
Bastion Fort - ferros
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion_fort
======
ranc1d
Think this was posted before but the French military are building these today

[https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35863/the-french-
army-...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35863/the-french-army-is-
building-renaissance-style-fortresses-in-africa)

~~~
azepoi
There are loads of bastion fortresses in France thanks to this guy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Le_Prestre_de_Vauban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Le_Prestre_de_Vauban)

~~~
cataflam
For some great examples, in pictures:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vauban+citadelle&iar=images&iax=im...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vauban+citadelle&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images)

~~~
pryelluw
Those remind me of the anime Attack on Titan.

------
Waterluvian
I love reading about these designs but I find the Wikipedia articles don’t do
a great job explaining the logic behind the geometry. I assume it has to do
with maximizing what your cannons can see while minimizing flat-on surfaces
for their cannons to strike?

But then there’s probably some tactical reasons too like how the emplacements
on the points of the star forces enemy engagement to take place a certain way.

All guesswork. Any good links or videos that really do a good job explaining
the why?

~~~
andrenotgiant
There's a good history stackexchange answer on the topic.
[https://history.stackexchange.com/a/35726](https://history.stackexchange.com/a/35726)

> Bastion forts are designed to enable enfilade (or flanking) fire: shooting
> on the line of attackers from the side, significantly increasing firing
> efficiency of the defender.

~~~
082349872349872
The bit about the offensive strategy reminds me of the old city of Jerusalem.
We visited the wall, and on the way passed though a new condo development,
where I joked that the zig-zag streets would limit flanking fire. My hosts
said the architects knew what they were doing, and pointed out various bullet
holes around the rest of (their quarter of) J'lem the rest of the day.

------
nemetroid
Gothenburg, Sweden, was built as a bastion fort [1]. When the fortifications
were removed in the early 19th century, large parts of the ramparts were
converted into a public park, which still surrounds the city center[2].

1:
[https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6teborgs_bef%C3%A4stning...](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6teborgs_bef%C3%A4stningar#/media/Fil:Goteborg1795.jpg)

2:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@57.7036863,11.9640366,2382m/dat...](https://www.google.com/maps/@57.7036863,11.9640366,2382m/data=!3m1!1e3)

~~~
fanf2
Also true for Utrecht in the Netherlands. They have just finished restoring
the moat that goes around the inner city where the fortifications were. For
several decades part of the moat was converted to a motorway.
[https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/cycling-
around...](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/cycling-around-the-
restored-utrecht-moat/)

------
xlance
Fredrikstad, Norway:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=gamlebyen+fredrikstad&client...](https://www.google.com/search?q=gamlebyen+fredrikstad&client=ms-
android-huawei-
rev1&prmd=imvn&sxsrf=ALeKk008urQzVfdSfhhEj7dBL4nGC5WeAA:1599930732069&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiRv8y3juTrAhWQlIsKHaQ-
DmgQ_AUoAXoECA8QAQ&biw=360&bih=659#imgrc=MA8mO-59FznucM)

------
cbanek
I absolutely love military history, and it's interesting on how much I find it
relates to other parts of life.

It was just this week I was explaining to my therapist the concept of "Defense
in Depth" and how that relates to trust, friendship making, security, life
opsec, work opsec, work, and making reliable systems.

The geometry in particular I always find to be interesting, since a lot of it
is about reacting to life (both animal and human) and the natural shape of the
terrain. Things like how animals hunt, or where they like to nest. Where and
how colonies are established, etc. Covering distance quickly and secretly, and
being able to see others coming. Protecting resources like food, water, or
crypto keys.

------
api
Is this why the Pentagon is a pentagon? I always thought it was to contain the
lloigor to prevent it from assimilating souls.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, Bastion forts are not convex polygons like the Pentagon, they are concave
because the concavities create kill zones where the fort can fire at attackers
from the sides as well as the front.

The Pentagon is an (irregular) pentagon because of the roadways surrounding
the site when it was selected.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The original chosen site was on Arlington Farms and was pentagonal. The
current site wasn't, but they (mostly) kept the original design.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> On the other hand, the Ottomans failed to take Corfu in 1537 in no small
part because of the new fortifications, and several attempts spanning almost
two centuries (another major one was in 1716) also failed.[6][7]

The bastion fortifications of Corfu were established shortly before the last
Ottoman invasion of 1716, by Count von der Schulenburg, appointed to the Job
by Venice. They were destroyed later when Corfu joined the newly freed Greek
nation with the treaty of 1864. The destruction of the Corfu fortifications
was an actual clause of the treaty. Today, only the (Venetian) Old Fort
remains and some few parts of the star-shaped walls. Allegedly, the
fortifications were so renowned that the British wanted them destroyed in case
they ended up being used against them. A bit of a shame, too, since they were
really impressive and they would have made a spectacular historical site
today. What remains is already interesting enough.

