How the Mysorean rocket helped Tipu Sultan’s military might gain new heights

Over 1000 Mysorean rockets were recently unearthed from the silt of an abandoned well at a village in Shivamogga district in Karnataka. Similar rockets belonging to the Tipu Sultan period were excavated previously as well and some have been archived at the London museum. The discovery of the rockets has once again turned scholarly attention towards the pathbreaking military strategy of Tipu Sultan which helped him keep the British outside his Mysorean realm for a very long time.

The invention of the Mysorean rockets was in that sense pioneering in Indian military history and they soon went on to affect the way several countries of the world went to war. (Wikimedia Commons)

What was special about the Mysore rocket?

Colonel Richard Bayly who was part of the fourth Anglo-Mysore war had noted in his diary the decisive nature of the Mysorean rockets. “They projected thousands of rockets and saluted us with repeated volleys of musketry, pouring deaths into our ranks. The sight was brilliant but awful in its effects,” he wrote.

“The construction of the Indian rocket combined all the best features of iron, steel and gunpowder with their superb mechanical structure,” write scholars H M Iftekhar Jam and Jasmine Jaim in their article ‘The decisive nature of the Indian war rocket in the Anglo-Mysore wards of the eighteenth century’.’ These rockets used a special kind of gunpowder which gave a fierce bursting, odour and smoke along with a terrifying noise.

These rockets consisted of an iron tube which was approximately 8 cms in length and closed at one end. The tube was attached to a bamboo shaft and acted as a combustion chamber. It contained gunpowder propellant and was designed in a way that even 500 grams of powder ensured that the rocket could travel about 900 meters and have devastating effects. The rockets hitherto found in Europe, China or even in India, not being iron cased, could not reach such long distances. “Eyewitnesses differed vastly as to their effectiveness, the point being that while it was easy to see the individual rocket coming and to avoid it, a concentrated discharge could cause a lot of damage and dismay, especially among the cavalry,” writes historian D M Forrest in his book ‘Tiger of Mysore: The life and death of Tipu Sultan’.

The Fathul Mujahidin (The triumphs of the holy warriors), a military manual written under the supervision of Tipu Sultan, carried in detail the requirements of using rockets in military campaigns. According to the manual, a company of rocket men or ‘jauk’ was supposed to be attached to each regiment. Historical records show that rocket corps were a regular feature in the Mysore army since the days of Hyder Ali. Beginning with about 1200 men in Hyder Ali’s times, they reached a strength of about 5000 men in Tipu’s army.

Historical records show that rocket corps were a regular feature in the Mysore army since the days of Hyder Ali. (Wikimedia Commons)

“The location of Mysore, more specifically the capital Seringapatam, played a significant role in the effective implementation of war rockets,” write Iftekhar Jaim and Jasmine Jaim. They went on to explain that “rockets had a special advantage in the war against the British by being able to be positioned far away from the fort walls because they were light compared with cannons and more easily movable on hill tracks.”

Rocket strategy was used extensively in each of the Anglo-Mysore wars. “The British as Seringapatam had suffered more from the rockets than from the shells or any other weapon used by the enemy,” write historians L.Day and I. McNeil in their work, ‘Biographical dictionary of the history of technology.’ Historians are of the opinion that when the British finally won against the Mysore army in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war, it was more a result of diplomatic skills rather than military skills in which Tipu’s troops were much superior.