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 capable of launching five to ten rockets almost simultaneously were used in war. Rockets could be of various sizes, but usually consisted of a tube of soft hammered iron about 8" long and 1_ - 3" 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 1,000 yards. In contrast, rockets in Europe not being iron cased, could not take large chamber pressures and as a consequence, were not capable of reaching distances anywhere near as great.
Haidar Ali's father, the Naik or chief constable at Budikote, 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 Haidar Ali's time. At the Battle of Pollilur (1780), during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, Colonel William Braille's ammunition stores are thought to have been detonated by a hit from one of Haidar Ali's Mysore rockets resulting in a humiliating British defeat.
In the Third Anglo-Mysore War of 1792, there is mention of two rocket units fielded by Tipu Sultan, 120 men and 131 men respectively. Lt. Col. Knox was attacked by rockets near Srirangapatna on the night of February 6, 1792, while advancing towards the Kaveri river from the north. The Rocket Corps ultimately reached a strength of about 5,000 in Tipu Sultan's army. Mysore rockets were also used for ceremonial purposes. When the Jacobin Club of Mysore sent a delegation to Tippu Sultan, 500 rockets were launched as part of the gun salute.
During the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, rockets were again used on several occasions. One of these involved Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later famous as the First Duke of Wellington and the hero of Waterloo. Arthur Wellesley was defeated by Tipu's Diwan, Purnaiya at the Battle of Sultanpet Tope, which took place April 22, 1799, 12 days before the main battle, rockets with a range of 1,000 feet were fired into the rear of the British camp to signal the start of an attack by some 6,000 of Tipu's troops with their French mercenaries. The rocket fire caused considerable damage to the British lines, and one commentator says that Tipu's soldiers were as well trained and as well disciplined as those of the British and that his weapons were as up to date, "based on the latest French designs." "In many respects," he writes, "the Mysore troops were more innovative and technologically advanced than the company armies: firing rockets from their camel cavalry to disperse hostile cavalry for example, long before William Congreve's rocket system was adopted by the British army." As the seige took hold in mid-April, "Tipu ... as one British observer wrote, "gave us gun for gun ... and night time skirmishes were made with desperate exertion ... Soon the scenes became tremendously grand: shells and rockets of uncommon weight were incessantly poured upon us from the SW side, and fourteen pounders and grape from the North face of the fort continued their havoc in the trenches; while the blaze of our batteries, which continuously caught fire ... was the signal for the Tiger sepoys [Tipu'd elite forces dressed in tiger-striped uniforms) to advance, and pour in galling vollies of musketry."
During the conclusive British attack on Seringapatam on May 2, 1799, a British shot struck a magazine of rockets within the Tipu Sultan's fort causing it to explode and send a towering cloud of black smoke, with cascades of exploding white light, rising up from the battlements. On May 3, a breach was made in the wall. On the afternoon of May 4 when the final attack on the fort was led by David Baird (a former captive of Tipu's), he was again met by "furious musket and rocket fire," but this did not help much; in about an hour's time the Fort was taken; perhaps in another hour Tipu had been shot (the precise time of his death is not known), and the war was effectively over. It was Baird who discovered Tipu's body, "with three bayonet wounds and a shot through the head." Tipu held Sir David Baird and James Dalrymple prisoner for 44 months following their capture at the Battle of Pollilur. This was described at the time as "the most grievous disaster which has yet befallen the British arms in India."
After the fall of Seringapatam, 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. By attaching these blades to rockets they became very unstable towards the end of their flight causing the blades to spin around like flying scythes, cutting down all in their path.
These experiences eventually led to the Royal Woolwich Arsenal's beginning a military rocket R&D program in 1801, their first demonstration of solid-fuel rockets in 1805 and publication of A Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System in 1807 by William Congreve , son of the arsenal's commandant. Congreve rockets were soon systematically used by the British during the Napoleonic Wars and their confrontation with the United States during 1812-1814. These descendants of Mysore rockets find mention in the Star Spangled Banner
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