
The Most Effective Weapon on the Modern Battlefield Is Concrete - yread
http://mwi.usma.edu/effective-weapon-modern-battlefield-concrete/
======
chrisseaton
I don't think I saw any concrete structures when I was in Afghanistan. We used
Hesco bastion for everything. I think even the furthest-back hospital was just
sheet steel siding construction, surrounded by Hesco.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion)

Hesco is another very interesting material. Cheap, extremely light and easy to
deploy, until filled, which can be done by anyone with an entrenching tool
(small infantry shovel/spade that everyone carries) if required, and then
basically indestructible.

How many of those concrete walls can a helicopter carry? One? It's going to
take a long time to build any wall or structure. Or do you send an armoured
cement mixer and create on-site? That's not realistic in a place like
Afghanistan.

I'm not an engineer but I would also guess that Hesco survives better - a box
of stones can lift up and crash back down with an explosion where if concrete
cracks it's permanently broken.

~~~
walrus01
> I don't think I saw any concrete structures when I was in Afghanistan.

Seriously? You never saw the giant prefab concrete walls around Bagram and
Phoenix, and Eggers? Where were you in Afghanistan?

I have been to just about every significant ISAF base (while it was still
called ISAF, not RS) and US DoD base in the country, and can assure you that
giant prefab concrete walls lifted into place with cranes are _everywhere_.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Where were you in Afghanistan?

A FOB somewhere near Lashkargah. I never went to Bagram, Phoenix or Eggers. I
spent a few days in Bastion, which, as the name suggests, was also constructed
from Hesco bastion.

~~~
josephkern
The Marines ran Helmand a bit differently than how the Army ran everything
else.

The Army loves their t-walls. So much in fact they give out little awards that
are shaped like t-walls.[1]

[1]: [http://uswarriorsoutdoors.org/us/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/...](http://uswarriorsoutdoors.org/us/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/USWOMembersaward.png)

~~~
Tech1
Farah (2009 - 2010) EOD tech reporting in. We were almost all Hesco too.
Oddly, we found a lot of PMNs[0] in our Hescos.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMN_mine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMN_mine)

~~~
Satchelmouth
Woah! To clarify, when digging up filler for the Hescos, PMN was present in
the area the filler was taken from and thus made their way into the Hescos?

~~~
Tech1
I was/(am?) a bomb tech, I didn't dig up a damn thing, we were too highly
valued of an asset..And only having a small handful of us to support an entire
theater of war makes us exceedingly rare.

Got called out on quite a few. One in particular was a dude out at a COP in
the middle of no where Farah, taking a piss next to a Hesco, looked up and saw
a mine poking out of the barrier. Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined
countries in the world. It's not surprising.

------
pjungwir
It is interesting to read that so little has changed since the days of Caesar.
Reading his _Gallic War_ you'd think the war was won by digging ditches and
building walls. For instance, search for "fortification" on this page:

[http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.5.5.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.5.5.html)

Contrast with Galba in the early chapters of

[http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.3.3.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.3.3.html)

You would only exaggerate a little to say that in his telling, victory is all
about being prepared and not slacking off.

~~~
dogma1138
That isn't very surprising you win a war by controlling territory which is why
boots on the ground are always needed to win an actual war, to control a
territory you need fortifications.

A properly fortified base can take pretty much any conventional artillery fire
for weeks without taking any real damage and unless there is an all out
assault you can hold out as long as you have food and water, ammo might not
even be that important as long as the enemy doesn't know that and or is
incapable of scaling the fortifications.

Even when we'll be fighting on Mars and the jovian moons you'll still will
have grunts digging trenches unless for some reason the war is going to
transform to purely strategic weapons in which case it's usually the side that
either has more or strikes first who would win.

~~~
zigzigzag
Not necessarily. I imagine the wars of the future will largely be automated
and wars will be won or lost almost purely on logistics and manufacturing
supply chain management. Do you need walls when you have a drone above doing
surveillance and an army of quadrocopters or other robotic flying machines
that are doing 24/7 patrols along the perimeter and can arrive within 30
seconds?

