Standing Well Back

17th Century

A Booby Trap IED from 1630

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!

21st Century

Syrian FSA EOD techniques

Oh dear!

No comment.

19th Century

The Felix Orsini Bomb

The Orsini bomb was a remarkable terrorist IED in the form of a hand grenade used in 1858 by Italian Felix Orsini in an assassination attempt on the French Emperor. The bomb or IED was originally designed by a Hungarian artillery officer.

 

The IED casing was made by English gun maker Joseph Taylor In Birmingham and tested in Sheffield and Devon. Taylor claimed he thought the the device a genuine piece of ordnance. The grenades were then smuggled into France as “gas machinery” components.

What is important in terms of IED design and explosive history is that the entire fill of the device was primary explosive, mercury fulminate.  The protuberances mounted crushable percussion caps, as used on small arms of the time.

In one of those peculiar coincidences of history, Orsini decided to attack the target as he went to the Opera. Readers of this blog will know the story of a previous IED attack on the “original” Napoleon in 1800, while he too was on his way to the opera, some 58 years earlier.

Three of the Orsini bombs were thrown, killing 8 people and wounding 142 (including Orsini himself).  But the Emperor Napoleon and his wife were both unhurt.  Here’s a description of the plan from a participant:

 

 

Here’s another odd thing – an Orsini grenade was dug up in a field in Arkansas in the 1950s  – discussed here, which includes a beautiful photo of one of the devices. I know a lot of improvised grenades were used in the American Civil War – perhaps Orsini’s designs were copied?

If you think that improvised grenades have advanced much, technologically, in the 150 years since Orsini, then I suggest you take a look at this from CJ Chivers excellent blog, showing some Syrian improvised grenades.

 

Update on Sunday, December 30, 2012 at 8:08PM by Roger Davies

There’s an interesting follow up to Orsini’s colleague, De Rudio. (De Rudio is quoted directly in the report above)  He was sentenced to jail, not execution. He then escaped, fled to Italy and thence to the US. Eventually he joined the US Army, fought in the Civil War, and then joined the 7th Cavalry under Custer. He fought and survived the battle of Little Big Horn,died in 1910 and is buried in the Praesidio in San Francisco. I kid you not.  Perhaps the Orsini grenade found in an Arkansas field in 1953 fell out of his pocket?  ; -)

Update on Sunday, December 30, 2012 at 8:19PM by Roger Davies

The William Tell Connection. In the assassination attempt outlined above, the target Emperor Napoleon III was en route to the opera with his wife, to see a performance of Rossini’s “William Tell”.

In Barcelona in 1893, some 35 years later, an anarchist called Santiago Salvador threw two “Orsini bombs” into the audience at the Liceu theater, killing 22 and wounding 30.  He threw the grenades during the second act of an Opera – and the name of the Opera was — Rossini’s “William Tell”.

19th Century

Rockets – a reassessment, a mystery and a discovery

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.

19th Century

The mystery of “the man with no history”, other spies and Emmet’s rockets and IEDs

I’ve been on the trail of a mystery and found some interesting descriptions of Emmet’s IEDs from (see earlier posts).   In the attempted uprising in Dublin in 1803, Emmet designed some “exploding beams” as referred to as “Emmet’s infernals”. Here’s a description of how they were made:

Mr. Emmet had several square beams, twelve feet long, sent to the depot at Thomas Street, which he intended to have got bored with a small pump auger, not in the centre but nearer one side, and the hole was to be perforated to within one foot of the end, and then filled with powder till it came to a foot from the mouth. The hole was then stopped with a plug a foot long, of the same diameter, well spiked to prevent it from coming out. A touch-hole was to be perforated in the middle of the beam on the side which the bore approached the nearest, and a pivot set on each end on which common car wheels were placed and turned. Two cases five feet long each, filled with small stones and combustibles were to be placed at the top of the beam. The explosion of this machine placed as an obstacle before the enemy must have a terrible effect.

