Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Middle Age

Hwacha — multiple-rocket salvo launcher — Choe Museon

~1400 AD · Transmission: Silenced
TechnologyInventionKorean

The hwacha (화차) is a wheel-mounted launcher that simultaneously fires between 100 and 200 gunpowder rockets (신기전, singijeon) at an adjustable angle. Developed from Choe Museon's work on Korean gunpowder during the Goryeo-Joseon transition, it represents the first documented multiple-rocket artillery. The singijeon rockets were classified into four sizes according to range and explosive charge. The system was decisive at the Battle of Haengju (1593) during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Japanese invasion, where 3,400 Korean defenders repelled an assault estimated at 30,000 soldiers. Europe did not develop comparable rocket artillery until the Congreve rockets (1804), four hundred years later. The technology remained practically unknown in the West until 20th-century military-historical studies.

InstitutionGwansaseo (armament bureau) — Joseon
Historical regionJoseon (present-day South Korea)
Primary sourceNeedham, J., Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5 pt. 7 (Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic), Cambridge UP, 1986 — section on Korean rockets
Secondary sourceBritannica — britannica.com/technology/hwacha; Korean Ministry of National Defense Historical Research Institute, 2012
Original languageclassical Korean / hanja
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