Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

174 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
A tank destroyer, painted white to blend with the
snow-covered terrain of a Luxembourg field
the rocket’s inac curacies and the smoke and flash that gave away its position. A
shortage in artillery ammunition, however, spurred increased use of rockets. A tank
battalion in the Third Army also employed the rockets briefly and reported that the
morale effect was good. 29
In 1944, a table of organization and equipment (TOE) for the rocket battalion
was developed, authorizing the unit thirty-six multiple rocket launchers in three
batteries (twelve per battery). Each battery had three rocket platoons, and each
platoon four rocket sections. This organization was later changed to two rocket
platoons, each platoon having six rocket sections. The tables authorized the battalion
to be truck-drawn. In practice, rocket field artillery battalions were to be used as
War Department reserve units and attached to an army or task force as necessary.
Rockets were most effective in attacking area targets, relieving the artillery of
massing battalions.
29 Ibid., pp. 333–34, 361. The 18th Field Artillery Battalion and the 702d Tank Destroyer Battalion
both employed 4.5-inch rockets in Europe. These two units are not included in the six battalions cited as
being organized as 4.5-inch rocket battalions in the following paragraph. See also USFET Study no. 67,
p. 4, copy in CMH files.