Counterscarp
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A scarp and a counterscarp are the inner and outer sides of a ditch used in fortifications. In permanent fortifications the scarp and counterscarp may be encased in stone. In less permanent fortifications, the counterscarp may be lined with paling fence set at an angle so as to give no cover to the attackers to make advancing and retreating more difficult.
If an attacker succeed in breaching a wall a coupure can be built on the inside of the wall to hinder the forlorn hope in which case the counterscarp is also the side of the ditch furtherest from the breached wall and closest to the centre of the fortification.[1][2]
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. from the article COUNTERSCARP
- counterscarp: European fortress wall - Art - Britannica Concise: diagram
- Stephen Francis Wyley (Drawings by Steven Lowe) A Dictionary of Military Architecture Fortification and Fieldworks from the Iron Age to the Eighteenth Century: Counterscarp
- Counterscarp Gallery
- E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898: Counterscarp
[edit] Further reading
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Clonmel: Its Monastery, and Siege by Cromwell From Duffy's Hibernian Magazine, Vol. III, No. 14, August 1861
- ^ The term "scarp" is from the same origin as a "scarp slope", the leading edge of escarpment, and in this case the escarpment is the ditch and wall of a fortress. So if a defensive ditch is dug on the inner side of a wall then there can be a counterscarp on both side of the wall.
