FORMERS, round pieces of wood that are fitted to the diameter of the bore of a gun, round which the cartridge paper, parchment, lead, or cotton is rolled before it is sewed.
Formers were likewise used among officers and soldiers to reduce their clubs to an uniform shape, before the general introduction of tails.
Formation of guards. See [Guards].
FORT, in the military art, a small fortified place, environed on all sides with a ditch, rampart, and parapet. Its use is to secure some high ground, or the passage of a river, or to make good an advantageous post, to defend the lines and quarters of a siege, &c.
Forts are made of different figures and extents, according to the exigency of the service, or the peculiar nature of the ground. Some are fortified with bastions, others with demi-bastions. Some are in form of a square, others of a pentagon. Some again are made in the form of a star, having 5 or 7 angles. A fort differs from a citadel, the last being built to command some town. See [Citadel].
Royal-Fort, one whose line of defence is at least 26 toises long.
Triangular Forts, are frequently made with half bastions; but they are very imperfect, because the faces are not seen or defended from any other part. If, instead of being terminated at the angle, they were directed to a point about 20 toises from it, they would be much better, as then they might be defended by that length of the rampart, though but very obliquely. The ditch ought to be from 8 to 10 toises. Sometimes instead of half bastions at the angles, whole ones are placed in the middle of the sides. The gorges of these bastions may be from 20 to 24 toises, when the sides are from 100 to 120; the flanks are perpendicular to the sides, from 10 to 12 toises long; and the capitals from 20 to 24. If the sides happen to be more or less, the parts of the bastions are likewise made more or less in proportion. The ditch round this fort may be 10 or 12 toises wide.
The ramparts and parapets of these sorts of works are commonly made of turf, and the outside of the parapet is fraised; that is, a row of pallisades are placed about the middle of the slope, in an horizontal manner, the points declining rather a little downwards, that the grenades or fireworks thrown upon them may roll down into the ditch; and if the ditch is dry, a row of pallisades should be placed in the middle of it, to prevent the enemy from passing over it unperceived, and to secure the fort from any surprise.
Fort de campagne, Fr. a field fortification, See [Fortification].
FORTERESSE, Fr. Fortress. Any strong place rendered so by art, or originally so by local advantages, or by means of both nature and art. Places which are strong by nature generally stand upon mountains, precipices, in the middle of a marsh, on the sea-coast, in a lake, or on the banks of some large river. Places which are strong by art, owe their strength to the labor of man, whose ingenuity and perseverance substitute ditches and ramparts where mountains and rivers are wanting.