Here’s the story of a twin IED attack on Swedish ships in 1645. Two senior Swedish officers were in the port of Wismar in what is now Germany. Gustav Wransel, the Swedish Master-General of Ordnance was on board the Swedish vessel the “Lion” and the Swedish Admiral Blume was on board the “Dragon”, both about to set sail for Sweden. Here’s the story:
Compare the device from Syria, last month at this link: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/syria022013/s27_41627145.jpg
with this IED from 1630:
Ok, so the Syrian rebel one hasn’t actually got wheels on, but the axles are there. This design was also used in Dublin in 1803.
I’m digging away at some interesting 17th century IED and explosive “textbooks” and I think I’ve found another document used by Irish Rebel Emmet in 1803. You will recall from earlier posts that he appears to have used an English manual from the 1690s for his rockets (see the post here), and now I think I’ve found an earlier French document, published in 1630, which he used for his IED designs – no kidding. More on that to come, but for now this extract of an interesting “victim-operated” booby trap IED from that 1630 manual. The image is shown below. The text accompanying it (not included here) explains it further. It’s a basket, to be left somewhere where the enemy might find it. Laid on top are such attractive objects as “eggs and fruits”. Hidden in the base is an explosive shell, surrounded by musket balls. The shell’s burning fuse is initiated by a wheel-lock gun mechanism, and that in turn has a cord from its trigger tied to an attractive object at the top of the basket. Some things don’t change.
The manual that this is taken from has a lot of other interesting IEDs in, some of which I think I can show Emmet was building in Dublin in 1803, so 170 years after it’s publication. We worry today about the proliferation of IED designs and tactical concepts on the internet – the truth is that this book shows that the problem goes back a long way and the proliferation of such knowledge is pretty ancient. As an aside, if any reader of this has blog post has an understanding of archaic 17th century French technical language, I could do with some help analysing this book!
In my recent posts about the Irish rebellion in 1803, I suggested that the crucial development seen at the end of the 1700s and early 1800s was the introduction of a metal rocket casing to increase the internal pressure and hence range of the rockets. This assessment is stated as a fact in a number of sources, discussing the development of Congreve’s rockets and their metal bodies. I also assumed that the reports suggesting that it was Emmet’s rockets that were a new development and inspired Congreve were right. There are many historical textbooks which suggest that the designs that emerged in the first few years of the 1800’s were significant developments from the Indian rockets of Tipu Sultan the Indian leader of the Mysore wars. Well, it seems the textbooks, and I were wrong, but in finding this out I encountered something remarkable. Bear with me as I tell the tale.
Firstly, read my last post about how Emmet in Dublin 1803 manufactured his newly invented rockets. Note that the rockets were described as being two and a half inches in diameter, how the maker, Johnstone “consulted a scientific work respecting the way such materials should be prepared” and that “An iron needle was placed in the centre of the tube around which the mortar was tempered, and when the needle was drawn out, the hole was filled with powder”. Also it describes Johnstone using the written instructions which gave the number of blows used to tap the rocket propellant into place with a mallet.
I then went searching for more historical documents relating to rocket development, and found a copy of this document, dated 1696, a hundred and seven years prior to the Dublin rebellion. This is a book written by Robert Anderson, a researcher in ordnance and artillery working for the Earl of Romney, then “Master General of his majesties Ordnance”. All of a sudden things got interesting very quickly.
On page A4 of the document, here, it says halfway down, “I have given easie, plain and ready Rules for making of Rockets to two Inches and half diameter.”
I sat up. Two and a half inches? Could that be a coincidence? I dived deeper.
The book first describes how to make the rocket motor moulds. Then on page B2 it describes “the bottom of the Rocket-Mould with the Needle to be put in and taken out:”
Then on page B3 it describes filling the rocket composition with charges and tapping the charges into place “and to every Charge 10, 12 or 14 blows with a Mallet”
So, it is very clear to me that Emmet and his rebels were not making newly developed rockets, learned from the experience of the East India Company’s battles against Tipu Sultan – they were making rockets to the specific design of a two and a half inch rocket design of Englishman Robert Anderson, written over a hundred years earlier in 1696, and using the same document I have in front of me now. Remarkable. I’m not aware of anyone realising that link before now.
I then went a couple of pages further on and found this diagram. The adjoining text clearly states that the rocket body (AFEB) is made from a piece of gun barrel, and is metal, not pasteboard. Thus the English (and Anderson specifically) had already designed metal rocket bodies over a hundred years before Emmet and subsequently Congreve used the same concept. Many references (incluidng Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipaedia) have this wrong ascribing such development to Tipu Sultan a hundred years later.
So, I think this changes our view of history. Emmets’s rockets were not his own development – they were explicitly built from instructions from an English developer over a hundred years old by 1803. Also, Congreve’s rockets were not new in using metal bodies to increase the internal pressure of the rocket motor – that too was achieved by the same developer, Anderson in 1696.
I find it fascinating that rebels today are making their own versions of these munitions, in hidden rooms in Syria, 300 years since Anderson, and 200 years since Emmet copied his designs, constructed them in hidden rooms in Dublin and first used them in a rebellion. Of course today’s rockets have changes in design and in the rocket composition – but in effect, frankly, they are pretty darned similar.
As promised some time ago, here’s the story of an attempted IED attack in 1650.
In 1650 the second part of the English Civil War was taking place. A key Royalist commander and former cavalry chief was Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert is a very interesting gentleman, with a keen scientific interest in explosives and invention. With significant experience as a general in the 30 Years War in Europe, his dashing exploits as a cavalry commander in various battles, including Edgehill, and as an extremely ruthless Royalist leader gave him a bogeyman status amongst the Parliamentarians. By 1650 he was commanding a Royalist fleet of vessels, being pursued by a Parliamentarian fleet.
In 1650, his fleet took refuge in the River Tagus, near Lisbon in Portugal. The opposition fleet also lay at anchor not far off with the Portuguese enforcing some sort of ceasefire between the two fleets while they competed for support from the Portuguese king. Trade between the merchants of Lisbon and the two fleets was natural, and Prince Rupert tried to take advantage of this.
Prince Rupert designed a large improvised explosive device in a barrel, dressed a member of his crew as a merchant and employed two locals to row a small boat, amongst other trading dinghies, down towards HMS Leopard, the key enemy warship. They entered into a trade to sell the “barrel of oil” with the quartermaster of HMS Leopard, and after agreeing a price the barrel was being hoisted aboard when the Leopard’s crew became suspicious. The three man crew were seized and the barrel investigated. It was found that a large explosive filled shell had been placed inside the barrel. A string from the merchant’s boat led in through the bunghole, to a pistol. Pulling the string would fire the pistol and ignite quickfuze leading to the shell. It was clear that the plan was to initiate the device once it had been swing aboard, killing as many of the crew as possible and damaging the ship.
Ten years later, after the war was over Prince Rupert became one of the three founders of the Royal Society. The Royal Society took great interest in research into explosives and related inventions, and Prince Rupert himself published a paper at the Royal Society on an improved recipe for gunpowder in 1662.
Of course, students of modern day terrorism will see the instant parallels with the USS Cole attack in Yemen in October 2000, which again involved perpetrators approaching a warship with an IED, disguised as a local boat in a port. The investigation after the USS Cole attack noted the following failures:
It appears that HMS Leopard was pretty much the same, but luckier.
