Bombardment

A bombardment was an attack by artillery alone. Prior to the introduction of heavy rifled artillery bombardments were conducted at ranges beyond the effective breaching range of siege artillery and tended to devolve into rather indiscriminate attacks against the interior of a fortified place for the purpose of harassing the garrison or generally making the inhabitants of a place sufficiently miserable to intercede with the garrison for the surrender of the place. Bombardments using vertical fire could also be directed against the fortifications in an attempt to breach bomb-proof structures from above and explode magazines, but mortar fire generally lacked sufficient accuracy to strike the same point repeatedly and was incapable of bring down thick arched vaults that formed the roofs of casemates and magazines.

After the introduction of heavy rifled artillery bombardments by land based artillery became the preferred method of attack against masonry fortifications. Rifled artillery was capable of repeatedly striking the same point at long range and could break through masonry walls without the necessity of establishing breaching batteries on the covered way of a fortification. When effective long range artillery fire capable of breaking down masonry walls was combined with persistent vertical fire from heavy mortars that could both destroy any non-bomb-proof structure within a fortification and harass the garrison into a state of exhaustion small masonry fortifications were rapidly reduced and their garrisons compelled to capitulate.

January, 2003

August, 2005