Commanding officers of attack.
Sixty-third Lecture.—(7.) Considerations on the different kinds of batteries to be employed in the attack of fortified places. Position of the batteries relatively to the point to be breached. Direct battery within point-blank range; enfilading battery, for a plunging fire, for direct fire within point-blank range, for plunging fire. Mortar batteries. Composition of the different kinds of batteries. Position of the directing lines of an enfilading battery, relative positions of the cannon, the howitzers, or the mortars. Position of the batteries relatively to the parallels and the rest of the trenches. Examination of the circumstances which affect the power of a plunging fire, command of the work over the battery; distance between the height of the traverses. Slope of the crests of the work.
General principles relating to the order of the works of the artillery, commencing from the opening of the trenches.
Times for the construction of the first batteries. Batteries of the first and second parallels. Use of field artillery to defend the flank of the attacks. Replacement of the fire covered by the advance of the works; batteries of the third parallel. Use of vertical fire. Mortars of 15c. Throwing of grenades. Breaching and counter batteries. Considerations relating to their position. Batteries in the covered way.
Case of a breach into an interior work. Composition of the breaching and counter batteries. Calibres to be used. Number of pieces of ordnance.
Ideas upon the operation of arming batteries. Precautions to be taken. Passage out of the parallels or trenches. March in the trenches; examples of some operations of this kind. Supply of the different kinds of batteries. Rule relating to their daily service. Firing of siege batteries. Opening of the fire. Direct fire within point-blank range. Plunging fire. Fire of mortars. Warmth of the fire by day and by night; mean consumption of material. Fire of breaching batteries. Effects to be produced. Height of the horizontal cutting, number of the vertical ones. Execution of the fire; fall of the revetment. Fire upon the counter forts. Fire to render the breach practicable; balls, shells, war-rockets, facts ascertained by experiment.
Consumption of powder and projectiles, length of the operation. Breaching fire in a very oblique direction. Fire upon masked masonry. Breach into an unreveted work. Fire of counter-batteries. Bombardment. Case where it can be employed; manner of executing it.
Occupation of the place; arrangements which must be made by the artillery. Case of raising the siege. Case of its transformation into a blockade.
Sixty-fourth Lecture.—(8.) Service of artillery in the defense of places. Object to be attained with artillery. Selection of ordnance, guns, howitzers, mortars. Use of war-rockets and arms of precise aim. Field artillery. Basis of the supply of fortified places. Projectiles, powder, small-arms, various carriages. Personnel of the artillery. Troops. Staff.
Measures to be taken before the siege. Reconnaissances. Arrangement of the material. Organization of the personnel, of the duty by local divisions, of the workshops of all sorts. Precautionary armament. Basis of its organization. Supply of ordnance. Defensive armament. General principles relating to the armament of different kinds of works. Bastions, cavaliers, demilunes, approaches, &c. Organization of the armament. Traverses, embrasures, gun-carriages to be employed. Powder magazines. Supplies. Service of pieces.