V-2 fame.
During the Russian Campaign, the Nebelwerfer earned the nickname of
"Stuka zu Fuss" or "Stuka on foot" among the infantrymen.
The 15cm ten-barrel launcher mounted on the armored Maultier vehicle
was known as the Panzerwerfer.
The last version of the Nebelwerfer, the 30cm Raketenwerfer 56, was
also known as the R-Werfer, so obviously the covername of Nebel was
finally dropped and the "R" was used instead (hmm, what could that
R stand for, I wonder?). Interestingly, this last rocket used a hydrocellulose
powder instead of diglycol with no apparent worsening of smoke trail.
Also, the launcher was equipped with adapters to fire 15cm rounds as
well.

Much of this info and more can be found in "Die Nebelwerfer" by
Joachim Ende.

Frederick L Clemens
panzerbaer@aol.com