Category: Fortification

One of the portals to Site R. Raven Rock Mountain Complex One of the largest bunkers built during the Cold War would belong not to the White House or FEMA, but rather to the Department of Defense. DoD’s alternate Pentagon is east of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, in an underground facility called ‘Site R’. In […]

A Union attack on Mobile Bay and its defenses was a huge undertaking. Triangular in shape, the bay was about thirty miles long—about eight miles wide at the upper end and just over twenty near the mouth. The entrance to the bay, however, was only three miles wide and most of this length toward the […]

VIET CONG’S SECRET SUBTERRANEAN BASE VIETNAM, 1 NOVEMBER 1955 – 30 APRIL 1975 During the Vietnam War, the USA had the most advanced military in the world. Boasting technology and resources other nations could only dream of, their entrance to the conflict on the side of South Vietnam against the communist North Vietnam looked certain […]

Rhodes Fortifcations By the end of the fourteenth century, it was apparent that gun-powder weapons were changing siege tactics and, consequently, fortification construction had to adapt to them. From shortly after their invention, guns began to be used in sieges. They were possibly used in 1338 at the siege of Cambrai, in 1340 at Tournai […]

Part of the elaborate Confederate works outside Petersburg, after their evacuation in April 1865; such trenches extended for many miles in both directions. Following a series of engagements a state of mutual siege arose when the Army of the Potomac encountered the Army of North Virginia in the region of a crossroads known as Cold […]

The distinctions in the case of static barriers can become blurred. For example, in certain locations some linear barriers appear originally to have been temporary in intention, but may have then become long term fixtures. Looking at the Corinthian Isthmus, the stone wall built by Anastasius and rebuilt by Justinian was intended to be permanent […]

An M50 tank that was used in a static defence role by the Israelis. This view shows the access to the shelter. To give added protection the spoil would have been built up around the sides of the tank so that only the turret was visible. This example was located on the coast at Kibbutz […]

The Peninsula Campaign and Trench Warfare When General George McClellan persuaded Lincoln (against the latter’s judgement) to leave only 75 000 men guarding Washington from behind fortresses and land more than 100 000 men on the Yorktown Peninsula on 22nd March 1862 to strike at Richmond by sea, he sowed the seeds of failure by […]