~~~
mseebach
Wars are already won or lost on logistics. That's why, in WW2, the allies ran
a near-continous near-sucicide air bombing campaign against German industrial
capacity (and to their eternal shame, civilians, too). That is why the
Atlantic was so important, if the Germans could have choked off the supply
chain from the US, they would have won the war more or less overnight. The
ability to run the air bridge to Berlin after the war was also a logistical
feat.

But at the end of the day, the only purpose of the logistics are to support
the fight to control the territory you need to win.

~~~
gadders
Wasn't it Wellington who said something along the lines of "Amateurs talk
tactics, professionals talk logistics."

~~~
walshemj
Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk strategy real professionals talk
logistics.

------
kevin_thibedeau
> Each type was named for a state, denoting their relative sizes and weights.
> There were small barriers like the Jersey...

The Jersey barrier isn't so named because of its size. It was developed as a
barrier by the NJ highway dept [1]. The newer barriers used for the military
are just given other state names to follow along with the original. It just
happens to be smaller because of its original civilian purpose.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_barrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_barrier)

------
alaskamiller
One mission in my service was going to Korea and blowing up concrete walls.
Back in 2008 the Korean government acquired new concrete barrier designs meant
to re-enforce strategic locations.

Wanting to see real life usage of these barriers, a contingency of Marine
combat engineers working with the ROK Marines got tasked to breaching them.

From that I learned two interesting things of note. Concrete serves two means:
it's actual use as a barrier and the other being a manifestation.

In combat zones, Hesco containers prevail. Rapid deployment and durability
makes them a much better fit. But imposing concrete blocks represent the
continuity of the state.

Heavier and harder, with more logistics required, building out concrete walls
is meant as a way for the state to declare they are here to stay, not retreat.
So actually it's wielding a supply chain effectively that is the most
effective weapon on the battlefield.

That said though, we made short work of the concrete.

~~~
tajen
I reckon concrete is necessary, but how much does it harm the economy? I can't
recall a barrier in history that didn't prevent food from reaching to the
right people and triggering bribes. But the main driver in peace is to get
paid/production jobs for everyone, and the main specificity of a city is that
it's good for tertiary jobs, but it requires constant provisioning from
agriculture and industry, which both happen outside towns and require
intensive movement of goods.

In a nutshell: Don't concrete walls prevent recovery? Don't they split the
population, creating even more groups with differences? Should we plan for
them to be "reconfigured" in the following years, when the conflict improves?

Side question: Sorry I didn't follow, why was USA in Irak again? Did it start
with the famous WMD accusation at the UN conference then the intervention got
bogged into a long unpeaceful situation, am I recollecting events in the
correct order?

~~~
pault
It started with the Project for the New American Century:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Calls_for_regime_change_in_Iraq)

"Of the twenty-five people who signed the PNAC's founding statement of
principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President
George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz."

They were planning this for a long time.

------
Cogito
The discussion of Hesco vs concrete barriers is an interesting one, and I
think a lot of the other comments handle it well.

The thing I was wondering while reading the article is what will they do after
the fighting is done?

Will the barriers and walls be left in place or dismantled?

Is it easier to take down or move concrete vs Hesco?

I suspect lots of them will remain until they fall apart, especially in
situations like lining highways. I bet that the walls in the city, and the
enclaves formed by them, will be affecting the culture off the city years
after the conflict is done.

~~~
woodman
> Will the barriers and walls be left in place or dismantled?

I was looking at satellite images of the area my FOB was at in Fallujah - no
sign of our presence. We had double stacked hesco all over the place, as well
as Texas and Jersey barriers on the road.

> Is it easier to take down or move concrete vs Hesco?

Easier to take down hesco (boltcutter and a knife), impossible to move.
Concrete is easy to move with common construction equipment, I'm sure the
people of Fallujah found a new use for the barriers pretty quickly.

------
icanhackit
_Many in the military are thinking about future warfare in complex urban
terrain, to include operations in megacities with populations over 10
million._

For what plausible reason would you invade and occupy a city with a population
of over 10 million? Here is a list of cities with a population of 10 million
or more, please tell me for what good reason any one of them should they be
invaded:

Tokyo, Shanghai, Jakarta, Karachi, Seoul, New York City, Mumbai, Manila,
Mexico City, Delhi, Beijing, São Paulo, Lagos, Wuhan, Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe,
Guangzhou, Chongqing, Cairo, Los Angeles, Chengdu, Dhaka, Moscow, Tianjin,
Bangkok, Istanbul, Kolkata, Rio de Janeiro, London, Buenos Aires, Tehran,
Kinshasa, Paris, Shenzhen, Harbin, Rhine-Ruhr, Lahore

Maybe invest as much time and money thinking about peace as you do on war and
you might not need to bankrupt your country to fight another one. The US's
military industrial complex is the ultimate case of _when all you have is a
hammer, everything looks like a nail_.

