Battery

Battery, a group of guns, whether field or siege, under the command of one immediate superior. A field or horse battery has 6 guns in all modern armies except the Russian, in which it has 8. The term battery includes the guns, wagons, horses, men, and all the equipment; but is also used to designate the men only, being the tactical and administrative unit of the Royal Artillery (q.v.). In foreign armies, as formerly in our own, the men of the siege or garrison artillery are divided into battalions and companies; but in the British army the same units are now called brigades and batteries. Both field and garrison batteries constitute majors' commands.

A Mountain Battery has four 7-pounder guns, requiring 110 mules. Its establishment is the same as that of a 9-pounder field battery, except that the 64 drivers are replaced by 94 hired mule-teers.

Artillery drivers are unarmed. Gunners and non-commissioned officers, if mounted, have cavalry swords; but the gunners of garrison batteries, and the men carried on the wagons of field batteries, have Martini-Henry carbines, with sword-bayonets.

In addition to the ammunition and the arms of the men, every field battery also carries a supply of empty cartridges, port-fires, fuses, quick match, slow match, tools and small articles, besides stores for the wheelers, shoeing-smiths, and collar-makers.

When guns are grouped for siege purposes, they are placed in specially prepared works called Siege Batteries, protected by a bank of earth in front, and arranged with platforms, magazines, &c., so that the guns can be conveniently worked. Four heavy guns, mortars or howitzers, are usually allotted to each battery, and the platforms on which they rest are either sunk below the surface of the ground (sunken batteries), or on or raised above it (elevated batteries). Each has a similar form—viz. a bank of earth, about 30 feet thick and 7½ feet above the gun platforms, to intercept the enemy's projectiles, and three traverses of the same height, 15 feet thick, between the guns, and extending 20 feet to the rear, to localise the effect of any shell that may burst in a gun-portion. These batteries are screened from the enemy's view, either by folds of the ground, banks of earth thrown up 100 yards in front of them, or even by artificial screens of brushwood, hurdles, or canvas, and are placed from 1500 to 3000 yards from the fortress. The guns are dragged into them either by trench railway or teams of horses detailed for that duty. See FORTIFICATION.

The following table shows the war establishments of the different batteries in the British service: