Why were fortresses often built pentagonal?
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Cannon mounts can turn 130ish degrees in to either side so around a 260 degree line of fire. When you have a pentagon you have an internal 108 degrees and an external 252 degrees so by having the fort in a pentagonal shape you allowed more cannons to shoot at a certain target because of the overlap.
Lets say you got enough materials to build fort walls that make a perimeter of 100 meters and it is a square shape. The cannons on the wall can shoot forwards and to the side by 130 degrees so if the enemy is coming from the left the cannons on the front, back and right can’t shoot him. Now if you had the same perimeter built but in an pentagon shape it’s a different issue because now your cannons from two sides can support the side that is being attacked. So for simplicity’s sake if the cannons have to be spaces 5 meters apart in a 100 perimeter you’d have 25 cannons pointing to one side if it is a square but it if it was a pentagon you’d have 20 cannons pointing to one side and around 6 from two other sides to support it so 32 cannons can attack the enemy.
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