The Hwacha - Korean Rocket Launcher

I do a lot of research for my books. In fact, I adore research. So imagine my surprise when one of the coolest weapons in Korean history was not discovered by me and my nerdy library research skills, but by Da Man. Da Man who hasn't been inside a library since law school. Yes him. He found this genuine artifact of Korean history. On TV. How funny is that? So what is this thing? It's the Hwacha - a Korean rocket launcher. Below is a model displayed at the Seoul War Memorial. The Hwacha is this really awesome, really cool weapon invented in the 1400s by Korean scientists. But it doesn't really look that impressive right?

It's basically a two wheeled cart with a launch pad with 200 holes filled with ammunition. Ah, but there in lies the beauty of this weapon. The ammunition is made up of small rockets attached to iron spiked arrows, each with a small paper bag filled with gunpowder attached to its fletching. Once the weapon is ignited, it fires off all 200 arrows in mere seconds with a trajectory of 500 meters. That's more than five football fields, folks. To really have an idea what it would look like, here's a very short clip of an actual hwacha in action.

Da Man caught this on The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters show and yelled at me to come down and watch it. I was blown away. Mythbusters made their own replica and tested it out to prove that it actually worked and would be deadly against a large attacking army. Score one for Da Man.

So why am I bringing it up? Well first of all, it's cool as hell! Secondly, I plan on using the hwacha in my books. I couldn't fit it into my current book but I plan to use it in the final book, where an all out frenzied battle royale will see 50 of these in play against a large demon army. Course this all depends upon selling the first book. So be patient my lovely little hwacha. Your time will come soon. And the world will know the power of your awesomeness. Cue evil laugh.