This is a Hale 3-pounder war rocket of ca. 1865-1870. It a typical example of the gunpowder-propelled "stickless" or "rotary" war rocket first developed by the Englishman William Hale (1797-1870) in 1844. To eliminate the long and cumbersome wooden guidesticks of the early nineteenth-century Congreve rocket, Hale put curved exhaust vanes at the nozzle end of the rocket, causing the rocket to spin in flight. This rotation helped to keep the rocket on course during its flight. Hale rockets were widely used in Britain's colonial wars up to about 1899, when they became obsolete due to advances in artillery guns. Their range was about 1,100 m (3,600 ft). The 3-pounder was the smallest caliber of the Hale rockets and apparently was not much used.

This rocket was discovered buried in beach sand in England in 1974 and the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, England, gave it to the Smithsonian in 1977.