breaching-battery

This disagreeable fact had hitherto been concealed by the hollow, both from the breaching-battery and the engineers.

Our Soldiers Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

Thus he tells how an engineer officer, when marking out the ground for a breaching-battery very near the wall, which was always lined with French soldiers in eager search of human targets, "used to challenge them to prove the perfection of their shooting by lifting up the skirts of his coat in defiance several times in the course of his survey; driving in his stakes and measuring his distances with great deliberation, and concluding by an extra shake of his coat-tails and an ironical bow before he stepped under shelter!"

Deeds that Won the Empire Historic Battle Scenes 1886