Battery

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“Battery” belongs to a group of articles written in accordance with Dana’s first request for articles beginning with B (see Note 49). On September 18, 1857 Engels informed Marx of his intention to send him this article in a few days. But on September 24 he wrote to Marx that he would start writing it, and perhaps some others, the next day, i.e. September 25. Engels finished “Battery” by the end of September. Marx recorded the dispatch of the new material to New York in the following entry in his notebook on September 29, 1857: “Cyclopaedia. Bern. Bessières. Bosquet. Bivouac. Battery. Blindage. Bonnet.”

When publishing Engels’ article the editors of the Cyclopaedia supplemented it with a special section, the article “Floating Batteries” by another author, containing data on the building of warships of this class in the USA.

In field artillery, this expression means a number of guns, from 4 to 12, with the necessary horses, gunners, and equipments, and destined generally to act together in batde. The British and French have 6, the Prussians and Austrians 8, the Russians 8 or 12, guns to a battery. Field batteries are divided into light, heavy, and howitzer batteries; in some countries, there are, beside, mountain batteries. In describing a position for battle, the word battery is also used to indicate any spot where guns are placed. In siege artillery, battery means either any one of the lines of the fortress which is armed with guns, or else, and especially, a number of guns placed in line for the attack of a fortress, and covered by a parapet. The construction of this parapet, and the emplacements for the guns, are what is understood by the construction of a battery. With respect to their profiles, batteries are either elevated, half sunken, or sunken; with respect to their armament, guns, howitzer, mortar batteries; with respect to the shelter afforded, batteries with embrasures, barbette batteries (without embrasures), casemated batteries (covered in bomb proof). With respect to the purpose aimed at, there are dismounting batteries, to dismount the guns in one of the lines of the fortress, parallel to which they are constructed; ricochetting batteries, constructed in the prolongation of a line, and destined to enfilade it, the balls and shells just passing over the parapet and hopping along the line in low jumps; mortar batteries, to bombard the interior of the bastions and the buildings in the fortress; breaching batteries, to bring down the revêtement walls of the scarp of the rampart; counter batteries, erected on the crown of the glacis opposite the flanks, to silence the fire of a flank which protects the ditch in front of the breach. Strand batteries are intrenchments thrown up on particular points of a sea shore to act against hostile men-of-war; they are either permanent, in which case they are generally constructed of masonry, and often casemated, with several tiers of guns, or temporary earthworks, mostly barbette batteries to insure a wider sweep; in either case they are generally closed to the rear against a sudden attack by landed infantry.

To construct an earthwork battery, the principal dimensions are traced, and the earth procured from a ditch in front or rear of the intended parapet. The outer slope of the parapet is left without revêtement, but the interior slope and the cheeks or interior sides of the embrasures are revetted with fascines, gabions, hurdles, casks filled with earth, sandbags, or sods of turf, so as to retain the earth in its position, even with a steep slope. A berme, or level space, is generally left standing between the outer slope of the parapet and the ditch in front, to strengthen the parapet. A banquette is constructed inside the battery, between the embrasures, high enough for a man to stand on and look over the parapet. An epaulment of parapet forming an obtuse angle with that of the battery is often constructed on one or both flanks, to protect it against flanking fire. Where the battery can be enfiladed, traverses or epaulments between the guns become necessary. In barbette batteries, this protection is strengthened by a further elevation of the traverses several feet above the height of the parapet, which elevation is continued across the parapet to its outer crest, and called a bonnet. The guns are placed on platforms constructed of planks and sleepers, or other timbers, to insure permanency of emplacement. The ammunition is kept partly in recesses under the parapet, partly in a sunken building of timber covered in bomb proof with earth. To shelter the gunners from rifle firing, the embrasures are often closed by blindages of strong planks, to open to either side when the gun is run out, or provided with a hole for the muzzle to pass through. The fire of the enemy is rendered innocuous by blindages of timbers laid with one end on the inner crest of the parapet, and sloping to the ground behind. In batteries where howitzers are used, the soles of the embrasures slope upward instead of downward; in mortar batteries, there are no embrasures at all, the high elevation taken insuring the passage of the shell over the crest of the parapet. To give effective protection against the fire of heavy guns, the parapet should be at least 17 or 18 feet thick; but if the calibre of the enemy is very heavy, and the ground bad, a thickness of 24 feet may be required. A height of 7 or 8 feet gives sufficient protection. The guns should have a clear distance of from 10 to 14 feet; if traverses are necessary, the parapet will have to be lengthened accordingly.