The Fascinating Congreve Rocket-Successful Launch!

[David LaPell]

I've always had a thing for model rockets since I was a kid and I was always fascinated with the Congreve rockets that were upgrades essentially of the Mysorean rockets used against the British in India. William Congreve reverse engineered those rockets and improved them and in 1804 the Congreve rockets made their debut and were used in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, most famously against Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore and were part of the inspiration for the Star Spangled Banner.

The Congreve rockets were made in a wide variety of sizes and weights, the smallest being 6 pounds and the largest up to 300 pounds. During the attack on Fort McHenry, the HMS Erebus was firing 32 pound rockets, which had a range of over 1,500 yards through small scuttles in the ship's sides.
The rockets were made of sheet iron and were filled with black powder which acted as the propellent and essentially the man charge. They were designed to be fired in a barrage and set anything combustible on fire.

The Congreve rockets were in use for the British until 1867, more than sixty years until the Hale rockets, which actually launched from a tube and didn't require the guide stick were introduced.

I decided to make a couple Congreve rockets, these of course are made from hard cardboard tubes and with plastic nosecones instead of metal, and I will be using model rocket engines. Since I don't know what they're going to do or how accurate they will be, I went with very small 1/2A3-2T engines, which are half the size of the A8 engines, which are considered entry level and are pretty quick to burn out. The 1/2A3's are even quicker, only firing for about 1/2 a second.

I pretty much look at these as expendable so the engines are glued in place, as are the nosecones. I then mocked up what looks like the bands that retain the guidestick out of thin cardboard and today I spray painted them black, the color of Congreve rockets, and right now the loops for the guidestick are drying. The guidestick is a small, 4 foot, 1/8" thick wooden dowels. The rockets themselves are about 10 inches long, a little shorter than the smallest Congreve rockets that were made. I'm hoping to have them ready to launch by the weekend so my son and I can test them out.

 

[llowry61]

Nice - I was completely unaware of the history of these rockets. Be sure to update us on how they fly. Basically, they look like giant bottle rockets. One of our science projects in middle school was to build a model rocket. I think we glued fins onto a paper tube of some sort, I don't recall if it was a paper towel roll or what. Build out the motor mount to fit the rocket motor, hand fashion a nose out of cork and make a parachute, then decorate as you saw fit. The last few days of the class we took them out on the football field out back of the school and launched em. I remember it was really fun and educational. Got me interested in model rocketry. Built a few in my teens then lost interest in them. Would like to have progressed to a multi stage, but I got interested in girls and the paper route money was saved for a car to support that hobby.

 

[Jessie]

The Nebelwerfer's ancestor.
Screaming Mimis

 

[DWalt]

Not much accuracy, the Congreve rockets were usually fired in volume in the hope that a few would do some damage. More like unpredictable terror weapons such as the German V-1 and V-2. The later Hale rockets were spin stabilized, like the 1960s Gyrojets.

I watched something recently about the German V-2 rockets used in WWII. Seems like the Germans launched about 3500 of them toward England, but about 2000 of those never made it that far before they blew up in flight or went far off course. Probably not a whole lot better performance than the Congreve rockets.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Dave, since you are treating these rockets as disposable did you skip the parachute?
2) Will you trials be complete in time for a Flag Day demonstration on a miniature Ft. McHenry?
3)Will there be a photo essay about your rockets bombarding your Ft. McHenry?

I hope you get extra credit from both the science and history teachers!

Ivan

 

[David LaPell]

Dave, since you are treating these rockets as disposable did you skip the parachute?
2) Will you trials be complete in time for a Flag Day demonstration on a miniature Ft. McHenry?
3)Will there be a photo essay about your rockets bombarding your Ft. McHenry?

I hope you get extra credit from both the science and history teachers!

Ivan

These are definitely going to be disposable, being I glued the nose on and the motor is glued in place, I expect, even with the small charge it will split the tube. I want to see how that works and if possible I'm thinking maybe stuffing some glitter in it to make it look more like a boom. If the wind ever dies down here, I hope to get them launched by this weekend.

 

[soFlaNative]

Hope these guys threw the 2nd one overboard before it lit, paddled away and called it a night!

 

[David LaPell]

Well, my son and I got out today with some other model rockets and I decided as long as we had the ignitors and the equipment we would try out the Congreve rockets.
I ended up at the local range, and since it rained last night it was a little damp still and I also brought my fire extinguisher that I keep in the car anyway just in case. Both rockets took off, the first one banked left but then corrected before hitting the ground after 60 yards. I recovered both, they lost their nose cones which were glued on, but no other damage at all.
The second rocket went straight and true, also ending up at about 60 yards or so because the motor only has about 1/2 second before they quit. I can only imagine what watching one of the larger 32 pound rockets with a range of over 1,000 yards must have been like to see.

 

[moosedog]

As usual David, a very interesting and informative article. Thanks.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Great thread, thank you so much for sharing!

Ivan

 

[Absalom]

Impressive.

I was reading that the Royal Navy launched over 25,000 Congreve rockets during the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1806.

However, the Royal Artillery rocket section at Isandlwana in Zululand 1879 only got off one of their Hale rockets before the battery was overrun by the Zulus. Apparently the rockets' launch modalities were less suitable for close quarter combat