But false attacks have, in general, the objection of dividing the forces of the assailants as well as of the assailed.

In all attacks by surprise, secrecy is the soul of the enterprise.
In an open assault, if artillery be employed, the troops should be drawn up in a sheltered position, until the fire of the works is silenced, and breaches effected in the parapet.

But if the bayonet alone be resorted to, the troops are immediately brought forward at the beginning of the assault.

The attack is begun by a storming party of picked men: they are preceded, as before, by a body of sappers, provided with necessary means for removing obstacles, and followed by a second detachment of engineers, who will widen the passages, and render them more accessible to the main body of troops who now advance to the assistance of the storming party.

If the assailants should be arrested at the counterscarp by obstacles which must be removed before any farther progress can be made, the infantry troops of the detachment display and open a fire upon the assailed, in order to divert their fire from the sappers.