THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
229 
Cover to a height of 3 feet was obtained, and from a distance of 
600 yards the guns appeared much protected, and certainly were so from 
the fire of musketry. It was however generally remarked that the space in 
the interior of the work was too limited, for when the trail was much 
thrown over to either side, there was danger when the gun recoiled of one 
wheel running back into a flank ditch. 
The commandant of the fortress of Kehl, General Baron de Weiler, 
to whom the Officers of the Royal Artillery at Shoeburyness are indebted 
for the tracing from which the plan shewn in this paper has been 
copied, stated, that in the intrenchments which he had seen constructed by 
the different continental armies, the flanks were generally made at an angle 
of 45° with the face instead of at right angles to it, and as for several 
reasons this method appeared preferable, other works so constructed were 
thrown up and finished in half an hour, which is the time that they are 
made in by the Trench soldiers. 
An old gun mounted on a broken carriage was placed in each work, and 
dummies to represent gun detachments fixed around, three figures at each 
gun being left exposed, whilst the others were placed standing in the flank 
ditches. 
Tire from four 12-pr. Armstrong field guns with segment shell and 
percussion fuzes was then opened from a distance of 1000 yards. Torty 
rounds were rapidly expended, and it was plain to the officer on range duty 
that the works would be quite untenable under such a severe fire. Upon 
examination it was found that nearly all the dummies left exposed were hit, 
whilst the guns were struck in many places, and the parapets of two of the 
works were much knocked about owing to shells having burst in them. 
About the same effect was produced by forty rounds fired from the same 
guns at 800 yards range, common shell with time fuzes being used, but the 
parapets were not so much injured. 
At the same time that the works referred to were being made, a party of 
non-commissioned officers intrenched a gun in a pit, which was made three feet 
deep in front with a gradual slope upwards to the rear. The earth from 
tiiis pit was thrown up so as to form a parapet three feet high in front and 
on either flank, and lastly a small embrasure for the gun to fire through was 
cut in the front face. 
Whilst this pit took no longer to make than the one of the detached 
works before described, it afforded greater and more efficient cover; greater 
inasmuch as the parapet was six feet high in front, and more efficient 
since three feet of this parapet were cut out of solid earth; indeed, after 
standing in a work of each kind, viz. a pit, and intrenchment constructed 
according to the Trench system, one could not for a moment hesitate to 