I’ve also found a description of how the rockets were constructed in the concealed workshops behind false walls.  There is no mention of the exploding “warhead’ which I also assumed was present.  Perhaps I might reassess that assumption – at least some Rockets used by Tipu Sultan in the Mysore campaign a few years earlier relied on blades attached to the front of the rocket, and maybe didn’t have an exploding warhead.

Emmet assigned to a Mr Johnstone the task of preparing the rockets and left him very detailed instructions.  Mr Johnstone is described as being some sort of expert – crucially it is said that he had previously served with the East India Company and perhaps made rockets for them – this would have been about the time that The East India company was fighting the Mysore wars against Tipu Sultan, who were using rockets against the Company.  Perhaps Johnstone was involved in making copies for the East India Company and brought his expertise to Dublin.

Here’s the description from a primary source:

There was a man who went by the name of Johnstone who had spent several years in the East India service, where he had frequently been employed in preparing fire-works. Perhaps this man with Robert Emmet were the real inventors of those rockets, latterly universally known under the appellation of Congreve rockets — be that as it may, I think it only right to relate here all I know of the matter. At Mr. Emmet’s request I called on Mr. M. the gunsmith, and showed him a strong piece of paper shaped in a certain way, which was to serve as a model to have tubes twenty inches long, two and a-half inches diameter, cut out of strong sheet iron; as soldering would be liable to melt with the fire, they were to be clasped and well hammered on the joints, which would render them quite solid. The sloped shape at one end formed a point like an arrow. The gunsmith soon brought me a tube made after the model with which both Mr. Emmet and Johnstone were well pleased. Consequently I had to tell him to have several hundreds of the same description made as soon as possible.

Johnstone set to work mixing the ingredients to fill those tubes, composed of powder, nitre, sulphur, etc., and when this stuff was prepared, it had the appearance of wet mortar. But everything was done according to Mr. Emmet’s instructions; he consulted a scientific work respecting the way such materials should be prepared, and even the way the tubes were to be filled, the size of each portion to be put in at a time, the weight of the hammer, the plug to drive it down, the number of strokes to be given before another portion was put in.  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 then filled with powder. Thus prepared, they were to be fastened with strong wire to a slight pole about eight feet long at one end; and from the other end a cord prepared as a fuse would convey the fire to the mouth of the tube. A small trestle four feet high was provided on which the pole was to rest to be poised and sent off in the direction of the enemy.

Here’s a description of a trial firing

Johnstone, who was making the rockets, brought one of them ready prepared, so we all went into the fields; that is, Mr. Emmet, Russell, Dowdall, Hamilton, etc. The rocket was made fast to a pole with wire, and rested on a trestle ; the match being put to it, it went off like a thunderbolt, carrying the pole along with it, and throwing flames and fire behind, as it advanced, and when it fell, it went on tearing up the ground till the last of the matter with which it was filled was completely consumed. Mr. Emmet and Johnstone were quite satisfied with the effect it produced, and they decided that all the rockets or tubes should be prepared and filled in the same manner; the cord which was placed along the pole to serve as a train or match did not communicate the fire quick enough, but that was easily remedied at the depot by preparing others with stronger liquid, etc.

Now Johnston is an interesting character and aside from his supposed service with the East India Company is described as “a man with no past”. According to one report Johnstone was working in one of the rocket making workshops when an “accident” occurred and it blew up, blowing the roof off the building. This caused Emmet to launch his rebellion prematurely.  He then disappears from the scene.  Emmet’s associates accused him of being a British spy who blew up the workshop on the orders of British spymasters, citing his lack of history, his disappearance and the fact that the British did not investigate the explosion as significant factors.

Another, conflicting, report says that the explosion as caused by a Michael McDaniel – who was drinking at the time and accidentally initiated a fuze he was preparing. This report suggests that after the explosion he was tasked by Emmet with buying blunderbusses for the rebels. Emmet gave him “60 guineas” for the purchase, but McDaniel disappeared with the money never to be seen again.

Another of the rebels involved Pat Fenerty became a “super-grass” and gave evidence against the rebels, before ending up working Woolwich on the British Congreve rockets.

Complicated, but certainly indicative of a disastrous rebellion riven with incompetence and British spies.

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