Sooner or later (in my case, much later), every Napoleonic Wargamer who has a British Army decides they need some Rockets, right?!
These are by Old Glory.
The set come with more Rocketry than anyone could ever use!
This includes four “A-frame” launchers like these.
The British encountered the military use of Rockets when fighting the Kingdom of Mysore in India in the later half of the 18th century.
With the final defeat of the Kingdom in 1799, they came into possession of a large number of rockets and related materials.
William Congreve began purchasing and testing rockets on his own in 1804; once he achieved some success he got approval for Lord Chatham (who was in charge of the Ordonnance department) to start producing some rockets at Woolwich.
Congreve was fortunate to be friendly with the Prince Regent, who supported his rocket projects.
The Royal Navy was actually the chief employer of rockets, first in an unsuccessful attack on Bologne in late 1805, and then in the attack on Gaeta in Sicily in 1806.
Rockets were employed as part of the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, and likely contributed to the fires that occurred in the Danish capitol.
Rockets wee employed during the Walcheren Campaign of 1809 (once again for bombardment), unsuccessfully in Spain in 1810, with Bernadotte’s Army of the North in 1813, and during the War of 1812 with the United States (“the rocket’s red glare” of the bombardment of Fort William Henry in Baltimore made famous in Francis Scott Key’s “Star Spangled Banner”, amongst other uses).
Wellington agreed to another trial of rockets in Spain in 1813, where they were said to have been successfully deployed at the Battle of Toulouse in April 1813. There was a rocket troop famously present at Waterloo, but due to Wellington’s distaste for the weapons, the troop was armed with cannons as well and brought only a limited number of rockets with it.
