made 18 feet long, 15 feet broad behind, and 9 before, with a slope of about 9 or 10 inches, to prevent the guns from recoiling too much, and for bringing them more easily forward when loaded. The dimensions of the platforms, sleepers, planks, hurters, and nails, ought to be regulated according to the nature of the pieces that are to be mounted.
The powder magazines to serve the batteries ought to be at a convenient distance from the same, as also from each other; the large one, at least 55 feet in the rear of the battery, and the small ones about 25. Sometimes the large magazines are made either to the right or left of the battery, in order to deceive the enemy; they are generally built 5 feet under ground; the sides and roof must be well secured with boards, and covered with earth, clay, or something of a similar substance, to prevent the powder from being fired: they are guarded by centinels. The balls are piled in readiness beside the merlins between the embrasures.
The officers of the artillery ought always to construct their own batteries and platforms, and not the engineers, as is practised in the English service; for certainly none can be so good judges of those things as the artillery officers, whose daily practice it is; consequently they are the properest people to direct the situation and to superintend the making of batteries on all occasions.
Mortar-Battery. This kind of battery differs from a gun-battery, only in having no embrasures. It consists of a parapet of 18 or 20 feet thick, 7¹⁄₂ high in front, and 6 in the rear; of a berm 2¹⁄₂ or 3 feet broad, according to the quality of the earth; of a ditch 24 feet broad at the top, and 20 at the bottom. The beds[37] must be 9 feet long, 6 broad, 8 from each other, and 5 feet from the parapet: they are not to be sloping like the gun platforms, but exactly horizontal. The insides of such batteries are sometimes sunk 2 or 3 feet into the ground, by which they are much sooner made than those of cannon. The powder magazines and piles of shells are placed as is mentioned in the article Gun-Battery.
Ricochet-Battery, so called by its inventor M. Vauban, and first used at the siege of Aeth in 1697. It is a method of firing with a very small quantity of powder, and a little elevation of the gun, so as just to fire over the parapet, and then the shot will roll along the opposite rampart, dismounting the cannon, and driving or destroying the troops. In a siege they are generally placed at about 300 feet before the first parallel, perpendicular to the faces produced, which they are to enfilade. Ricochet practice is not confined to cannon alone; small mortars and howitzers may effectually be used for the same purpose. They are of singular use in action to enfilade an enemy’s ranks; for when the men perceive the shells rolling and bouncing about with their fuzes burning, expecting them to burst every moment, the bravest among them will hardly have courage to await their approach and face the havoc of their explosion.
Horizontal Batteries are such as have only a parapet and ditch; the platform being only the surface of the horizon made level.
Breach or Sunk Batteries are such as are sunk upon the glacis, with a design to make an accessible breach in the faces or saliant angles of the bastion and ravelin.
Cross Batteries are such as play athwart each other against the same object, forming an angle at the point of contact; whence greater destruction follows, because what one shot shakes, the other beats down.
Oblique Batteries or Batteries en Echarpe, are those which play on any work obliquely, making an obtuse angle with the line of range, after striking the object.
Enfilading Batteries are those that sweep or scour the whole length of a strait line, or the face or flank of any work.
Sweeping Batteries. See Enfilading-Batteries.
Redan Batteries are such as flank each other at the saliant and rentrant angles of a fortification.
Direct Batteries are those situated opposite to the place intended to be battered, so that the balls strike the works nearly at right angles.
Reverse Batteries are those which play on the rear of the troops appointed to defend the place.
Glancing Batteries are such whose shot strike the object at an angle of about 20°, after which the ball glances from the object, and recoils to some adjacent parts.
Joint Batteries, -
Camarade Batteries,
when several guns fire on the same object at the same time. When 10 guns are fired at once, their effect will be much greater than when fired separately.
Sunk Batteries are those whose platforms are sunk beneath the level of the field; the ground serving for the parapet; and in it the embrasures are made. This often happens in mortar, but seldom in gun-batteries. Battery sometimes signifies the guns themselves placed in a battery.
Fascine Batteries, -
Gabion Batteries,
are batteries made of those machines, where sods are scarce, and the earth very loose or sandy. For a particular detail of all kinds of batteries, see Toussard’s Artillerist, No. I. c. 1.
Battery.—Dimensions of Batteries.
1. Gun Batteries.—Gun Batteries are usually 18 feet per gun. Their principal dimensions are as follow:
Ditch— Breadth 12 feet.
Depth 8
Note.—These dimensions give for a battery of two guns 3456 cubic feet of earth; and must be varied according to the quantity required for the epaulment.
Epaulement— Breadth at bottom 23 feet.
Breadth at top 18
Height within 7
Height without 6 ft. 4 in.
Slope, interior ²⁄₇ of h’gt.
Slope, exterior ¹⁄₂ of h’gt.
Note.—The above breadths at top and bottom are for the worst soil; good earth will not require a base of more than 20 feet wide, which will reduce the breadth at top to 15 feet; an epaulement of these dimensions for two guns will require about 4200 cubic feet of earth, and deducting 300 cubic feet for each embrazure, leaves 3600 required for the epaulement. In confined situations the breadth of the epaulement may be only 12 feet.
Embrazures— Distance between their centers 18 feet
Openings, interior 20 inc.
Openings, exterior 9 feet
Height of the sole above the platform 32 inc.
Note.—Where the epaulement is made of a reduced breadth, the openings of the embrazures are made with the usual breadth within, but the exterior openings proportionably less. The embrazures are sometimes only 12 feet asunder, or even less when the ground is very confined. The superior slope of the epaulement need be very little, where it is not to be defended by small arms. The slope of the side of the embrasures must depend upon the height of the object to be fired at. The Berm is usually made 3 feet wide,[38] and where the soil is loose, this breadth is increased to 4 feet.
2. Howitzer Batteries.—The dimensions of howitzer batteries are the same as those for guns, except that the interior openings of the embrazures are 2 feet 6 inches, and the soles of the embrazures have a slope inwards of about 10 degrees.
3. Mortar Batteries.—Are also made of the same dimensions as gun batteries, but an exact adherence to those dimensions is not so necessary. They have no embrazures. The mortars are commonly placed 15 feet from each other, and about 12 feet from the epaulement.
Note.—Though
