Battery

Battery (pronounced bat-rhee or bat-uh-ree)

(1) A combination of two or more cell electrically connected to work together to store electric energy (also called galvanic battery or voltaic battery); another name for accumulator

(2) Any large group or series of related things; a group or series of similar articles, machines, parts etc.

(3) In army jargon, two or more pieces of artillery used for combined action or a tactical unit of artillery, usually consisting of up to six guns together with the artillerymen and equipment required for their operation.

(4) A parapet or fortification equipped with artillery (mostly historic).

(5) In baseball, the pitcher and catcher considered as a unit (obsolete).

(6) In Admiralty use, a group of guns, missile launchers, searchlights, or torpedo tubes on a warship having the same caliber or used for the same purpose; the whole armament of a warship.

(7) In psychology, a series of tests yielding a single total score, used for measuring aptitude, intelligence, personality etc.

(8) The act of beating or battering; an instrument used in battering.

(9) In law, an unlawful attack upon another person by beating or wounding, or by touching in an offensive manner; In common law countries, the meaning varies in civil and criminal law.

(10) In orchestral music, the instruments comprising the percussion section of an orchestra (also known as the batterie).

(11) Any imposing group of persons or things acting or directed in unison.

(12) In agribusiness, a large group of cages for intensive rearing of poultry.

(13) In chess, two pieces of the same colour placed so that one can unmask an attack by the other by moving.

(14) An apparatus for preparing or serving meals (archaic).

1525-1535: From the Middle French batterie, from twelfth century Old French baterie (beating, thrashing, assault) from the Latin battuere and battuō (beat) & batre (to beat).  The ultimate source was the Gaulish.  The sense in law (the unlawful beating of another) was adapted by the military, the meaning in French shifting from bombardment (heavy blows upon city walls or fortresses) to "unit of artillery", a sense recorded in English army records in the 1550s.  It was first extended to the "electrical cell in 1748 by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), his thoughts undocumented but presumably analogous with artillery: force being stored in a manner able to be discharged upon demand.  In Middle English, bateri meant only "forged metal ware". In US baseball jargon, in 1867, battery was a term for the pitcher (again drawing on the imagery of artillery) and later for both pitcher and catcher considered as a unit, again presumably drawing a military connection; the term is long obsolete.  As applied to cooking, the meaning emerged because batter needed to be beaten.  Battery is a noun and batteried an adjective; the noun plural is batteries.

In Law

Although the terms assault and battery have for centuries been used in criminal law, their origins are as two of the most ancient common law torts, classified now as one of the trespass to the person torts, all of which are known as intentional torts.  Both assault and battery are actionable per se (without proof of damage) although, if the wrongful act does result in injury, damages can be recovered for that injury as well.  In malicious prosecution proceedings however, it’s necessary to assert and prove damage.

An assault is any direct and intentional threat made by a person that places the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of an imminent contact with the plaintiff’s person, either by the defendant or by some person or thing within the defendant’s control.  The effect on the victim’s mind created by the threat is the crux, not whether the defendant actually had the intention or means to follow it up.  The intent required for the tort of assault is the desire to arouse an apprehension of physical contact, not necessarily an intention to inflict actual harm.  Although words are often a feature in threats which constitute an assault, actions alone may suffice if they place the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of receiving an imminent (though not of necessity an immediate) battery.

A battery is a voluntary and positive act, done with the intention of causing contact with another that directly causes that contact.  The requisite intention for battery is simply that the defendant must have intended the consequence of the contact with the plaintiff; the defendant need not know the contact is unlawful and they need not intend to cause harm or damage as a result of the contact.  Not every contact is a battery.  Those in crowded trains are implied to have consented to most contacts, as has a rugby player who may have consented in writing although, even then, limitations exist and beyond tort, the criminal law can intervene if the degree of the contact exceeds that to which could reasonably thought to have been consented, a distinction influenced on technical grounds by those engaged in professional sport being in a workplace.  Where such things are contested, as a general principle, it will be the responsibility of the defendant to raise a defense of consent and prove it.

The early development of rockets in military aviation

Battery of wing-strut mounted Le Prieur rockets on Nieuport 11 (1917).

Although it became well-known only late in World War II (1939-1945), the ground-attack rocket had a surprisingly long history in military aviation, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC; 1912-1918, predecessor of the Royal Air Force (RAF; 1918-)) using wing-strut mounted Le Prieur solid-fuel rockets previously used by the French army on the battlefield.  Severely limited as an infantry tactical weapon because of inaccuracy and an effective range of barely 100 m (330 feet) (although 150 m (330 feet) was quoted based on experimental firings in ideal, controlled conditions), when used in the air, the latter drawback could somewhat be mitigated if a pilot could maneuver into a position at a helpful height and angle above the target.  Altitude though brought its own problems, the rocket’s trajectory affected by winds and the inaccuracy meant it was something which could only ever be effective against large, slow moving targets like observation balloons.  Against these, the RFC enjoyed some success, but the rockets were never popular with pilots because, depending on the capacity of the airframe, batteries of between six and twelve were used and, although all were triggered simultaneously, actual ignition could vary between rockets by one or two seconds, during which, the airplane had to maintain travelling in the direction of the target.

