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The Congreve rocket was a British military weapon designed and developed by Sir William Congreve in 1804. The Kingdom of Mysore in India used Mysorean rockets as a weapon against the British in the wars that they fought against the British East India Company. Lieutenant General Thomas Desaguliers, Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery in Woolwich,〔He was at Woolwich from 1762 until his death in 1788〕 was influenced by the reports about their effectiveness, and he undertook several unsuccessful experiments. Several Mysore rockets were sent to Woolwich for studying and reverse-engineering following the Second, Third, and Fourth Mysore wars. (Congreave's father was now the comptroller of the Royal Arsenal.)〔Sir William Senior became the deputy comptroller of the Woolwich Royal Laboratory in 1783 and, in 1789, Major Congreve was appointed as comptroller〕 Even so, Congreve had to start his project in 1804 with his own funds. The first demonstration of his solid fuel rockets was in September 1805. The rockets were used effectively during the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824 – 1826. ==Early Indian rockets== Tipu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali developed the military tactic of using mass attacks with rocket artillery brigades on infantry formations. In 1792, Tipu Sultan wrote a military manual called ''Fathul Mujahidin'' in which 200 rocket men were prescribed to each Mysorean rocket artillery brigade known as "''cushoons''". Mysore had 16 to 24 ''cushoons'' of infantry. The areas of town where rockets and fireworks were manufactured were known as "''taramandal pet''" ("galaxy market"). The rocket men were trained to launch their rockets at an angle calculated from the diameter of the cylinder and the distance of the target. In addition, wheeled rocket launchers were used in war that were capable of launching five to ten rockets almost simultaneously. Rockets could be of various sizes, but usually consisted of a tube of soft hammered iron about long and diameter, closed at one end and strapped to a shaft of bamboo about 4 ft long. The iron tube acted as a combustion chamber and contained well-packed black powder propellant. A rocket carrying about one pound of powder could travel almost . In contrast, rockets in Europe were not iron cased and could not take large chamber pressures, and as a consequence they were not capable of reaching distances anywhere near as great.〔Biography, Mysore History (Tipu )〕 Hyder Ali's father was the ''naik'' or chief constable at Budikote, and he commanded 50 rocketmen for the Nawab of Arcot. There was a regular rocket corps in the Mysore Army, beginning with about 1,200 men in Hyder Ali's time. Hyder Ali introduced the first iron cased rockets in warfare. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Congreve rocket」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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