BATTERY, in the military art, any place where cannon or mortars are mounted, either to attack the forces of the enemy or to batter a fortification; and hence batteries have various names, according to the purposes which they are designed to effect.
Gun-Battery is a defence constructed of earth faced with green sods or fascines, sometimes of gabions filled with earth. It consists of a breast-work, epaulement, or parapet, about 8 feet in height, and 18 or 20 feet in thickness, with a ditch 12 feet broad at the bottom, 18 at the top, and 7 feet in depth. The open spaces through which the muzzles of the cannon are pointed are called embrasures, and the solid masses between the embrasures, merlons. The distance from the centre of one embrasure to that of another is 18 feet, and this is also the distance at which the guns are placed from each other; consequently the merlons are 16 feet within and 7 without. The genuallères, or those parts of the parapet which cover the carriage of the gun, are generally made 2½ feet in height from the platform to the opening of the embrasures; but this height must be regulated by the semi-diameter of the wheels of the carriage and the nature of the gun. The platforms are plank floors made to prevent the cannon from sinking into the ground, and they are generally 18 feet in length, 15 feet in breadth behind, and 9 feet before, with a rise of nine or ten inches from the parapet to check the recoil of the guns, and to render it more easy to bring them forward again when loaded.
Mortar-Batteries differ from gun-batteries in this, that the parapets have no embrasures, and the platforms have no slope, but are exactly horizontal; the shells being fired quite over the parapet, commonly at an elevation of 45 degrees.
Open Battery is a number of cannon, commonly field pieces, ranged in a row abreast, on some natural elevation of ground, or on an artificial bank raised for the purpose.
Covered or Masked Battery is when the cannon and gunners are covered by a bank or breast-work, commonly made of brushwood, faggots, and earth.
Sunk or Buried Battery is when the platform is sunk or let down into the ground, so that trenches must be cut in the earth opposite the muzzles of the guns, to serve as embrasures to fire through.
Cross-Batteries are two batteries which play athwart each other upon the same object, forming there an angle, and battering with more effect, because what one battery shakes, the other beats down.
Battery d'Enfilade is one that sweeps or scours the whole length of a straight line, or the face or flank of any work.
Battery en Echarpe is that which plays obliquely.
Battery de Reverse is one which plays upon the rear of the troops appointed to defend a place.
Camerade Battery is when several guns are discharged upon one point at the same instant.
Redan Batteries are such as flank each other at the salient and re-entrant angles of a fortification.
Ricochet Battery, so called by its inventor M. Vauban, was first used at the siege of Aeth in 1697. It is a method of discharging cannon with a very small charge of
powder, and with just elevation enough to fire over the parapet. When properly managed, its effects are most destructive; for the shot, rolling along the opposite rampart, dismounts the cannon and disperses or destroys the troops. Ricochet practice is not confined to cannon alone: small mortars and howitzers may be effectually employed for the same purpose.
Fascine and Gabion Batteries are batteries constructed of those machines where sods are scarce, and the earth very loose or sandy.