Ground-based test-firing of Le Prieur rocket (1917).

A one-two second delay sounds not critical but, even at the relative closing speed (typically not more than 80 mph (130 km/h)), because firing had to be at close range, it was enough significantly to increase the risk of collision.  That the RFC’s pilots managed to bring down some fifty balloons without loss may suggest some caution was exercised.  Strangely, despite the big airships being tempting targets, there’s no record of rockets downing a Zeppelin although even when using more conventional munitions, the defenses enjoyed only what was at the time thought limited success.  Of the dozens of Zeppelins the Germans lost, only a handful were destroyed by aircraft, more were the victims of ground-fire or, overwhelmingly, accidents.  It was only after the war the British fully understood the difficulties of mounting fighter defenses against bomber attack; of the biggest bombers used in the war by the Germans, not one would be lost and the experience allowed “the bomber will always get through” doctrine to shape the policies of many European nations during the inter-war years.

Modern (cosmetic) replica of Le Prieur rocket battery.

The sometimes stuttering rate of fire was a product of the construction.  The rocket was made by filling a cardboard tube with 200 g (6 ½ oz) of black powder, topped with a conical, 75 mm (3 inch) steel-tipped, wooden head.  Cardboard being porous, the black powder was prone to moisture infiltration and this happened at different rates, hence the delay sometime encountered in firing.  Directional assistance was limited to a 1.5 m (5 foot) wooden stick taped to the cardboard; they were essentially a big firework of the kind still made today.  Their limitations made them impractical for air-to-air combat although there is a record of a German fighter succeeding in forcing a RFC aircraft to crash-land after inflicting damage in a rocket attack but the rarity of the event does suggest it might have been a lucky shot.  Despite that one-off-victory, no effort seems to have been made to improve the technology and as soon as tracer rounds and incendiary-tipped bullets became available, they were replaced, the RFC’s last rocket-equipped sortie flown early in 1918.

Lindsay Lohan portable battery charger.

Feuerlile AA Missile.

During the inter-war years, no air force seems much to have explored aircraft-mounted rockets although advances in the propulsion systems did see them developed as ground-based anti-aircraft batteries.  The early British devices were simple but a useful augmentation to the anti-aircraft guns which were only ever marginally effective in high-altitude attacks.  The German efforts, typically, were technically intriguing but never reached the point of being decisive weapons, all the projects falling victim to the usual bureaucratic inertia and squabbles between competing interests.  Although, both the Henschel Hs 117 Schmetterling (Butterfly) and the two Feuerlilie (Fire lily) rockets needed development beyond what was within the economic and industrial capacity of the Nazi state, the Wasserfall (waterfall) could by 1944 have been deployed had the resources been made available although military analysts doubt it would have been effective without the proximity fuses that Germany lacked.  Lacking the Wagnerian flavor he preferred, it's doubtful Hitler's approval was sought for the code-names.

Battery of RP-3 rockets.

Allied interest in the rocket was revived early in the war when its potential as a ground attack weapon was realised.  Early attempts to create the so-called “tank-buster” fighters by equipping the Hawker Hurricane (IV) with a pair of 40 mm canons had been partially successful but more firepower was needed to disable the heavier tanks and there were limits to the weight and calibre of canon a fighter could support.  The solution lay in the adoption of batteries of the RP-3 (Rocket Projectile 3 inch (75 mm)) which proved a versatile weapon.  Equipped with a 60-pound (27 kg) warhead, it was used against moving and static targets on both land and sea, proving effective even against submarines.

Single-rack mount (four rockets per wing) RP-3 battery on Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B (1943).

As the war dragged on, the ground-attack aircraft with rocket batteries became an increasingly important tactical weapon, able to deliver a destructive load with a speed and accuracy otherwise unattainable and at minimal cost in manpower and machinery.  The effectiveness of the rocket batteries also played a role in saving an aircraft on the verge of being abandoned,  turning it into one of the more important fighters of the later stages of the conflict.  The Hawker Typhoon (1941-1945) had been intended as the Hurricane’s replacement but the performance at altitude was disappointing and production seemed unlikely.  However, it was rushed into service because, whatever it’s failings, at low altitude it was the fastest thing the RAF possessed and, in 1941, changes in the nature of the Luftwaffe’s attack meant that was where the need lay.  It didn’t go well for the Typhoon, the exposure to combat revealing basic problems with the wing design and weaknesses in the fuselage which sometimes resulted in catastrophic structural failure.  The whole project was going to be scrapped.

Double-rack mount (six rockets per wing) RP-3 battery on Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B (1945).

Hawker however persisted and rectified the faults to the point where it was a useful part of the fleet, though it would never be the high-altitude interceptor originally intended.  By 1943 however, the nature of the Allied war effort was shifting to attack and the robust wing of the Typhoon was adapted to carry batteries of the RP-3 rockets and it proved a devastating combination.  One early drawback however was the misleading intelligence gained early in the Typhoon’s second career in ground-attack, subsequent reconnaissance revealing the pilots' reports of destruction being exaggerated sometime by a factor of hundreds.  It was perhaps understandable given the lack of visibility inherent in such operations and, after the war, it was realised the rocket attacks had a military effectiveness well beyond the actual damage caused.