I recently started playing Age of Empires 3 with Dionysos (He loves to bull-rush the enemy) and he’s using the British race. Their heavy artillery are rockets. The whole thing is set during the “colonial” era in North America.
The only people I can find with a history of using rockets pre-World War 2 are in Asia and the Far East. My research looking for “British army rockets” brings up reports from the Middle East when I’m looking for the Mid-West.
The questions is: Did they really have these? How accurate is that picture? Is it a pure work of fiction or a bad interpretation?
Look up “Congreve Rockets.” The congreve rocket came in various sizes, 24-pounders being one of them. They had an iron shell attached to a long (2+ meters) stick for stability. They looked like the mother of all bottle rockets. The Brits had them in the war of 1812. Hence the phrase, “The rockets red glare” in a popular ditty from that era. I don’t think that Mr. Congreve had invented them yet during the actual American Revolution. In fact, their use in 1812 was still pretty experimental I think. But it’s pretty close, timewise. Only about 15-20 years off.
Here’s a link to an image of rockets from that era. I snapped that pic at the Udvar-Hazy facilities of the Smithsonian. It was in the display on early rockets.
I don’t know if you’re speaking to him or me, but I’ll answer. The Star Bangled Banner was abot a battle with the Royal Navy, not the British army. His Majesties ships were bombarding Fort McHenry which defended Baltimore. The rockets were launched from a special “rocket ship” designated for that purpose. And I am an American. I grew up 20 miles from the site of the biggest humiliation inflicted by the British Army during that war, the torching of the White House.
When the insidious Brits wished to make off with the Danish Navy in 1807, they decided to improve their negotiation position by bombarding Copenhagen with Congreve rockets for a few nights. Unexploded samples can still be viewed in the Danish Naval Museum.
The British action had 3 outcomes:
[ol]
[li]The Danish Navy - 17 ships of the line and 17 frigates - was eventually handed over, closing the chapter on Denmark as a naval power.[/li][li]Denmark dropped its policy of neutrality and joined the Napoleonic side in the ongoing struggle for European supremacy - not a good move, as it turned out.[/li][li]The loss of the Danish Navy led to a strategic decision to replant oak trees so that new ships could be built in the fullness of time, i.e., about now. Not so much use anymore, but they’re pretty trees. [/li][/ol]
