=91.= =The capture and crowning of the covered way= is accomplished by _assault_ or by _sap_. The former is an extremely hazardous and bloody operation, which all authorities unite in condemning, and which should be undertaken only in extreme cases. It is carried out usually at night, by forming an assaulting party in the parallel, who rush forward to the crest of the covered way; capture, if possible, its guards, and under any attainable cover open a fire upon the crest of the work. All available small-arm and machine-gun fire combines with this to keep down the fire of the defence; and under cover of this fire the working parties construct, by flying sap, a trench crowning the covered way, and the communications between it and the parallel. The trench is occupied as soon as it affords cover, and is subsequently completed and prepared for the reception of its guns and infantry guard. In crowning the covered way by sap (Pl. IV, Fig. 36), the saps are broken out from the parallel, a circular place of arms is constructed, which gives additional communication and serves as a depot for trench materials, the traversed sap is pushed forward, and the covered way crowned as previously described (par. 36). It will frequently be necessary to run out at right angles to this sap short branches of parallels (Pl. IX, Fig. 83), to serve as places of arms, or as trenches of departure for mines or galleries, for underground warfare or for breaching walls. =92.= =Breaching the Scarps and Counter-scarps.=--The counter-scarp, as a rule, and the scarp at times is breached by mining. (See Military Mining, pars. 91-93). When practicable, however, the scarp is breached with artillery and preferably by guns of the second artillery position; since a breaching battery on the crowning of the covered way, which must be provided with most ample splinter-proofs to protect the gunners from flying splinters of masonry and shot, is in general constructed only with great losses and delays; and the guns in this position must be fired under great angles of depression, requiring very deep embrasures to avoid exposing the cannoneers. When the ditch is deep and narrow it may be necessary to blow down the counter scarp and part of the glacis, in order to expose the scarp-wall to the fire of the breaching battery, whether on the glacis or at a distance. This necessity should be foreseen and provided for in locating the batteries.