Buffadero Battery was an

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to f ...

in the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

. It is located on Windmill Hill.

Description

Buffadero was the name of a village where people lived at the south end of Gibraltar before

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. According to the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

, Buffadero is possibly an anglicized corruption derived from the Spanish "bufido", which means "blowing" or "snorting", or it might be of Genoese origin as many Genoese workmen had been employed in Gibraltar. At the end of the nineteenth century Buffadero Battery had a BL 9.2 inch gun Mk IX–X, which was one of 14 installed in Gibraltar. The guns were intended to counter 8" guns on cruisers. At Gibraltar, these guns could fire across the

Straits of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...

and could hit shipping on the coast of

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, thus enabling Gibraltar to command the Straits. A well-like cave was in close proximity to the battery. Today, the Buffadero Training Center includes two live firing ranges, an obstacle course, and a mock village. Soldiers use the village to train for urban combat.

References

Artillery battery fortifications in Gibraltar {{Gibraltar-struct-stub