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France adopts, upgrades Congreve rockets For nearly six decades in the 19th century, the French military developed and operated solid-propellant missiles based on the designs of the British rocket pioneer William Congreve. During a standoff in Crimea with another rocket-armed military of Russia, French rocketeers fired what is believed to be the largest rockets of the 1800s which were able to fly as far as seven or eight kilometers.
A 19th century depiction of rocket-firing boats.
A secret weapon Many times in the history of warfare, new weapons spread between adversaries, when the military on the receiving side appreciated the impact of the innovative technology. And like some other new weapons, the battlefield rockets had a shaky start. The Congreve rockets emerging from England into the European theater at the turn of the 19th century and capable of striking from 1,800 to 2,700 meters away, first appeared in Boulogne, France. The first attempt at a rocket attack on the port city in 1805, which was the very first use of the Congreve rockets in war, ended in a chaotic failure for the British, mostly due to bad weather, but a second try a year later, did cause enough damage in the city for the French military to start paying attention. Then, in 1807, the Danish capital city of Copenhagen, an ally of France, suffered from a devastating bombardment by British ships. In 1809, a British rocket-launching vessel ran aground off the shore of the Island of Aix (Ile d'Aix) near Toulon on the Mediterranean coast of France while on a mission against the French Navy. (1063) At least one 14.5-kilogram Congreve rocket was recovered intact and immediately sent to Paris. Emperor Napoleon himself was shown the new weapon and he personally ordered it to be reproduced. Leading scientists in the field were involved in the effort. Between 1810 and 1826, French specialists got their first try in rocket manufacturing, replicating Congreve rockets, but also improving upon them, initially relying on the previous Danish experience. In 1813, Captain Brussel de Brulard went to Denmark on a top-secret mission to meet Captain Schumacher who had succeeded in reproducing Congreve's missiles. (843) Nevertheless, despite some successful experimental launches in France, that reached as far as four kilometers, the Congreve-style missiles produced in the French city of Toulouse showed low accuracy. (1063) New beginning
A 19th century depiction of battlefield rockets. In 1826 or 1827, British engineer Robert Bedford offered the French military his rocket-development expertise and the blueprints of Congreve-type rockets. His work was centered at the Army's Pyrotechnics School in Metz. For the next 17 years, Bedford led a French team that developed 5-, 7- and 9-centimeter caliber rockets, which all featured a long stabilizing stick mounted along the main axis of the warhead and which could easily be removed and re-attached with the help of a special screw thread. In 1840, the French Navy also established its own pyrotechnics school in Toulon. However, prior to 1842, the French military employed a relatively small number of rockets on real-life battlefields, and even then, they were often improperly used, due to the absence of qualified personnel. For specific campaigns, engineers or officers from Metz would be assigned to artillery units to supervise rocket operations. Under these conditions, French rockets were used in the Morea campaign against the Ottoman Army in 1828, during the Greek War of Independence, in Algiers in 1830, in Antwerp in 1832 and in Constantine in 1837. In a symptomatic episode from the Greek War for Independence, one "operator," responsible for a missile barrage of enemy positions, was found sleeping drunk by the temple of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine! (843) Finally, in 1842, the 6th Battery, of the 5th Field Artillery Regiment was attached to the Pyrotechnics School in Metz to assist with the development of rocket systems and for bringing this experience to the field. Its members became known as the "fuséens" or rocketeers. (1063) The third step
A Congreve-type rocket at the Paris Navy museum. In 1845, after the departure of Robert Bedford, a team of French rocket specialists continued the development work at the School of Pyrotechnics in Metz under the leadership of Captain Pierre Rouge. He designed a new type of wooden stabilizing stick that had a star-shaped cross section with five exhaust nozzles arranged along each grove formed by the stabilizer. This innovation made it possible to shorten the length of the stick and thus greatly improve the rocket's capabilities. The newly designed System 1849 had 5- and 7-centimeter caliber rockets that could carry either an incendiary or an explosive warhead. However, the development team also experienced setbacks typical for the new field of rocketry. On Aug. 5, 1848, a catastrophic explosion in Metz killed Captain Rouge, triggering a major re-evaluation of safety procedures in the manufacturing process. Between 1848 and 1852, then Colonel Louis Susane became the head of the rocket center in Metz, where he supervised two decades-worth of various innovations, first of all in production techniques of solid-propellant charges. To begin with, the dangerous manual manufacturing of solid propellant charges was given to custom-designed hydraulic presses. (Coincidently, one of the Russian rocket pioneers Konstantin Konstantinov implemented a similar solution in St. Petersburg.) Around the same time, the French Navy also established rocket production in Toulon. By 1853, up to 22 of hydraulic presses were operational in France, allowing the mass production of rockets. Some of them could fly as far as seven or eight kilometers, which was probably a record for the 19th century. Like his predecessor several decades earlier, Emperor Napoleon III was personally involved in the effort. (843) The newly built rocket projectiles were used by the French Army during the Crimean War with Russia in 1854 and 1855, marking probably the largest standoff of the 19th century with another rocket-armed force. In 1854, additional units were assigned to the Pyrotechnics School in Metz. They included the 5th Battery, 11th Field Artillery Regiment and the 1st Battery, 2nd Field Artillery Regiment. At the same time, the 6th Battery was re-named the 4th Battery, of the 12th Field Artillery Regiment. This group took part in the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, where it fired around 4,800 rockets. The same unit was later transferred to Algeria as a reserve. At the time, its list of personnel and assets had four officers, 154 non-commissioned officers and gunners, 34 horses and 72 mules. (1063) Design of a French Congreve-type rocket
Training documents and field manuals from the Napoleonic Era identified battlefield rockets as "rochettes" (the term apparently first used in medieval times) or as "Congreve-type rockets." A typical rocket of that time consisted of four key components:
The final chapter
Battlefield rockets used by the French military around 1857: 6-, 9-, 10- and 12-centimeter rockets with explosive and incendiary warheads. Based on the experience of the Crimean war, the French engineers designed the System 1856, which became the last battlefield rocket operated by the French Army in the 19th century. (1063) Between 1870 and 1872, the French war ministry decided to permanently shut down the rocket development program as did other rocket-armed militaries around the same period, because advancements in artillery had made Congreve-type weapons obsolete in terms of range and, even more so, in accuracy. (1064)
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