The Permanent Western Batteries - The Copenhagen Fortifications 1886 -1920

The permanent western batteries were all part of the western front or the western enceinte.
The task of the western batteries was to shell an enemy in front of the enceinte, but at a far distance.

There were two types of batteries.
The permanent batteries with concrete emplacements and concrete casemat magazines, and the prepared reinforcement batteries. The reinforcement batteries were more primitive, and had only one concrete magazine just behind it.

The permanent batteries

The permanent batteries had originally been given numbers, but it was quickly replaced by names that typically related to the farms or little towns nearby.
Some of the reinforcement batteries also got names.

Magazine

The permanet batteries had four concrete emplacements, two on each side of an underground concrete casemate magazine. Between the two cannons there was a traverse. A single battery consisted of 8 cannons and two magazines. Its was the standard type of batteries, just beside each other.

In peacetime the cannons war sores in some artillery sheds only af few near the battery

In the permanent magazines there was an handpropelled ammunition elevator to bring the ammunition to the emplacements. There was two rooms in the magazines. One for the grenades and one for the charges.

The cannons in the southern wing of the enceinte were 12 cm. cannons, and in the center and the northern wing 15 cm. cannons.

There was ten permanent batteries.

The reinforcement batteries

The reinforcement batteries were open emplacements just behind the top of the rampart. There were traverses between the cannons.
In case of an upcoming war, the cannon were to be transportet to the battery and then drawn up the prepared ramps.
The magazines of the reinforcement batteries had only one room.