Military Engineering. by D.H.Mahan (1867)

Military Article Photocopies available from Military/Info

Mahan, D.H. An Elementary Course of Military Engineering. Part II. Permanent Fortifications. John Wiley & Son: New York (1867); 176 pages, 18 plates of illus. Price 25.00 {Item No.3072}

• Chapter I. Preliminary Considerations and Component Elements of Permanent Defenses; 44 pages, 7 plates of illus. Price 6.00 {Item No.20875} [Including: Permanent fortification, its objects and means of attainment, Description and analysis of the usual general profile, Description of recent modified profile, Command, Description and discussion of scarps, Counterscraps, Ditch, Face covers, General remarks on the general profile, Classes of open defenses, Loop holed walls, Exterior corridors, Barbette batteries, Embrasure batteries, Machicouli defences, Detached scarp walls, Semi-detached scarp walls, Scarp galleries, Counterscarp galleries, Bastionnets, Caponniere defences for enceinte ditch, General remarks, Casemates on land fronts, Mortar casemates, Casemates on water fronts, Embrasures of casemates, Bomb-proof buildings, Powder magazines, General remarks on communications, Particular conditions that communications should satisfy, Ramps, Stairs, Posterns, Gateway, Port-Cullis, Classes of enceintes, Systems and methods of fortification, General remarks, General remarks on outworks, Covered way, Places of arms, Traverses, Tenaille, Demi-lune, Counterguard, Redoubts, Tenaillion, Horn-work, Crown-work, Advanced and detached works, Interior retrenchments and cavaliers]
• Chapter II. Systems of Fortification; 61 pages, 7 plates of illus. Price 8.00 {Item No.20876} [Including: Description and analysis of the bastioned system, Methods of Vauban, Description of Vauban’s 1st method, Description and analysis of Cormontaigne’s method, Method of schools of Mezieres and Metz, Noizet’s method, Choumara’s method]
• Chapter III. Tennailled System; 2 pages Price .50 {Item No.20877} [Including: Description and analysis of the system]
• Chapter IV. Polygonal System; 4 pages, 1 plate of illus. Price .50 {Item No.20878} [Including: Description and analysis of the Polygonal system, Montalembert’s Polygonal method: Plan, Profiles]
• Chapter V. Recent German Fortifications; 17 pages, 6 plates of illus. Price 3.00 {Item No.20879} [Including: System adopted, General conditions, Independent works, Defensive barracks, Profiles, Casemates, Posterns, Mines, Powder magazines, Revetments, Casemates for artillery, Casemates traverses, Caponnieres for enceinte ditch, Bastionnets for ditch defences, Detail of defensive barrack, Description of the fronts of Posen, Description of Fort Alexander, Remarks, Description of German forts]
• Chapter VI. Influence of Irregularities of Site on the Forms and Combinations of the Elements of Permanent Works; 19 pages, 1 page of illus. Price 2.00 {Item No.20880} [Including: General conditions, Conditions of commands, Adaptation of plan to the site, Remarks, Remarks on the defilement of permanent works, Data for the defilement of permanent works, Limits of defilement, Dangerous zones of the site, Portions of zones that may be disregarded, Defilement of masonry, Limits of defilement of small works, Front and lateral limits, Remarks, Cases of defilement, Front defilement of a redan, Position of traverse for reverse defilement, Forms and arrangement of traverse, Combinations of several traverses, General case of the defilement of a bastion, Defilement of retired from advanced works, Defilement by a parados, General remarks]
• Chapter VII. Accessory Means of Defense; 3 pages Price .50 {Item No.20881} [Including: Water as an accessory, Marshy sites, Artificial inundations , Water applied as an active means of defence, Natural and artificial beds of rock as an accessory, Stumps of trees as an obstruction, Mines as an accessory]
• Chapter VIII. The Defensive Organization of Frontiers with Permanent Fortifications; 9 pages Price 1.00 {Item No.20882} [Including: Options held by prominent military authorities on the necessity of fortified frontiers, Remarks on arbitrary systems of frontier defences, Remarks on the organization of the frontier defenses of the United States, Important points to be fortified, Rivers and mountain ranges as natural defensive lines, Advantages offered both in defensive and offensive operations by fortified points on rivers, Points to be fortified in mountain ranges, Defensive means adopted for the coasts of the United States, Character of the works necessary for sea coast defences, Defenses for important commercial marts and naval depots, Defences of important extensive roadsteads, Opinions entertained by foreign military authorities on the fortification in a permanent manner of important inland centres of population, Fortifications of Paris and Lyons in France, Objectives to the adoption of European practice for the defences of large cities of the United States]
• Chapter IX. Summary of the Progress and Changes of Fortification; 17 pages Price 2.00 {Item No.20883} [Including: Fortification as seen in the earliest stages, Enclosures of simple stone walls and towers, Insufficiency of simple walls and towers against improved means of offense, Introduction of ditches and wide ramparts as defensive features, Examples of the great strength and extent of some ancient fortifications, Methods of attack used by the Ancients, Defensive measures employed by the Ancients, Rise and fall of the art under the Romans, Progress of the art under the Western Empire, Condition of the art under the Feudal system, Castellated fortifications of the Feudal period, Fortifications of cities during the same period, Changes in the art occasioned by the invention of gunpowder, First appearance of the bastioned system and the changes consequent upon it, Italian school of engineers, Spainish school, Dutch school, German school, Swedish school, French school, Methods and progress of the attack from the invention of gunpowder to the time of Vauban, Changes and improvements made in the methods of attack by Vauban, Remarks on the present general condition of the art, Present condition of the art in the United States]

Return to the Fortification webpage
Return to the Military manual Book webpage