The Congreve Rocket,In the 1790’s the United Kingdom was at war with the Kingdom of Mysore, a
The Congreve Rocket,In the 1790’s the United Kingdom was at war with the Kingdom of Mysore, a sultanate located in India. However something unexpected occurred, something that was rare among Britain’s many colonial wars. The Mysorians used a tactic where they would use mass volleys of rockets to break up the ranks of British soldiers. The tactic worked so well that the Kingdom of Mysore won some very important victories against the British.In 1801 several examples of the Mysorian Rocket was sent to an engineer named William Congreve at the Royal Arsenal in London. By 1804 Congreve had engineered a new and improved version of the rocket. The rocket consisted of an iron case with a conical shaped warhead. Black powder was used as the propellant and several different warheads were designed which could contain between 3 and 24 pounds of explosive. The rocket was fired from a vertically facing trough supported by A-Frame scaffolding and each rocket had a wooden guide pole to improve accuracy.While not particularly accurate, they could not hit a specific target like a cannon, they were very effective at bombarding mass formations of infantry. The Congreve rocket made its debut during the Napoleonic Wars and was especially effective since The French Grande Armee fought in column formations rather than lines. However, in the United States it is perhaps most famous for its use during the War of 1812. While besieging Fort McHenry in Maryland the Royal Navy conducted a fierce bombardment using cannon and Congreve Rockets. It was the “rockets red glare” of Congreve Rockets that “gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.” -- source link
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