Name And Info About This Rocket-Launcher ?

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Sorry, just found this pics and I'm curious. Any info about it welcomed and blessed.

[Brian]

Interesting to see the string hanging down with a bead, that is obviously being used for elevation. Hmmmm. Good pic.

[vajo]

Bo-hiya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo-hiya

 

These rockets aerodynamic design is not changed over the last hundreds of years. Elon Musk uses the same today. 

 

[IanB]

From what I have gathered, these missiles consisted of a wooden stick which fitted the bore of the gun, extended by a paper tube and a wooden nose cap. The fins were copper. They were filled with hemp rags and gunpowder, the aim being to scatter burning rags over enemy buildings in the hope of starting fires. The problem was getting the fuse right so it didn't go off in the muzzle of the gun, nor after it passed the target.

Ian Bottomley

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Many thanks to all for the usual kind collaboration.

[Bugyotsuji]

Once they discovered the limits of lead ball in attacking a castle, gunnery schools started to teach rocketry and in the Edo Period it soon became the rage throughout the country.

 

There were many variations on these rockets. The most common type that I have seen is a solid length of wood with an iron nose, and those copper fins that Ian describes. The shaft is bound with oil-soaked rope which is set afire. Fired up at 45 degrees they would aim to have it land on a tiled roof, of a castle Tenshukaku for example, and smash through and set the building alight.

 

Such guns were described as hand-cannons by early Westerners, and it was the larger bore versions such as 100 Mon-me that were suited to firing these rockets, or flaming bolts.

 

The caption above says something like 'Nakajima Ryu Hojutsu, Bohiya Kakae-uchi no Zu'.

[vajo]

Looks like a very modern weapon.

 

 

German Federal Police (BGS) from End of 50's to end of 70's