The Guards Armoured Division's units used mostly Sherman V 75mm but by 1945 their Fireflies would have been a mix of Vc and Ic.

The following account from Tank Museum Library files might be interesting to members:

APPENDIX "B" TO 21 ARMY GROUP AFV TECHNICAL REPORT NO 26

REPORT BY 1 ARMOURED COLDSTREAM GUARDS:
RESULT IN ACTION OF TYPHOON ROCKETS FITTED TO SHERMAN TANKS

The results achieved by these rockets when used in action were highly satisfactory, but before discussing these it is necessary to point out the limitations of their use caused by lack of time for experiment, etc.

Less than 24 hours after the idea was conceived (shortly before the crossing of the RHINE), the first tank was already fitted up with a homemade bracket, rails and warhead.

The only resources available for this purpose were Battalion fitters and Battalion LAD.

The brackets were roughly sighted for line with the vane sight on top of the turret but all elevation had to be adjusted and set from outside the tank.

The "shear" wire used to gain the impetus for launching the rocket was the same as that used in a Typhoon. The Typhoon is travelling at upwards of 400 mph when the rocket leaves whereas the tank is stationary. Therefore the ''drop" due to lack of impetus in the first 10 yards flight of the rocket had to be overcome by a set adjustment in the bracket itself. This precluded all possibility of actually pointing the rocket at the target even for short range shooting.

Owing to the above and other considerations it was decided to have one rocket set to hit anything that got in its way up to about 400 yards and the other one up to about 800 yards. (This required the setting of the brackets to be at 150mm and 160mm above the horizontal respectively).

EFFECT ON ENEMY.

1. Moral

The morale effect - especially against ordinary troops - was tremendous. On occasion a strongly held bridge was captured when rocket-firing tanks were used in support of our infantry. The first 88mm gun was knocked out by a rocket and the rest failed to fire. 12 PW came in deaf as a result. None of the other guns fired. The enemy suffered over 40 dead and we had next to no casualties.

This of course was not caused entirely by the rockets, but they certainly had a lot to do with it.

On a second occasion, our infantry were being troubled by enemy infantry in a wood. Two troops of tanks fired two rockets each from about 400 yards and the did not fire another shot, and 30-40 Infantry, including "Brandenburgers" came out of the wood afterwards and gave themselves up. They were extremely shaken. There were several other occasions of this nature.

2. Killing Effect.

In the type of fighting encountered after crossing. the RHINE, only two types of good targets were found for the limited use of rockets - woods and buildings.

On one occasion after a Squadron had fired all its rockets and a number of other missiles at a barracks, it was found that there were about 40 dead in the buildings after the battle was over. The hitting power is like that of a shell. The explosion caused by the rocket is slightly greater than that than that of a medium shell.

3. Other Uses.

The rocket was found effective in removing road-blocks when they were covered by fire and it had considerable effect when ordinary HE and AP did not.

It was never possible to use them against an enemy AFV chiefly because very few AFVs were encountered at close range and also at present they lack the accuracy in aim. If, however, the latter defect is overcome they would undoubtedly remove the turret from any enemy AFV with a direct hit.

APPRECIATION OF PRESENT AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES.

On the whole the equipment proved most satisfactory, but the results were limited by the points already mentioned and also by the fact that a number of tanks fitted with rockets were lost through enemy action and through normal breakdowns, etc. Thus, although we started with a whole Squadron, we ended up with comparatively few. The weapon was obviously most useful from a morale point of view and this was lessened when the number of rocket firing tanks dwindled.

As far as a "non-expert" can tall, the possibilities of this type of rocket fitted by experts to a tank either as a main armament or a subsidiary one, are almost unlimited.

The decree of accuracy could be largely increased by use of a stronger "shear" wire, a proper sighting arrangement, a telescope and a range table.

If used as a main armament it should be possible to carry as many rockets as shells with added simplicity that it would be unnecessary to carry both AP and HE. It should be stated in this connection that no, "accidents" were caused by the rockets - one went off when the wire was severed by an air burst which must have generated the required electrical current. Two tanks that were gutted by fire still had the rockets undischarged at the end. Another direct hit on a warhead merely shattered it.

Should this type of rocket replace the gun it would enormously simplify the design of a tank owing to their being no recoil, breech-block, etc.

There should be no difficulty in fitting four or eight to a tank which could all fire at the same time causing a tremendous fire power and this should make up for any slight deterioration in accuracy.

RAC Branch, Second Army, have made the following comments on the above report:-

1. It is emphasised that the excellent results obtained were from very rough and ready appliances made with no technical assistance from outside.

2. It is felt that the results of the experiment may be of interest to those concerned with the future armament of AFV’s.

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Comments by DG of A, Ministry of Supply on the expected accuracy of rockets as tank armament.

(257/Tanks/1367/E44 dated 9 August 1945 enclosed in RAC3(b)/BM/1748).


I see little prospect of obtaining the necessary precision required from tank armament by means of rocket projectiles. Neglecting the difficulties of serving projectors mounted on the outside of protected vehicles and dealing entirely with the accuracy aspect the situation seems to be as follows:-

Present accuracy of normal HV gun is of the order of 1.2 mins with its most accurate service shot. This is not considered by the WO as surf recently accurate. They demand a m.d. of 0.5 mins.

Rocket accuracies are still being quoted in degrees rather than minutes and vary, according to the method of launching, from the unrotated fin-stabilised rocket at 1.2 degrees (i.e. 62 mins) to the spin stabilised rocket fired from a machined liner with a closed breech at 0.2 degrees i.e. 12 mins.

The most favourable prediction which the CPD has recently made is that as a ten year probable development rockets might be obtained with accuracy comparable to present guns, which is at the present time considered by the GS as not sufficiently accurate.

I cannot see the rocket replacing the gun as a precision weapon unless some unforeseen development of it occurs and can only visualise its use as a secondary armament of one shot weapons for short ratio fire against fairly massive targets.

Hi Alan,
Excellent piece on the Tulips. Worth embellishing for a Tankette article ?
NB that Kevin Tucker has added some Sherman Tulip names (inc a Firefly) to the British (Sorry, Allied) Tank names database over on the resources page at www.mafva.org. These include serial numbers and unit codes.
Well worth checking on a regular basis to see what has been added. Kevin welcomes any comments, additions or corrections you may have (and so do I!)
Got any more goodies like that ?
Take care,
Paul M.

Thankyou, I try but am unable to expand much on this as it is all the information I had on the subject.

And now check my next post:
EVALUATION US vs GERMAN TANKS WWII

I had no idea that the 60lb rocket was used that much in combat. Thanks

Any photo's of such contraptions? I just bought the Dragon Firefly, and it has two rockets included....

Cheers
Henk

Henk
If you can find a book by Robert Boscawen called "Armoured Guardsmen" there's a few pics in there. I've not been able to find much in the way of pics online. In fact all the pics from Google or Alltheweb.com come up with are those of Models.

Pete

Here's a pic that someone sent me when I asked about the Tulip a while back




Pete

If you look on British Pathe News you will find pictures of Tulips.
I can't remember the film title but if you look under film ID 1151.07 there are several stills of Shermans carrying rockets, some tanks with markings.

Cheers
Kevin

Thanks Peter and Kevin, looks like I'll build me one of these then.

Peter, I'll answer your PM later when I get home.

Cheers
Henk