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(at Monte Cassino) "...nebelwerfers would fire and immediately the crew would move the monster under cover. When that was realised the tactics were to keep a gun in various troops laid on a known nebelwerfer position full-time, to be fired immediately the monster sounded off. Jerry countered by firing from a new position each time".

The second is rather long but draws on the Red ARmy experience in 1942 and for uses of IABSM relays vividly what the real morale effect of this weapon was:? "suddenly as we moved forward away from the trees we heard a whining sound which grew and then we saw smoke trails in the sky. I thought at first that these were markers showing our position to the Nazi artillery observers but my righthand hand neighbour thought that these were aircraft which were crashing. The projectiles moved fast but were visible. Two of them exploded about twenty metres behind our line, two about the same distance in front and one each to left and right immediately in front of us. This number of explosions following immediately upon each other was like a six-gun battery firing salvo. The casualties were slight although the explosions were quite shattering. I noticed that the shell casing of one projectile peeled back like a banana as it flew through the air after detonating and as I watched it struck and nearly cut in half one of the men marching behind our wave.

We had not taken cover but continued marching and then suddenly we saw sheets of flames coming from behind the German lines, then smoke and then the howling again. This time the mass of smoke and flames roaring towards us seemed to cover the whole battalion front. The whole area in front of us and behind us as well as at intervals along the line was suddenly blotted out and what seemed to be hundreds of explosions occurred simultaneously. Snow and earth clods were flung up obscuring visibility and then came the cry for medical personnel to help the wounded. Under this first mass bombardment we had gone to ground and thus we were a stationary target. Within seconds, it seemed, of the first flight of missiles exploding the second wave had come down and then a third. After that I lost count - it just seemed as if the whole sky was raining noise and explosive on us. We lay there immobile with our senses numbed for what seemed a long time and then my right-hand man touched me on the shoulder and pointed to the groups of men who were streaming back towards the woods. We thought that the regiment had been ordered to withdraw and were rather pleased that we were going to be away from the shelling, but then as we ran I noticed that quite a lot of the men had flung their guns away and were screaming at the tops of their voices, throwing off their equipment so that they could run faster. Others had collapsed trembling and crying or were having spasms like epilepsy"

So, fire these things on target and it's game over. Don't bother dicing for casualties - just see if they are on target then pack up and get down the kebab van!

Lardy
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Richard Clarke wrote: