DEFENCE OF BUILDINGS#

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ABATTIS.

The partial levelling of any object on the outside, that would give concealment toan enemy, and favour an attack, is supposed to have been already attended to; butif time admits, after the loopholes, &c. are completed, this system must be extendedand perfected, and the formation of a more regular abattis should be commenced, andany other obstruction added that opportunity permits. The best distance for suchobstructions, if they are continuous and cannot be turned, is within 20 or 30 yards ofa work, or even less, so that every shot may tell whilst the assailants are detained inforcing a passage through them.

TAMBOURS.

If the building that has been selected has no porches, wings, or projecting portionsfrom which flank defence can be obtained, it will be advisable to construct somethingof a temporary nature to afford it.

Stockade-work offers a ready means of effecting this object: it may be disposed inPlate I. the form of a triangle, projecting 8 or 10 feet in front of a door or window (fig. 4),planted in the manner and with the precautions of having the loopholes high enough.A small hole should be left in the barricade of the door or window to communicatewith the interior. Three or four loopholes on each face of the projection, cut betweenthe timbers, will be found very useful in the defence. These contrivances are usuallytermed tambours, and if constructed at the angle of a building, will flank two sidesof it. (Fig. 3.)

OUT-BUILDINGS AND WALLS.

When the defences of the main building are in a state of forwardness, any out-buildings or walls which have been found too solid to be levelled at the moment, orwhich have been preserved for the chance of having time to fortify them, and thus toincrease the strength of the post, must be looked to. They may be placed in a stateof defence by the means already described, and separate communications should beestablished between them and the principal building by a trench, or a line of stockade-work, and by breaking through the walls when necessary. In this way a post maybe enlarged in any required proportion, by turning all objects that present themselves,such as out-buildings, sheds, walls, hedges, ponds, &c. to the best account; firsttaking the precaution to secure what is absolutely necessary for immediate pro-tection, and for placing it in a state to be defended on the shortest notice.

An exterior wall or fence, tolerably close to a house .and parallel to it, may beretained for the purposes of defence, without the danger of affording cover, and thusfacilitating an attack, by throwing up a slope of earth on the outside of it, or plantingHate II. an abattis in the same situation (fig. 5). An enemy would thus remain completelyexposed, and it would be worse than useless to him.

If a post of the description under consideration were composed of two or morebuildings, and it were to be left to itself, and were open to attack on all sides, thestockades or trenches, forming the communications between them, would obviouslyrequire to be so arranged as to afford cover, and the means of resistance on both sides.This would be effected by merely making them double , as shewn in figs. 5 and 7;but for greater security, the exterior of such communications should be laid underfire from the buildings at their extremities.

In arranging the defences of such posts, it is an essential point to make eachportion of them so far independent of the others, that if any one part, such asa building for instance, be taken, it shall not compromise the safety of the remainder,or materially impair the defence they will make by themselves; so that whilst freecommunications are essential in most cases to a vigorous defence, the means must be