Cannon yard
A cannon yard is a gun emplacement in the flank of a bastion . Your job is, subsequent to the bastion curtain wall and the face to protect the opposite Bastion by Flankierungsfeuer and impossible to make an enemy approaching the fortress walls. Usually each bastion has two cannon yards, which can accommodate up to four firing floors , i.e. H. can have superimposed gun emplacements. As a rule, two cannon yards are located opposite each other and cover the adjacent curtain wall with their cross fire, and the other bastion face with their respective flank fire.
The manifestations of cannon yards are diverse. Some are strongly secured works deep inside a bastion and protected from fire by bomb-proof casemates , a bastion ear drawn for protection or strong masked walls , others are open positions on an earth wall. The respective appearance depends on several factors: the strength and the state of development of the fortress, the manner used in its construction , the era and of course the importance of the area protected by the cannon yard. There are literally dozens of varieties, the construction was varied for almost every fortress and every new style, but the basic principle always remained the same. With the obsolescence of the bastionary system in the middle of the 19th century , the cannon yards also came out of use, but still appeared here and there in modern fortifications. Then, however, they usually had other names.
Guns in a cannon yard were usually equipped to fight the advancing infantry at short and medium range and were loaded with grapeshot , chopped lead, or rikocheting fire . They were mostly set to fixed lines of fire and were rarely moved.