REQUIRED FOR THE ATTACK OF A MODERN FORTRESS. 
Ill 
the superior slope, would seem objectionable from the ease with which 
heavy or medium rifled shell would, on reaching,* * * § destroy them and 
the parts of the parapet adjacent.f 
With batteries of howitzers for enfilading, demolitions, &c., the pieces 
being fired at some elevation and requiring for their work but small 
degree of lateral traverse screens may be effectively used, but with gun 
batteries, the pieces of which, not only must command the ground to 
their front,’but in their fire (direct) upon the fortress be capable of 
changing the line through a considerable field in order that they may 
concentrate upon a particular object or shift from one object to another, 
the case is different and any screen that could be admitted would hardly 
be sufficient to mask the battery. We therefore conclude that while 
the carriages for howitzers of the second position may be adapted for 
the pieces to fire through shallow embrasures, J those for the medium 
guns must be overbank. || For field guns employed in the second 
position for lodgements, and in the first for emplacements, it seems 
however hardly necessary to provide such special high carriages, for, 
when the lodgements are made the enemy’s artillery fire will be subdued 
and protection against small arm fire may be obtained by the use of 
mantlets, and in emplacements the guns may be used overbank by 
constructing the terreplein of the battery to suit.§ 
The gunners working the guns mounted upon overbank carriages 
will to a very great extent be protected, though the pieces will be ex¬ 
posed,^" and only by the use of carriages so arranged that the piece will 
recoil in them under cover for loading, can the men and the guns also 
be perfectly protected. Under ordinary circumstances** there does not, 
as yet, seem any absolute necessity for such carriages as the latter; this 
* Batteries of the second position, even with screens, will be more easily reached than the 
heavy gun batteries of the first position, for, as already mentioned, the enemy may even fail 
to search the latter ont. 
t A shallow conntersloping emhrasure will not much affect the strength of the parapet, 
see Plate I, fig. 2. It might be said that such embrasures presenting an unbroken exterior 
crest to the enemy would not facilitate his aim, (even if not screened), but if he could see 
the interior crest, which in all probability he would be able to do, it would be sufficient 
for his purpose. 
% It may be objected that this is giving two* natures of carriage to each howitzer, viz., 
one for high angle fire and one for curved fire, but this would be more than balanced by 
the saving of weight, cost, &c., in using a special carriage for the former purpose and it is 
to be remembered that the bombarding howitzers much outnumber those for enfilade, &c. 
Again it only amounts to what we had in the S.B. system, namely, a bed for mortars and 
a carriage for howitzers. Possibly a construction of carriage might be designed suitable 
for both purposes by some slight conversion which could be carried out on the spot. ' 
|| The German and Belgian siege carriages are now of this type. 
§ Kraft, in his pamphlet on sieges, however states, with regard to emplacements 
against sorties, “ These have not turned out very well when armed with field artillery as 
they have only an interior slope 3' in height and consequently lose much of their materiel 
in course of time. It would be better here to employ the 6 pr. (9 c.m.) siege gun, for 
which there would otherwise be no use at the commencement of the siege.” 
IF This is sometimes raised as an objection against such carriages, but we suppose the 
besieger does not, as a rule, depart from the fnndamental principle of assuring to himself 
superiority of fire in the number and nature of his ordnance, and therefore that he is able 
to fight, not at disadvantage, the enemy’s guns mounted in the same manner as his own. 
Again any such objection applies with greater force to carriages arranged for the pieces on 
them to fire through embrasures. 
## For breaching armour-plated works by direct fire, as already stated, they will be 
necessary. 