~~~
jcranmer
Tokyo, Seoul, Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe would very much be on the front-lines of a war
involving North Korea, which is way too distressingly possible (NK's rulers
aren't exactly known for their rationality in foreign policy).

Pakistan and India have gone to war no fewer than 4 times since their
independence not 7 decades ago. It was considered basically a miracle that the
2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai _didn 't_ spark a war, and the tensions
between the two countries remain the most likely potential nuclear war. That
gets you Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi (Kolkata is on the wrong side of the country).

Cairo, Istanbul, and Tehran could become war zones in a future Middle Eastern
conflict, although the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does seem to have declined
in importance to the Arab region as a whole. The risk of a World War III
involving China or Russia is probably understated--especially given Putin's
responses to the increasing failure of the Russian economy since the 2008
financial crisis.

It is also worth pointing out that many of the megacities that people are
concerned about don't exist yet--the number of megacities is expected to grow,
predominantly in Africa, a region not known for stability of governments. You
might say that solid middle-class countries would help to stabilize the
governments, but the Syrian and Libyan civil wars really ought to be clear
signs of the fallacy of that belief.

In many respects, though, the main point of a military is not to fight wars--
it's to figure out how to, and be prepared to, fight the next war. Acting as
if wars won't happen won't guarantee you peace--indeed, WWII, the bloodiest
war in history, was so bloody precisely because its principal actors refused
to believe that is was going to happen.

~~~
Lordarminius
> You might say that solid middle-class countries would help to stabilize the
> governments, but the Syrian and Libyan civil wars really ought to be clear
> signs of the fallacy of that belief.

Neither the Libyan nor Syrian civil war was caused by a failure of the middle
class or institutions. In both cases the wars were fomented by external state
actors who sought geopolitical advantages at the expense of these nations. In
any case your sample size of 2 is insufficient to prove anything

If a war broke out in Tehran no prizes for guessing which nation would start
it.

~~~
rshaban
hint: U S A

------
Animats
All that military expertise in rapid wall-building is going to be useful.
Already, there are concrete barriers around Trump Tower.[1]

[1]
[http://gothamist.com/2016/11/09/nypd_trump_tower_security.ph...](http://gothamist.com/2016/11/09/nypd_trump_tower_security.php)

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Similar to the HESCO barriers mentioned above, another measure used there was
simply a row of dump trucks full of sand:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/5bugud/sand_blockade_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/5bugud/sand_blockade_outside_trump_tower_on_5th/)

~~~
shin_lao
They also used such trucks to prevent a vehicle ramming into the NYC Marathon.

------
gozur88
It's not really surprising. The Roman armies made surprisingly extensive
fortifications when they stopped for the night and won battles they might have
lost as a result.

"The more you sweat today, the less you bleed tomorrow."

