Post forts

Post forts

Kuressaare, Estonia

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>post-forts
very fitting title OP. See that circle of Greenery surrounding Krakow? This is a post-fort, indeed, and very necessary to the progress of civilization. Forts are living anachronisms. They do not belong in our current era. I truly believe that they should all be destroyed as symbols of despotism, bloodshed and aggression. We live in the era of progress and of the People. Forts do not belong in this age. They should all be liquidated and turned into public parks for the enjoyment of the masses.

An early conversion, originally a Xth century fortress, it was converted to withstand more modern weaponry in the early XVIth century by literally filling up the space between the outer walls and inner walls as well as almost the entire courtyard with earth buildings and all. If you look closely you'll see that even some of the towers got chopped down and filled up to make gun bastions. A few years back archaeologists discovered a church beneath the earthworks in the inner courtyard.
I think it's interesting to see early efforts made to strengthen existing castles and since it survived I think they were successful.

Elvas, Portugal

did forts really only need a few thousand men to defend against several thousands?

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.jpg has the name, Fort San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, also known for a while as Fort Brooke. Originally it had some defense lines in the green yard that you guys can see but all of that was destroyed by the US army to make space for other buildings and stuff.

Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin.

Why demolish when it can easily be converted to good parkland/greeb space with awesome walls? Some of the forts i visited in Spain did that.
The interior cam be used a parklands where people go to relax with the occasional market/festival/concert

>Why demolish when it can easily be converted to good parkland/greeb space with awesome walls?
Because that wouldn't be epin b8

I though Spandau was demolished?

Also,

*blocks your entry into the Golden Gate*

I demand posts of the Helsinki Approach!

>I truly believe that they should all be destroyed as symbols of despotism, bloodshed and aggression. We live in the era of progress and of the People

No Hitler, Spandau is alive and well, it has a museum, a bat-tower and is a regular revenue for concerts and the like.

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hmm

Hey, I can see my house.
That feels strange as fuck

>tfw a nine month pregnant Anne Frank will never admire the view from the gun deck while taking her oldest son on a tour of this beauty to indulge in his fascination with his adopted country's culture and history.

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There's another one 1km away from the town

Shit that's in Haiti

I don't understand how forts worked. Couldn't the enemy just ignore them and just go pillage the cities?

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It depends on what kind of places they're defending and what kind of enemies & wars they're are facing.

Most of the time you can't just ignore them since the garrison forces and their guns can harm your army.

I'll start with a place I've been to many times. Here's Fort Clinch on Amelia Island, Florida. The fort standing today was built as a seacoast defense in the 19th century guarding the gap between the island and Cumberland Island. Today, the nearby Kingsbay Naval base often launches American submarines that can be seen crossing in front of the fort to go out to sea making a kind of weird anachronistic experience.

The site was originally cleared in the early 1700's by the Spanish, but was summarily given up to the US after the Second Seminole War. During the Civil War Confederates maintained control of the fort who used it to help maintain the system of blockade running. It was then reoccupied by the Union only a year later after the Confederates discovered the Fort was obsolescently indefensible to rifled cannons.

>(((star))) forts
whats the meaning of this, /pol/?

Another Fort I've visited is Fort Pulaski. Also built in the 19th century it was apart of the same drive to build a coastal defense system. Pulaski's main role was to oversee and protect Savannah shipping traffic. Over 20 million bricks were used in its construction.

During the Civil War, Georgia militias seized the fort via steamship. After the South abandoned nearby Tybee island Union forces began to build artillery batteries across the water on Tybee to oppose Pulaski. In 1862, Confederates refused a Northern offer to surrender and the Union batteries, now using new rifled cannons, bombarded the fort. After a day of cannonballs being thrown against the walls they began to penetrate the fort-- coming close to the fort's main magazines prompting the surrender of it.The markings of this bombardment is still seen today.

Losing the fort meant Savannah itself could not longer be considered a Confederate port. It was known as a station in the so-called Underground Railroad for runaway slaves until the end of the war.

Here's Bourtange. It's cool. It was built by William of Orange in the late 16th century during the 80 Years War to control traffic between some city in the Netherlands and Germany. Grondigan or something.

Spanish forces ended up besieging the fort, but failed. About 80 years later in the 1670's Bourtange was used to defend against G*rms who demanded its surrender. This offer was refused, so the G*rms ordered an assault. They were repelled as well.

Can someone refresh me again on why they are shaped like a star. Is it due to maximium gun coverage?

Yes, also for easy crossfire.

It's also because a straight wall is much easier to knock down with cannons, by having it at an angle, the profectile had more relative area to penetrate (think sloped armour in WWII). Of course they also heaped up dirt behind the wall and had all kinds of fortificactions in front.

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>They should all be liquidated
i have similar thoughts about a different subject...

Cities would be fortified as well. Forts are there to protect key locations that aren't necessarily cities. Fort Halifax for example wasn't just to prevent advance on the city of Halifax, it was also to control access to the bay and the critical naval port from sea-based threats. Trying to sail past the defenses would be unduly costly, and trying to hold the city without the central vantage point is basically asking to be bombarded.

In the Napoleonic wars, people did go around forts quite often, but eventually you have to deal with the 10,000 men off sitting in one so you can finish off the enemy army. It proved quite a stickler at Cadiz where the French became unable to finish off the conquest of Spain. In most pre-modern wars, seizing of cities was less important than destruction of armies in the field.

