Rocket Artillery and Early Gunpowder Rocketry

Rocket Artillery and Early Gunpowder Rocketry covers self-propelled projectile weapons and their earliest predecessors, tracing the line from medieval Chinese gunpowder incendiaries to the massed rocket-firing platforms of modern warfare. It includes the fire arrow, among the earliest weaponized uses of gunpowder from the ninth century onward, built by attaching a gunpowder-propelled incendiary to an arrow shaft, and the multiple rocket launcher, a platform that fires many self-propelled rockets from one carriage in a volley rather than a single conventional artillery shell. Both share the defining trait of rocket artillery generally, a projectile that carries its own propulsion rather than being thrown by a separate gun, trading the accuracy of conventional artillery for greater range, payload and rate of fire.