Part 64

The tonnage of ammunition in boxes is equal to its weight: about 12 boxes make one ton.

BOYAU, in fortification, is a particular trench separated from the others, which, in winding about, incloses different spaces of ground, and runs parallel with the works of the place, that it may not be enfiladed. When two attacks are made at once, one near to the other, the boyau makes a communication between the trenches, and serves as a line of contravallation, not only to hinder the sallies of the besieged, but likewise to secure the miners.

BRACES, in a military sense, are a kind of armor for the arm: they were formerly a part of a coat of mail.

BRACKETS, in gunnery, are the cheeks of the travelling carriage of a mortar; they are made of strong wooden planks. This name is also given to that part of a large mortar-bed, where the trunnions are placed, for the elevation of the mortar: they are sometimes made of wood, and more frequently of iron, of almost a semicircular figure, well fastened with nails and strong plates.

BRANCH. See MINE and GALLERY.

BRAND, an ancient term for a sword; so called by the Saxons.

BRAQUER, Fr. is improperly used to express the movement of a cannon to any particular side. The correct expression is, to point the cannon, pointer le canon.

BRASSARTS, Fr. thin plates of beaten iron which were anciently used to cover the arms above the coat of mail.

Brassarts and cuirasses were worn in the days of St. Louis.

BRASSER la Matiere, Fr. to mix the different ingredients which are required for the making of gunpowder or other combustible matter.

BREACH, in fortification, a gap, or opening, in any part of the works of a fortified place, made by the artillery or mines of the besiegers, preparatory to the making an assault.

The batteries to make a breach, should commence by marking out as near as possible, the extent of the breach intended to be made; first, by a horizontal line within a fathom of the bottom of the revetement in a dry ditch, and close to the water’s edge in a wet one; and then by lines perpendicular to this line, at short distances from each other, as high as the cordon; then, by continuing to deepen all these cuts, the wall will give way in a body. The guns to produce the greatest effect should be fired as near as possible in salvos or vollies. The breach should be one third the length of the face, from the centre towards the flanked angle. When the wall has given way, the firing must be continued to make the slope of the breach practicable.

Four 24 pounders from the lodgement in the covert way will effect a breach in 4 or 5 days, which may be made practicable in 3 days more.

Another way of making a breach is by piercing the wall sufficiently to admit two or three miners, who cross the ditch, and make their entry during the night into the wall, where they establish two or three small mines, sufficient to make a breach. See ARTILLERY at Siege; see also BATTERY.

To repair a BREACH, is to stop or fill up the gap with gabions, fascines, &c. and prevent the assault.

To fortify a BREACH, is to render it inaccessible by means of chevaux-de-frize, crow’s-feet, &c.

To make a lodgment in the BREACH. After the besieged are driven away, the besiegers secure themselves against any future attack in the breach.

To clear the BREACH, that is, to remove the ruins, that it may be the better defended.

BREAK off, a term used when cavalry or infantry are ordered to diminish its front. It is also used to signify wheeling from line; as BREAKING-off to the left, for wheeling to the left.

BREAK-Ground, the first opening of the earth to form entrenchments, as at the commencement of a siege. It applies also to the striking of tents and quitting the ground on which any troops had been encamped.

To BREAK ground, to begin, to open and work at the trenches in a siege, &c.

BREAST PLATE, in military antiquity, a piece of defensive armor worn on the breast of both men and horses. They are but seldom used now.

BREAST-work See PARAPET.

BREECH of a gun, the end near the vent. See CANNON.

BREVET rank, is a rank in the army higher than that for which you receive pay; and gives a precedence (when corps are brigaded) to the date of the brevet commission.

BREVET, Fr. commission, appointment. Under the old government of France it consisted in letters or appointments signed by the king, by virtue of which every officer was authorised to discharge his particular duty. All officers in the old French service, from a cornet or sub-lieutenant up to a marshal of France were stiled Officiers à Brévet.

BREVET d’Assurance ou de Retenue d’Argent, Fr. certain military and civil appointments granted by the old kings of France, which were distinguished from other places of trust, in as much as every successor was obliged to pay a certain sum of money to the heirs of the deceased, or for the discharge of his debts. Hence the term brevet d’Assurance ou de retenue.

BRICKS, in military architecture, supply the place of stone in common buildings, and are composed of an earthy matter, hardened by art, to a resemblance of that kind: they may be very well considered as artificial stone. The Greeks and Romans, &c. generally used bricks in their buildings, witness the Pantheon, &c. In the east they baked their bricks in the sun. The Romans used them unburnt, having first left them to dry in the air for 3, 4, or 5 years.