The bombardier, and pocket gunnerAdye, Ralph Willett
History
The bombardier, and pocket gunner
Adye, Ralph Willett
Artillery -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.; Artillery drill and tactics
| rigging, &c. | 6 | — | 6 |
|Leather Buckets | 24 | — | 24 |
+----------------------------------+------------+---------+--------+
_BREACH._—The batteries to make a breach, should commence by marking
out as near as possible, the extent of the breach intended to be
made; first, by a horizontal line within a fathom of the bottom of
the revetement in a dry ditch, and close to the water’s edge in a wet
one; and then by lines perpendicular to this line, at short distances
from each other, as high as the cordon; then, by continuing to deepen
all these cuts, the wall will give way in a body. The guns to produce
the greatest effect should be fired as near as possible in _salvos_ or
vollies. The breach should be ⅓ the length of the face, from the center
towards the flanked angle. When the wall has given way, the firing must
be continued to make the slope of the breach practicable.
Four 24 Pounders from the lodgement in the covert way will effect a
breach in 4 or 5 days, which may be made practicable in 3 days more.
Another way of making a breach is by piercing the wall sufficiently to
admit two or three miners, who cross the ditch, and make their entry
during the night into the wall, where they establish two or three small
mines, sufficient to make a breach.—See _Artillery at a Siege_; see
also _Battery_.
_BRIDGES.—Manner of laying a Pontoon Bridge across a River._
The bank on each side, where the ends of the bridge are to be, must
be made solid and firm, by means of fascines, or otherwise. One end
of the cable must be carried across the river; and being fixed to a
picket, or any thing firm, must be drawn tight by means of a capstan,
across where the heads of the boats are to be ranged. The boats are
then launched, having on board each two men, and the necessary ropes,
&c. and are floated _down_ the stream, under the cable, to which they
are lashed endwise, by the rings and small ropes, at equal distances,
and about their own breadth asunder; more or less, according to the
strength required. If the river be very rapid, a second cable must be
stretched across it, parallel to the first, and at the distance of the
length of the boats; and to which the other ends of the boats must be
lashed. The spring lines are then lashed diagonally from one boat to
the other, to brace them tight; and the anchors, if necessary, carried
out, up the stream, and fixed to the cable or sheer-line across the
river. One of the chesses is then laid on the edge of the bank, at each
end of the bridge, bottom up; these serve to lay the ends of the baulks
upon, and as a direction for placing them at the proper distances, to
fit the chesses that cover the bridge. The baulks should then be laid
across the boats, and keyed together: their numbers proportioned to
the strength required in the bridge. If the gangboards are laid across
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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