Grand Battery (Massed Artillery Tactic)

The grand battery massed the guns of several French artillery batteries into one large temporary battery concentrating fire on a single point in the enemy line, trading accuracy for volume of fire, rate of fire and the shock of concentrated bombardment. Napoleon used it increasingly in his later campaigns as the quality of French artillery crews and horses declined, ordering a massed bombardment against the Pratzen Heights at Austerlitz in 1805, while a 112 gun grand battery halted an Austrian counterattack at Wagram in 1809. The tactic's most famous failure came at Waterloo in 1815, where the opening barrage failed to break Wellington's center because he had deployed most of his forces behind the reverse slope of the ridge. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/