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Gander - Field Rocket Equipment of the German Army 1939-45.

1 pdf, 22 MB.

THE solid fuel rocket is no newcomer to modern warfare for its first recorded use in battle dates back to AD 1232, but after the fall from grace of the Congreve and Hale rockets towards the end of the nineteenth century little use was made of it until the German Army re-introduced the rocket in an offensive role from 1940 onwards. Actually they could have had rockets in service during World War I, for Krupps had purchased the solid fuel rocket patents of the Swedish experimenter Lieutenant-Colonel von Unge in 1909. While the rockets then produced were extensively tested, they did not go into production as they were virtually hand-made and the slow-burning black powder propel-lants then in use were prone to damage during storage and transport. This damage manifested itself in erratic burning and general unreliability.