Crossword clues for ravelin
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Half-moon \Half"-moon`\ (-m[=oo]n`), n.
The moon at the quarters, when half its disk appears illuminated.
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The shape of a half-moon; a crescent.
See how in warlike muster they appear, In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.
--Milton. (Fort.) An outwork composed of two faces, forming a salient angle whose gorge resembles a half-moon; -- now called a ravelin.
(Zo["o]l.) A marine, sparoid, food fish of California ( C[ae]siosoma Californiense). The body is ovate, blackish above, blue or gray below. Called also medialuna.
Wiktionary
n. An outwork#Noun. A fortification outside a castle used to split an attacking force; composed of two faces, forming a salient angle whose gorge resembles a half-moon
Wikipedia
A ravelin is a triangular fortification or detached outwork, located in front of the innerworks of a fortress (the curtain walls and bastions). Originally called a demi-lune, after the lunette, the ravelin is placed outside a castle and opposite a fortification curtain.
The outer edges of the ravelin are so configured that it divides an assault force, and guns in the ravelin can fire upon the attacking troops as they approach the curtain. It also impedes besiegers from using their artillery to batter a breach in the curtain wall. The side of the ravelin facing the inner fortifications has at best a low wall, if any, so as not to shelter attacking forces if they have overwhelmed it or the defenders have abandoned it. Frequently ravelins have a ramp or stairs on the curtain-wall side to facilitate the movement of troops and artillery onto the ravelin.
The first example of a ravelin appears in the fortifications of the Italian town of Sarzanello, and dates from 1497. The first ravelins were built of brick, but later, during the sixteenth century in the Netherlands, they were earthen (perhaps faced by stone or brick), to better to absorb the impact of cannonballs. The Italian origins of the system of fortifications (the star forts), of which ravelins were a part gave rise to the term trace Italienne. The French 17th century military engineer Vauban made great use of ravelins in his design of fortifications for Louis XIV and his ideas were still being used by Major William Green in 1761 in Gibraltar.
Usage examples of "ravelin".
The time was now at hand when the besieged foresaw that the ravelin of the Cross gate could not much longer be defended.
A tremendous attack was made upon the ravelin in front of the gate of the Cross.
Any man who climbed a ravelin would be swept off by carefully aimed cannon.
It was the first of a storm, the tight packed balls flaming and falling as the carcasses were rolled on to the breach, and suddenly the breaches, the ditch, the ravelin, the obstacles, and the tiny figures of the Forlorn Hope were swamped in light, light poured from above, by flames that caught on the obstacles in the ditch, and the Hope began to climb as the fire was bright on their bayonets.
The ravelin was twenty feet high, shaped like a diamond, and the only way to the new breach was to go round it.
The ditch between the glacis and the ravelin was black with men, disorganized men, the mingling of the Fourth and Light Divisions.
Some cowered there for safety, thinking the shadow of the ravelin would give them protection from the guns that scorched down at them.
Fourth Division and the South Essex, but the ditch was a massive sink of death, of weird shadows cast by the fires, and he could make out no faces in the packed crowd that was filling the space between the ravelin and glacis.
The foot of the breach was smeared with bodies, its approaches bare of the living, though small groups of men dashed from the shadows of the ravelin and screamed defiance as they clawed at the stones and were blasted away.
Sharpe looked over the ditch, over the scoured ravelin and there, untouched by blood, was the third breach, the new breach, the unattacked breach.
It was not much of an idea, hopeless even, deserving the name Forlorn, but it was all Sharpe had, and so he stared at the ravelin that stretched so invitingly towards the third, unsullied breach.
As long as the British stayed quiet, harmless behind the ravelin, the gunners let them be.
Another attack was coming, the last reserves of the Division being fed into the ditch, and that was the moment, the hopeless moment, when the feeble idea, based only on the narrowing width of the ravelin, must be tried.
He had crossed the ravelin, running, the heat of the fire close on his right side, and the drop was huge.
A prodigious quantity of bombs being thrown into the ravelin, his troops threw themselves into the fosse, mounted the breaches, forced open a sally-port, and entered the place almost without resistance.