~~~
mercer
So I've been wondering: was it usually the soldiers themselves who did all the
fortification work, or did the Roman armies have 'grunt workers' and engineers
that they took with them on their conquests?

~~~
gozur88
I'm not sure if they had help from the camp followers, but the soldiers
definitely worked on the fortifications.

------
ryanmarsh
In Iraq I was really surprised by how quickly these barriers showed up and how
easy it was to build fortifications. I always wondered where they were made,
the quality of the concrete and the cost. It seemed there was an endless
supply. On the night before the first election alone we basically put jersey
barriers up on every major street in the city. Nuts. I always imagined some
factory in the desert near an aggregate source where they just poured these
things as fast as possible.

------
jweir
NRP Science Friday all on concrete

[http://www.npr.org/2012/02/17/147047553/concretes-role-
as-a-...](http://www.npr.org/2012/02/17/147047553/concretes-role-as-a-
building-block-in-history)

~~~
sjm
Another interesting podcast on concrete from "Surprisingly Awesome":
[https://gimletmedia.com/episode/3-concrete/](https://gimletmedia.com/episode/3-concrete/)

------
fennecfoxen
So if I'm reading this right, the occupation in Iraq is a tower defense game.
I really wouldn't have guessed...

------
scotty79
Funny how he mentions other wars and successful application of this strategy
but forgets to mention walling of Jewish population in occupied Polish cities
during WWII. Very successful in limiting activity of terrorists and insurgents
from what I've heard.

------
maxander
It sounds like concrete is a useful counterinsurgency tool in the same way
that placing blocks is against mobs in Minecraft.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's also a good combat tool in the same way placing blocks cleverly will make
you a nice mob/animal farm.

------
Twisell
In France most of the people have always seen the Israeli concrete barrier as
pretty outrageous. The least I can say after reading this article is that I'll
need to carefully reconsider the facts with this new lighting in mind.

~~~
bobmoretti
The reason that the barrier is outrageous is not that it's made out of
concrete; it's because of its location. It criss-crosses into the West Bank
[1].

[1]
[http://www.btselem.org/download/separation_barrier_map_eng.p...](http://www.btselem.org/download/separation_barrier_map_eng.pdf)

~~~
Twisell
Thanks a lot for the resource, I'll have a close look at the whole
[http://www.btselem.org/](http://www.btselem.org/) site.

~~~
bobmoretti
Np. That was just the first thing I found on Google; b'tselem does not have a
neutral point of view. But the fact is that the wall is being built mostly on
the West Bank side of the pre-1967 borders.

You might also be interested in this talk, which if memory serves discusses
the wall's impact on the community: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSkevV-
CoO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSkevV-CoO4)

------
visarga
Interesting. I've been following the war in Iraq but I wasn't aware they were
building so many walls.

~~~
trhway
>I've been following the war in Iraq but I wasn't aware they were building so
many walls.

couple days of tomahawk cruise missiles barrage followed by 10 years of nation
_building_

~~~
icebraining
I don't criticize them for it, but protecting vehicles from IEDs and walling
off sections of the city is still war activities, not nation building. Crucial
stuff, no doubt, but I'm sure the people actually trying to build a nation
would rather spend those resources on other stuff if there wasn't insurgency
activity.

~~~
coredog64
Upscale neighborhoods in my neck of the woods clamor for very tall walls near
high traffic roads to block out the sound (and the occasional runaway
vehicle). They become a nice canvas for tasteful artwork, or if that's too
contentious can have vines grown on them.

------
mikoyan
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia)

------
foxhop
For some reason I've become obsessed with our nations decision to elect Donald
Trump as president. For that reason my mind drew a connection with US Iraq
concrete walls and barriers and all the historic walls humankind has built,
and plans to build.

Walls and barriers can offer protection from the "others" but I feel more
often then not, they are used to separate territory and control movement. That
separation and control comes at a cost. One such cost, is freedom of place.

------
_nedR
apropos of this, Al-Jazeera has an interesting documentary on this topic:
[http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelarchitecture/2014/0...](http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelarchitecture/2014/06/architecture-
violence-2014629113556647744.html)

------
squozzer
Are we witnessing the ascendancy of the castle?

------
SamUK96
Bad article written badly.

Firstly, concrete isn't a weapon, it is a defensive utility, not an offensive
one (weapon).

Correcting that, the best defense is people. More specifically, "civilians".

You can now easily defend yourself if you surround yourself with civilians
like ISIS has done. Without civilians, no-doubt the US will "precision bomb"
your entire stronghold to dust.

