Bar. A long piece of wood or iron. Bars have various denominations in the construction of artillery-carriages, as sweep- and cross-bars for tumbrils, fore, hind, and under cross-bars for powder-carts, shaft-bars for wagons, and dowel-bars, used in mortar-beds.
Bar. In heraldry, is one of those important figures or charges known as [ordinaries]. It is formed by two horizontal lines passing over the shield like the fess, but it differs from it in size,—the fess occupying a third, the bar only a fifth part of the shield. The fess is also confined to the centre, while the bar may be borne in several parts of the shield.
Barb. The reflected points of the head of an arrow. The armor for horses was so called.
Barbacan, or Barbican. In fortification, a watch-tower for the purpose of descrying an enemy at a distance; advanced works of a place or citadel, properly the boulevards of the gates and walls; a fort at the entrance of a tower or bridge, with a double wall; or an aperture or loop-hole in the walls of a fortress through which to fire upon an enemy.
Barbary. A country in North Africa, considered to comprise [Algeria], [Morocco], [Fez], [Tunis], and [Tripoli], with their dependencies (all of which see). Piratical states (nominally subject to Turkey) were founded on the coast by Barbarossa about 1518.
Barbets. Were peasants of Piedmont, who abandoned their dwellings when an enemy had taken possession of them. They formed into bodies and defended the Alps.
Barbette. An earthen terrace, raised within a parapet, so high as to enable guns to be fired over the latter, and therefore with a freer range than when worked at an embrasure.
Barbette Carriage. Is a carriage of the stationary class, on which a gun is mounted to fire over a parapet; and a barbette gun is any gun mounted on a barbette carriage.
Barbette Centre-pintle Carriage. See [Ordnance, Carriages for, Sea-coast Carriages].
Barbette Front-pintle Carriage. See [Ordnance, Carriages for, Sea-coast Carriages].