Hwacha

The hwacha is a Korean multiple rocket launcher developed during the early Joseon dynasty, first recorded in the early fifteenth century, consisting of a two-wheeled cart carrying a large wooden frame drilled with rows of holes that held singijeon, gunpowder-propelled fire arrows, allowing a single crew to launch as many as roughly a hundred rockets in a single volley. Korean forces used the hwacha most famously at the Battle of Haengju in 1593 during the Japanese invasions of Korea, where Korean accounts credit its massed volley fire, deployed from a fortified hilltop position, with helping a heavily outnumbered Korean garrison repel a much larger besieging Japanese army, though as with most premodern battle accounts the specific numbers involved are disputed. The weapon represents one of the earliest organized multiple rocket launcher systems in world military history, combining Korean and Chinese gunpowder rocket technology with a wheeled carriage decades before comparable massed rocket artillery appeared elsewhere.