Gorge (fortification)

Last updated

A gorge in field fortification is the "unexposed side of a fieldwork", [1] typically the rear of an independent fieldwork or detached outwork in front of the main fortress or defensive position.

Contents

Outworks with open gorges

Straith describes three commonly used classes of field work: "works open at the gorge, works enclosed all round and lines." He lists the following as works open at the gorge: [2]

Closed works are the redoubt, star fort and bastioned fort. [2]

Gorges of 'half-closed works' were usually closed either by a parapet or stockade. [3]

Related Research Articles

Board of Ordnance English and British body responsible for forts

The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence of the realm and its overseas possessions, and as the supplier of munitions and equipment to both the Army and the Navy'. The Board also maintained and directed the Artillery and Engineer corps, which it founded in the 18th century. By the 19th century, the Board of Ordnance was second in size only to HM Treasury among government departments. The Board lasted until 1855, at which point it was disbanded.

Bastion Outward structure of a fortification

A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the flanks being able to protect the curtain wall and the adjacent bastions. Compared with the medieval fortified towers they replaced, bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defence in the age of gunpowder artillery. As military architecture, the bastion is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries.

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich

The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Signals and other technical corps. RMA Woolwich was commonly known as "The Shop" because its first building was a converted workshop of the Woolwich Arsenal.

Charles Pasley

General Sir Charles William Pasley was a British soldier and military engineer who wrote the defining text on the role of the post-American revolution British Empire: An Essay on the Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire, published in 1810. This text changed how Britons thought their empire should relate to the rest of the world. He warned that Britain could not keep its Empire by its "splendid isolation". Britain would need to fight to gain its empire, and by using the colonies as a resource for soldiers and sailors it grew by an average of 100,000 square miles (260,000 km2) per year between the Battle of Waterloo and the American Civil War. Serving in the Royal Engineers in the Napoleonic Wars, he was Europe's leading demolitions expert and siege warfare specialist.

Dennis Hart Mahan American military academic and civil engineer (1802–1871)

Dennis Hart Mahan (Mă-hăn) [məˈhæn] was a noted American military theorist, civil engineer and professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1824–1871. He was the father of American naval historian and theorist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) Siege during the Crimean War which lasted from September 1854 until September 1855

The Siege of Sevastopol lasted from October 1854 until September 1855, during the Crimean War. The allies landed at Eupatoria on 14 September 1854, intending to make a triumphal march to Sevastopol, the capital of the Crimea, with 50,000 men. The 56-kilometre (35 mi) traverse took a year of fighting against the Russians. Major battles along the way were Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, Tchernaya, Redan, and, finally, Malakoff. During the siege, the allied navy undertook six bombardments of the capital, on 17 October 1854; and on 9 April, 6 June, 17 June, 17 August, and 5 September 1855.

A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often located in a concealed location which allowed the occupants to come and go inconspicuously. In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a sally port, allowing defenders to make a sortie on the besiegers. Placed in a less exposed, less visible location, they were usually relatively small, and therefore easily defensible.

Lunette (fortification) Outwork fortification

In fortification, a lunette was originally an outwork of half-moon shape; later it became a redan with short flanks, in trace somewhat resembling a bastion standing by itself without curtains on either side. The gorge was generally open.

Poznań Fortress Prussian fortifications in Poznań, Poland

Poznań Fortress, known in German as Festung Posen was a set of fortifications in the city of Poznań in western Poland, built under Prussian rule in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It represents the third largest system of its kind in Europe.

A crémaillère is a French, mechanical term for the rack, or a straight bar with teeth on one edge designed to work into the teeth of a wheel or a pinion that predates the Renaissance. The term was generally applied in English to engineering applications which had notched, toothed or drilled surface, even when only visually so, such as the edge of the staircase. The term is also applied to the rack railway.

The Armstrong RBL 40-pounder gun was introduced into use in 1860 for service on both land and sea. It used William Armstrong's new and innovative rifled breechloading mechanism. It remained in use until 1902 when replaced by more modern Breech Loading (BL) guns.

Schanze

A schanze is, according to the specialist terminology of German fortification construction, an independent fieldwork, that is frequently used in the construction of temporary field fortifications. The word is German and has no direct English equivalent, although the word sconce is derived from Dutch schans, which is cognate to the German word.

Carnot wall

A Carnot wall is a type of loop-holed wall built in the ditch of a fort or redoubt. It takes its name from the French mathematician, politician, and military engineer, Lazare Carnot. Such walls were introduced into the design of fortifications from the early nineteenth century. As conceived by Carnot they formed part of an innovative but controversial system of fortification intended to defend against artillery and infantry attack. Carnot walls were employed, together with other elements of Carnot's system, in continental Europe in the years after the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, especially by the Prussians, other Germans and Austrians. Their adoption was initially resisted by the French themselves and by the British.

RML 40-pounder gun Heavy field gun

The RML 40-pounder gun was a British rifled muzzle-loading siege and fortification gun designed in 1871. It was intended to supersede the RBL 40-pounder Armstrong gun after the British military reverted to rifled muzzle-loading artillery until a more satisfactory breech-loading system than that of the Armstrong guns was developed.

Castillo del Príncipe (Havana) Military fort in Cuba

The Castillo del Príncipe is a military fort located in the Loma de Aróstegui, in Havana, Cuba. In 1982, the fort was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with other historic sites in Old Havana, because of the city's importance in the European conquest of the New World, its fortifications, and its unique architecture.

Fort Davis, County Cork

Fort Davis, is a coastal defence fortification close to Whitegate, County Cork, Ireland. Together with similar structures at Fort Mitchel, Fort Camden (Crosshaven), and Templebreedy Battery, the fort was built to defend the mouth of Cork Harbour. Though used as a fortification from the early 17th century, the current structures of the 74-acre site date primarily from the 1860s. Originally named Fort Carlisle and operated by the British Armed Forces, the fort was handed-over to the Irish Defence Forces in 1938, and renamed Fort Davis. The facility is owned by the Department of Defence, and is used as a military training site with no public access.

The RML 25-pounder gun was a British rifled muzzle-loading light siege gun and gun of position designed in 1871. It was intended to be an intermediate gun between the 16-pounder and 40-pounder Rifled Muzzle Loading guns. It was part of a series of guns designed after the British military reverted to rifled muzzle-loading artillery until a more satisfactory breech-loading system than that of the Armstrong guns was developed.

John Müller

John Müller was a German mathematician and engineer.

Polygonal fort Type of fortification

A polygonal fort is a type of fortification originating in France in the late 18th century and fully developed in Germany in the first half of the 19th century. Unlike earlier forts, polygonal forts had no bastions, which had proved to be vulnerable. As part of ring fortresses, polygonal forts were generally arranged in a ring around the place they were intended to protect, so that each fort could support its neighbours. The concept of the polygonal fort proved to be adaptable to improvements in the artillery which might be used against them, and they continued to be built and rebuilt well into the 20th century.

References

Literature