Editing Congreve rocket (section)

===Fourth Anglo-Mysore War===

During the [[Fourth Anglo-Mysore War]], rockets were again used on several occasions. One of these involved [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Colonel Arthur Wellesley]], later famous as the First [[Duke of Wellington (title)|Duke of Wellington]] and the hero of the [[Battle of Waterloo]]. Quoting Forrest:<blockquote>"At this point (near the village of Sultanpet, Figure 5) there was a large tope, or grove, which gave shelter to Tipu's rocketmen and had obviously to be cleaned out before the siege could be pressed closer to Srirangapattanam Island. The commander chosen for this operation was Col. Wellesley, but advancing towards the tope after dark on 5 April 1799, he was set upon with rockets and musket-fires, lost his way and, as Beatson politely puts it, had to "postpone the attack" until a more favourable opportunity should offer. Wellesley's failure was glossed over by Beatson and other chroniclers, but the next morning he failed to report when a force was being paraded to renew the attack.<ref>Forrest D (1970) ''Tiger of Mysore'', Chatto & Windus, London</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>"On 22 April [1799], twelve days before the main battle, rocketeers worked their way around to the rear of the British encampment, then 'threw a great number of rockets at the same instant' to signal the beginning of an assault by 6,000 Indian infantry and a corps of Frenchmen, all directed by Mir Golam Hussain and Mohomed Hulleen Mir Mirans. The rockets had a range of about 1,000 yards. Some burst in the air like shells. Others, called ground rockets, on striking the ground, would rise again and bound along in a serpentine motion until their force was spent.</blockquote>According to one British observer, a young English officer named Bayly:<blockquote>
"So pestered were we with the rocket boys that there was no moving without danger from the destructive missiles ...". He continued: "the rockets and musketry from 20,000 of the enemy were incessant. No hail could be thicker. Every illumination of blue lights was accompanied by a shower of rockets, some of which entered the head of the column, passing through to the rear, causing death, wounds, and dreadful lacerations from the long bamboos of twenty or thirty feet, which are invariably attached to them'."</blockquote>
During the decisive British victory [[Siege of Seringapatam (1799)|at Srirangapattanam]] on 2 May 1799, a British shot struck a magazine of rockets within Tipu Sultan's fort, causing it to explode and send a towering cloud of black smoke up from the battlements, with cascades of exploding white light. Baird led the final attack on the fort on the afternoon of 4 May, and he was again met by "furious musket and rocket fire" – but it did not help much. The fort was taken in about an hour's time; in another hour or so, Tipu had been shot (the precise time of his death is not known) and the war was effectively over.<ref>Narasimha Roddam (2 April 1985) National Aeronautical Laboratory and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560017 India, Project Document DU 8503,[http://nal-ir.nal.res.in/2382/01/tr_pd_du_8503_R66305.pdf  ''Rockets in Mysore and Britain, 1750–1850 A.D.''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927182042/http://nal-ir.nal.res.in/2382/01/tr_pd_du_8503_R66305.pdf |date=2007-09-27 }}</ref>

After the fall of [[Srirangapatna]], 600 launchers, 700 serviceable rockets, and 9,000 empty rockets were found. Some of the rockets had pierced cylinders to allow them to act like incendiaries, while some had iron points or steel blades bound to the bamboo. These blades caused the rockets to become very unstable towards the end of their flight, causing the blades to spin around like flying scythes, cutting down all in their path.