Sources: a bit of wikipedia to remind me of the dates and primarily local lore
(I spend a lot of time in Corfu) and also maps depicting the Ottoman siege in
1716, showing e.g. fortified positions of the defenders and the invaders with
detailed descriptions of the forces deployed, illustrations of gun
emplacements and even the trajectories of enfilading fire etc. Such maps are
often exhibited in Corfu, and I must surely look a huge nerd the way I spend
hours poring over them every bloody time :)

------
JoeDaDude
If your flight lands on the right runway (27R) at Philadelphia International
Airport, you will get a close up view of Fort Mifflin, a bastion fort dating
back to 1771 which took part in the Revolutionary War.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Fo...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Fort_mifflin_from_airplane_arriving_at_PHL.jpg/2560px-
Fort_mifflin_from_airplane_arriving_at_PHL.jpg)

------
Razengan
Goryōkaku (五稜郭) in Japan:

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

~~~
082349872349872
indigenous New Zealand:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pā#Gunfighter_pā](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pā#Gunfighter_pā)

(mostly innovative in local material use for protection from artillery, but at
least one was designed for enfilade)

------
ForHackernews
The _trace italienne_ also features prominently in the novel Wolf in White
Van: [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/books/wolf-in-white-
van-b...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/books/wolf-in-white-van-by-john-
darnielle.html)

------
Animats
The history of warfare has gone back and forth between offense and defense
being stronger. In the castle era, defense was stronger, which led to military
and political strong points. But a castle can't project power very far, at
best half a day's ride. Hence, strong barons, weak central governments.

Better cannon changed that, and gave the attacker an advantage.

Still better artillery and fortifications, plus heavy machine guns, gave the
defender the advantage again, resulting in WWI, which was stalled with
everyone in fixed positions for some time.

Then came tanks, and offense started beating defense again.

Arguably, guerilla warfare has given defense an edge again. It's a defense
based on hiding and disappearing into the general population, but a defense
nevertheless.

~~~
OpticalWindows
>Arguably, guerilla warfare has given defense an edge again. It's a defense
based on hiding and disappearing into the general population, but a defense
nevertheless.

Guerilla warfare has a different purpose than total war and it should not be
compared. Guerilla warfare basically happened in the american revolution.

~~~
082349872349872
The brits[1] complained it was guerilla warfare, but by the end, Washington
had naval support (merci, france), cavalry (dziękuję, poland; köszönöm,
hungary), and artillery (merci encore, france), not to mention tacit
logistical support from a number of other countries[2].

General Washington explicitly stood on the principles of being a regular, so
much so that he would send back british letters unopened if they had not been
properly addressed according to military custom.

(that custom has been codified somewhat with the Geneva Conventions, but it
remains to be seen how applicable these conventions are in the twenty-first
century.)

[1] hostilities having started when the brits, acting on undeniably accurate
intelligence, sent out parties to destroy rural terrorist arms caches
somewhere out in the boonies of Middlesex county. After accomplishing their
mission despite sporadic hostile opposition, they were subject to sustained
small arms fire from unlawful combatants on the return trip.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord#First_shot)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord#Legacy)

[2] Catherine, for instance, not only engaged in sanctions busting, but (at
least according to russian sources) reneged on providing troops for the
british which her diplomats had initially considered, leaving the
public/private military contracting to various HRE relatives of George's. No
fan of democracy, she, but "enemy of my enemy" reliably trumps ideologies in
geopolitics. (for contrast, the CSA would discover mere economics "but muh
property rights! and cheap cotton!" didn't trump a general nineteenth century
distaste for slavery:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24260354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24260354)
)

E.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesse-
Hanau_Troops_in_the_Amer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesse-
Hanau_Troops_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War) provided 2'400 troops out of
an estimated 30'000 germans, suggesting the coalition of the billing must've
been fairly large. [https://www.lagis-
hessen.de/de/subjects/xbrowse/sn/hetrina](https://www.lagis-
hessen.de/de/subjects/xbrowse/sn/hetrina) might contain better information.

~~~
Animats
Yes. By the end of the Vietnam war, when the North Vietnamese entered Saigon,
they did it with a tank assault.[1] The later phases of a guerilla war, if you
win, have to involve taking and holding territory and taking over. In that
phase it's no longer about hiding.

[1] [https://apimagesblog.com/historical/2020/4/24/the-fall-of-
sa...](https://apimagesblog.com/historical/2020/4/24/the-fall-of-saigon-
april-30-1975-the-end-of-the-vietnam-war)

~~~
082349872349872
TIL "doing donuts" was a thing in both the capitalist (1st) and communist
(2nd) worlds.

(also, about a predecessor to the Stinger:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K32_Strela-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K32_Strela-2)
)

Bonus clip:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1FFu4Z2mI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1FFu4Z2mI)
(Strela being a polysemous term in russian, it can be used not only in a
military sense, "arrow", but also in geographical, and, as this girl group
embodies, an anatomical.)

------
gatvol
Cape Town, South Africa, 1679 -still used in part as a military base.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Good_Hope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Good_Hope)

~~~
gatvol
[https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.9261109,18.4279941,373m/dat...](https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.9261109,18.4279941,373m/data=!3m1!1e3)

------
intrasight
Fort Pitt in Pittsburgh

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Fort_Pit...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Fort_Pitt_in_1776.jpg)

[https://i0.wp.com/www.heinzhistorycenter.org/wp-
content/uplo...](https://i0.wp.com/www.heinzhistorycenter.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/Model-blog-1.23.19.jpg)

------
gnatman
Fort McHenry- Baltimore, MD
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McHenry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McHenry)

------
TeeWEE
The Netherlands is full of these, lots of cities have bastion forts around it.
When i was in Sri Lanka, Jaffna, I even found one made by purtogese, captured
by the dutch during their Colonial era:
[https://goo.gl/maps/CBEBGZSgTtfHoSV68](https://goo.gl/maps/CBEBGZSgTtfHoSV68)

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doukdouk
They are still in use, see this [0] French FOB in Mali

[0] [https://i.redd.it/f325vekqsxh51.jpg](https://i.redd.it/f325vekqsxh51.jpg)

------
dang
If curious see also

2019
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19061690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19061690)

~~~
Chris_Newton
Also from 2018

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18482590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18482590)

------
CameronNemo
related:

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

