Hwacha ~ 화차

Hwacha?

What? Hwacha? 화차? Whatcha? I don’t get it. What’s with the nerdy game piece on my blog?  Well that, kind and curious reader, is an ancient Korean weapon and the topic of today’s culture note. For the interested, those are fire arrows with attached, exploding gunpowder pouches.  The arrows even have their own special name, singijeon or shinkichon (magical machine arrows).

In other words....an ancient Multiple Rocket Launch System?

Though exact dates are unclear, the hwacha were built and put to use during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) and many historians suggest it was effective during the Imjin War, when the Japanese invaded Korea (1592-1598). Though like many if not most great events, inventions, things to come from the Joseon period, the watchful eye under whose command this was secretly developed was King Sejong the Great (ruled from 1418-1450) though the first is said to have been completed by a handful of Korean scientists in 1409. The concept being that these arrows would explode on impact. Frightening!

Under King Sejong the hwacha was further developed and produced in great quantities, however.  One of the improvements said to have been made under King Sejong was the increased capability to fire 200 arrows at one time.

Hwachas were essentially crafted like hand carts with a flat launch pad atop wheels, making it mobile.  The box had a number of holes carved out according to the number of singijeon to be fired.  200 is likely the max you are going to find as this is the most commonly considered number.  Accounts vary as to the distance the singijeon could travel, with the minimum and max ranges of 100-400+ fully dependent on angle of fire, weather and elevation.

In 2008, Mythbusters recreated the original design with modification and put the hwacha to a field test.  Once the machine was prepared, they set up a small-scale “army” to fire at as a test.  The results were truly amazing and can be seen in the following YouTube clip which describes the whole process and shows the end result.

Title: Hwacha.  Not about the hwacha

Title: Singijeon.  About the hwacha

So much is attributed to the hwacha that movie was made to show, according to imdb.com, “…epic tale of Korea’s creation of Singijeon…”. A couple of interesting things to note about this movie is the title is Singijeon (or The Divine Weapon for the English translation) while a movie actually called Hwacha seems entirely irrelevant.  Also of note, the movie was not about the Imjin Wars and repelling the Japanese but against the Chinese, instead.  Additionally, this is not the only historical inaccuracy in the film but it still may be worth watching (and the subject of a future movie review).  

The Divine Weapon (film)
Hwacha (film)
The Hwacha at Suite101
Hwacha at Wikipedia