Sdkfz 251/17 & 251/rak

[blitzkreig]

Hello All,

Have been looking into German units for my games. I have a sneaky feeling that the service dates for these may be out. I looked on the Axis History Forum for some info which indicated the following:

251/rak (Ground Stuka with rockets)in service for the start of the war in Russia

251/17: not available until Nov 1944

Trouble is I can't find any hard referance or source to confirm this which I'm reasonably happy with.

Can anyone help?

Regards

[PanzerBob]

Good day, Ian

I confrmed the time frame for the /17 my source is Lexikon der Wehrmacht I Babelled the line on it's dates "This variant was however only manufactured starting from autumn 1944" there is a production chart as well.

Lexikon Der Wehrmacht (http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waffen/sonderkraftfahrzeuge.htm) then click on <font color="yellow"> Sonderkraftfahrzeuge </font>

Now dates on the Walking Stuka were a liitle illusive, but I did confirm that production on rockets in general started a little before Barbarossa, and were in use, in a limited amount at the start of it. There is date references in the Both Links but nothing which pegs down anything exact

Luftwaffe Rockets (http://www.tarrif.net/wwii/guides/a2g_rockets.htm)
Lemire on Rocket Artillery (http://www.lemaire.happyhost.org/armes/artillerie/1811.html#116503)

Hope this is of some help, I enjoyed the research anyway.

Eternal War(gaming) PanzerBob http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif

[Tarrif]

The Stuka zu Fuss (aka. Wurfrahmen 40) most likely introduction was in middle 1941. I've found it hard to pin down actual hard information about this unit, but some books give it a mention. What I do know is that it was developed in response to an army requirement after the Battle of France to give their motorized and mechanized infantry some sort of organic mobile artillery. It was developed by the J. Gast KG factory in Berlin and was definitely available before Stalingrad. Because its range was around 2000 meters it had to be close to the fighting, and operationally it was under control at the kompanie level, usually in the hands of an attached panzer-pioneer platoon. The typical loadout per salvo was 5x high explosive and 1x napalm rocket.