Congreve Rockets

[Andy R]

Sooooo, for those of you familiar with the song, The Star Spangled Banner has a line, “And the rockets’ red glare…” This is a reference to Congreve Rockets that the Royal Navy fired into Fort McHenry from 0600 13 September, until  0700 14 September 1814.
Last weekend I got to thinking about this. I’m overhauling 3053 Pirate Ship and thought these would make a good addition- Except that I actually know pretty much nothing about the rockets. Well, actually I know quite a bit about the rockets themselves, but nothing about the launchers, the equipment needed to use them.
¿Could anyone give me some advice in the matter? Pictures would be most helpful.

¡THANX!

[playmofire]

A Google search on "congreve rocket launcher" comes up with this:

http://www.barzso.com/conrl.html

and scroll well down the page here:

http://home.clara.net/rpworldmodels/catartillary.html

These are land-based ones, but presumably the ship based ones would have been similar, or may, indeed, have been used on land. (The second one picture is of a launcher manned by marines who were in effect naval infantry.)

[Ali Baba]

Some shipbased rockets were launched from inside the hull, some were launched from simple installations on deck. There is loads of info about it on the net. Can you perhaps be more specific about what you wish to know?

[Andy R]

Ok, a couple of ok pics, but they weren’t clear enough for me to build a launcher assembly.
So my question is, ¿How would I build a launcher? I figured I’d use 3Ø 26 739Ø ballista bolts for the rockets themselves (that was easy), but the launchers had me dumbfounded…

[playmofire]

I think from the two pictures provided it's not too difficult to envisage the parts for a launcher. 

The first picture shows a launcher which basically consists of a tripod and attached to that is a piece of u-shaped channel to take the rocket.  The channel has a vertical, moveable rod from it to the ground and the angle of the rod to the ground determines the angle of elevation of the channel.

The second ladder type is basically a step ladder with two channels attached, one either side, at the top of the ladder side.  (In fact, it looks as if each channel can hold two rockets.)  The angle of the step side (and, therefore, the angle of elevation) can be adjusted by moving the non-step part of the ladder in or out.

Overall, pretty simple, even crude, devices.  Not, it might be said, exactly rocket science!   

[Andy R]

I think from the two pictures provided it's not too difficult to envisage the parts for a launcher.

Ya, that’s not as simple as it sounds (I have NO “Spatial Perceptions” according to ASVAB)… But the written description you gave makes enough sence for me to figure it out. ¡THANKS! (Now to find the time… )

[playmofire]

Ya, that’s not as simple as it sounds (I have NO “Spatial Perceptions” according to ASVAB)… But the written description you gave makes enough sence for me to figure it out. ¡THANKS! (Now to find the time… )

Apologies, I didn't know that.  Glad the written details helped.