That's the whole reason the US spend trillions of $ on precision weaponry and
surveillance now. The US is trying to develop weapon systems that, even when
defending oneself with civilians, when you walk outside your civilian-filled
afghan hut alone to go to the outhouse, a tiny precision bullet from the sky
assassinates you in an instant. They are getting there, and it's ever closer
to fruition, regardless of how disturbing it all is.

EDIT: I mean, why do you think they are pouring money into drones that can
stay in the air for ages, path-changing (steerable) "smart" bullets, face
recog AI, flight stablisation, etc.. It's ALL an effort to create the
aforementioned precision assassination system.

~~~
Lordarminius
> You can now easily defend yourself if you surround yourself with civilians
> like ISIS has done

That is a very dubious assertion. If the stakes are high enough, a
sufficiently equipped aggressor will attack a city despite the civilian
population within. Stalingrad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Falluja,

~~~
SamUK96
A lot of things have changed since the days of Shock and Awe ;)

~~~
yread
Tell that to Aleppo

[https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/16/syria/russia-
incendiary-...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/16/syria/russia-incendiary-
weapons-burn-aleppo-idlib)

------
joshfraser
Sounds like 12ft ladders would have also been pretty effective, depending on
which side you were on.

~~~
bsamuels
good luck getting a 12ft ladder through a checkpoint without being searched

~~~
Vexs
A rope would do just as well too.

~~~
Roboprog
That's why you have to have your archers to protect the castle from the orc
hordes :-)

------
bryanrasmussen
My many years of reading comics made me hope this was because The Hulk kept
picking up large concrete structures and swatting tanks like flies with them.

------
employee8000
This is an extremely interesting, non-silicon valley related article, and the
comments and really informative as well. One of the best examples of why
Hacker News is so great!

------
mberning
Amazing that we can send our soldiers, equipment, and supplies half way around
the world to build structures but it takes an act of congress to fix our
dilapidated infrastructure at home.

------
jlebrech
why don't we drop a grid (across the whole of syria) of concrete covered
sniper turrets they'll only have to be small and can just be remotely
operated.

~~~
tim333
Or something like T-800s. I'm sure someone could hack the Atlas a bit
[https://youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY?t=29s](https://youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY?t=29s)

~~~
jlebrech
my concept is a pyramid shape with the top hat being able to raise so that
measuring equipment can have a scan of the horizon, if something is a target
then a large cannon comes out of the top too. and if someone tries to blow it
up then it's covered by meters of concrete to absorb all damage. and if
enemies come to attack it then HQ is notified. it can also send drones to
inspect papers and personnel.

------
rahrahrah
Forced Americanization.

------
AlexCoventry
Is this submarine PR for Trump's wall?

~~~
clock_tower
I don't think a concrete submarine would work very well. :)

More seriously, I have no idea. Submarines normally involve an advertisement
for the advertising company somewhere in the latter part of the article; no
company = no giveaway ad. But knowing Trump and his way with memes, I wouldn't
be surprised if the author just had walls on the brain, without having to be
paid for it...

------
noodles23
Perhaps we can recycle the concrete to build Donald Trump's Great Wall

------
EugeneOZ
Fuck popup windows

------
vacri
> weapon ... concrete

If we're going to play this semantics game, then the most effective weapon on
the modern battlefield is food. Without food, your people can't do any of the
other things they're there to do. Take away concrete, and your military can
still do plenty of stuff. Take away food and your military ceases to exist.

~~~
colanderman
You can't exactly strategically deploy food.

~~~
dpc59
You can certainly strategically fuck up your enemy's supply lines. War is one
of the main causes of famine for this reason.

~~~
RUG3Y
One of the ways they did what you describe is by placing these concrete walls
around troubled enclaves. They weren't restricting food but munitions had to
now be taken through checkpoints.

------
smarx007
Nice to see how these links appear on HN front page now as the new POTUS plans
to build a concrete wall...

~~~
ryanx435
The site linked is a blog/podcast pit on by senior cadets and officers at
westpoint, which is just about as apolitical as government institutions come

------
joshuarcher
build the walll

------
revelation
I don't think any war was ever won by endlessly placing concrete. This has the
hallmarks of WW1 trench warfare.

