The Massacre at Pollilur and our National Anthem

[le Voyageur]

The battle of Pollilur took place on 10 September 1780  and was waged between two armies commanded by Tipu Sultan of the Kingdom of Mysore fielding a force between 2 000 to 3 000 men, and Lt. Colonel William Ballie of the British East India Company having a 3 to 1 advantage.

In short, the British per their tradition of the mass advance didn't fare well in this fight due to an advance in weaponry they weren't prepared for .

Being out numbered, Tipu countered Ballie with modified Mysoren rockets, primitive self  propelled pipe bombs on bamboo shafts with a two kilometer range, sending hundreds into the British advance. With over 3000 kia’s, Ballie surrendered.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysorean_rockets

Eventfully,  The British East India Company was able to recover a number of these rockets, sending them back to England where they would be reverse engineered by  Sir William Congreve into what would be known as the Congreve rocket.

The Most famous legacy of the Congreves came during the War of 1812, when they created the “Rockets’ Red Glare”. For 25 hours, barrages of Congreve rockets were fired from the British ship Erebus against the Americans defenders of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland on 13 September 13 and 14 1814….

Edited November 14, 2019 by le Voyageur

[RememberSchiff]

1 hour ago, le Voyageur said:

The Most famous legacy of the Congreves came during the War of 1812, when they created the “Rockets’ Red Glare”. For 25 hours, barrages of Congreve rockets were fired from the British ship Erebus against the Americans defenders of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland on 13 September 13 and 14 1814….

My den made a non-working replica of a Congreve rocket for a den meeting. I used 4in round duct for the rocket body and cone and attached a 10ft wood launch strip.

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by RememberSchiff
credit where due