20th of February, 1943. Kasserine Pass, Tunisia.
20th of February, 1943. Kasserine Pass, Tunisia. The Germans made the first use of their new 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41 rocket launcher against the western allies. The Nebelwerfer 41. In 1930 the German General Staff had spotted a loophole in the Versailles treaty; they were effectively forbidden to develop heavy artillery but the treaty said nothing about rockets. The rocket research station of the army weapons office at Kummersdorf near Berlin, Germany was set up to take advantage of this, and one of the projects handed to them was the development of a bombardment weapon with a range of between three and five miles. In later years their primary interest became the perfection of liquid-fuel rockets, culminating in the famous V2 rocket, but before this the Research station did a lot of fundamental research into rocket ballistics and solid fuel motors. One field of investigation was the question of stabilizing rockets in flight by spinning them, rather than by using the more usual