Tornado research Nebelwerfer

It remains a problem to collect data from inside a tornado's funnel, due to the extreme forces present there.

Ground-mounted instrumentation can only reveal a limited amount, and there is then the problem of deploying it in the tornado's path without the researcfhers joining their instrumentation in an unplanned flight.

Loftable probes picked up by the tornado funnel are limited in the size and mass of instrumentation they can carry.

Ideally, a rocket would be used, but the extreme wind velocity would tumble and possibly destroy a fin-stabilised rocket.

There is an alternative design <link>

The advantage of the Nebelwerfer 41 is that it has a very smooth casing and is spin-stabilised. This means that it is much more resistant to any wind force acting to deflect it than a conventional rocket, while sparing the instrument package the huge and destructive acceleration of an artillery shell.

The projectile would be constructed as lightly as possible consistent with maintaining structural integrity, possibly using a ceramic-lined aluminium casing for the propellant. The nozzles could be formed from the same ceramic. Since the propulsion jets are angled away from the body, the instrument package at the rear would require very little protection.

The projectile would be specified as low-impact cold fallout. Besides, so much stuff gets flung around by a tornado that a small thing like a nebelwerfer is just a drop in the ocean.

The launcher is a simple tube and the units are reasonably directional. They could be mounted in fixed positions, with automatic triggering and/or remote controls, or vehicle-mounted as multiple arrays.