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Abstract Short intense laser pulses are routinely used to induce rotational wave packet dynamics of molecules. Ro-vibrational wave packet dynamics has been explored comparatively infrequently, focusing predominantly on extremely light and rigid molecules such as H ${}_2^{+}$, H₂and D₂. This work presents quantum mechanical calculations that account for the rotationalandthe vibrational degrees of freedom for a heavier and rather floppy diatomic molecule, namely the neon dimer. For pumping by a strong and short non-resonant pump pulse, we identify several phenomena that depend critically on the vibrational (i.e. radial) degree of freedom. Our calculations show (i) fingerprints of the radial dynamics in the alignment signal; (ii) laser-kick induced dissociative dynamics on very short time scales (ejection of highly structured ‘jets’); and (iii) tunneling dynamics that signifies the existence of resonance states, which are supported by the effective potential curves for selected finite relative angular momenta. Our theory predictions can be explored by existing state-of-the-art experiments.