Permanent Fortifications (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{Section 4PREFACE. In revising this work for the use of the cadets at the Mill- tary Academy, it has been my object to retain the arrangement and so far as practicable the identical language of the original text. I am prompted to this not only by an affectionate respect for my former instructor, but more especially by a wish to give the cadets an opportunity to profit by Professor Mahan's clear, concise, and comprehensive statements, which are the result of the native ability, the education, started in America, continued in France under Gen. Noizet, and completed by a life-long study; and the rare experience gained in over forty years' service as Assistant-professor and Professor at the Military Academy. The parts omitted and the new matter introduced have been selected with a view to rejecting only that which has become obsolete through the introduction of improved weapons and methods, and to explaining and illustrating the new features developed from the same causes. In making these selections it has seemed better to omit the details of the Bastioned system as worked out by Noizet, notwithstanding its value as a problem in fortification-drawing, and to replace it by fuller treatment of detached works, sea-coast defence, and constructions in iron and steel as used at the present day. My thanks are due to Lieut. G. J. Fiebeger, Corps of Engineers, for translations from the German, and for collecting the information contained in Appendix II.; and to Lieut. Geo. W. Goethals, Corps of Engineers, for compiling Appendix I. West PomT, N. T., March, 1887. LIST OF PLATES. Plate No. 1. Typical modern profiles. 2. Mortar battery. " 3. Profiles of older forts. 4. Scarps, counterscarps, and galleries. 5. Sea-coast fronts, caponniere and bastionet. 6. S...