Generally they were used to defend strategic positions. Gunpowder-era forts were often set up in such a way that they'd threaten nearby areas with their cannons, so you could use them to deny access to areas.

There was also the benefit of allowing you to hold down areas with comparatively small forces and force any invading force to devote disproportionate resources to defeating them. Bypassing forts was very much an option and was often employed (it was a common practice in the Thirty Years War, for example), but even with the fort bypassed, you had to devote a force to besieging the garrisons or else you'd leave your supply lines vulnerable to raiding.

Drop a 10 to 15 pound rock on someone head from 15 or more feet up. It will fuck up the target no matter the body armor.

aesthetic as fuck

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Slavonski Brod, Croatia
Made for protection against Turks as one of the largest modern forts on the Balkans, however, by the time of its completion, Ottomas were already too weak for further conquests into Europe.

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How does a modern day fort look like?
One taking bombers, missiles and artillery in mind.

>culture

It doesn't look like anything since it's buried in the side of a mountain or 50 meters below ground level.

>I truly believe that they should all be destroyed as symbols of despotism, bloodshed and aggression. We live in the era of progress and of the People. Forts do not belong in this age.
>implying this area will last forever

Santa Teresa, Uruguay

planty are in the place of city walls, not a fort, you faggot

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Like everything beautiful in Estonia, built by Germans

In this case, it was actually an ambush on open ground. The africans attacked during the night with their melee weapons, while the dutch failed to properly use their muskets, then quickly fled. (Presumably badly trained, though they were also exhausted and unused to the tropical climate apparently.)

Grondigan would be Groningen.

Yes

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cities are just big forts

Halifax Citadel, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
19th century British Fort.

Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.

French fort captured and destroyed by the English in the 1750s. Only partially reconstructed.

Almeida, Portugal

I'm new to this board, is this pasta? Do people like that come here often?

Halifax was founded by the British to counter Louisbourg, and then replace it as a an outpost at the end of the Saint Lawrence River after it was destroyed during the Seven Years War
now the Nova Scotian government - run from Halifax - pays people to LARP as French soldiers at Louisbourg, which is kind of funny

>germans built it
sure kiddo, keep telling yourself that

Fort Niagara, Youngstown, NY

No, it's not pasta, since we don't really have threads about forts often. But yes this place is almost only filled with people that say very stupid and contrarian or edgy things in order to incite hateful responses and then feel like very smug "trolls".

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In all these star shaped contours there are isolated triangles as advanced position, how does it work? Aren't the defenders there kinda sacrificed?

*star shaped forts (wtf)

what a dumb fucking ideologue lmao

Forts are such a silly and strangely upsetting thing to be interesting in.
Would you still like forts if you understood how much blood, suffering and pain is involved in such things?

It was to help deflect cannon fire

I'm fairly sure everyone who's even mildly interested in medieval warfare, much more so when it comes to forts, understands what a morbid affair a siege is. that's part of the appeal.

>when you really, really want to be left alone

>Would you still like forts if you understood how much blood, suffering and pain is involved in such things?
Are you fucking from this planet? Blood, and suffering are cultural maxims in our society, people revere them and live vicariously through them. Why are you even on Veeky Forums?

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Soviet troops attacked across the Moltke Bridge covering the River Spree. This was defended by German infantry and rockets, who were under pressure from Soviet tanks crossing the bridge, until the heavier anti aircraft guns from the Zoo tower could gain line of sight through the smoke. They destroyed the tanks and left the bridge covered in destroyed vehicles, which blocked further vehicles from crossing the bridge

As the Soviets advanced inexorably towards the centre of Berlin, 10,000 German troops retreated to the Government district. The tower was never successfully assaulted, so it was still able to provide anti-tank support to the defenders. For example, during daylight hours on April 30, the Soviets were unable to advance across the open areas in front of the Reichstag to attack the building because of heavy anti-tank fire from the 12.8 cm guns two kilometres away on the Zoo tower

Soviet troops, not wishing to attack the facility, arranged the surrender of the troops inside. Colonel Haller, negotiating on behalf of the tower, promised to capitulate at midnight. This was a ruse to allow for the forces in the Tiergarten area to make a breakout through the Soviet lines and away from Berlin

The towers resisted all attempts to destroy them by air and ground. They withstood the heaviest Soviet gun, the 203 mm howitzer. Even after the war, with full access and planned demolitions, only the Zoo tower was completely destroyed.

It was 1948, before the British blew up the tower complex. The smaller ‘L’ tower was blown up successfully on the first attempt. The larger ‘G’ tower required more explosives than the British had expected. Initially, the G-tower was packed with 25 tons of explosives. The explosives were set off however, when the dust cleared, the G tower still stood. One US journalist remarked "Made in Germany".

The British spent four months preparing the building for demolition. A total of 35 tons of dynamite was used in the successful third try.

Did they ever try to beautify those medieval castles or was it always just grey back then?

French Command: it was just a prank bro!

Could they have survived being hit with a nuclear weapon though?

Not an internal atomic detonation, but probably a indirect blast. Shit was still standing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The appeal in the enjoyment of reading about people's suffering so they could die for the ego of a king?

>Why are you even on Veeky Forums?
I find things like societal history and philosophy interesting. I'm not a manchild that thinks military history is interesting or "cool"

Those positions are meant to be overrun by the enemy after inflicting heavy casualties. There are doors designed to facilitate the retreat of the men in them, and flanking those positions without being destroyed by the positions behind them would be difficult, to say the least. They look exposed to the rear because they are-- to prevent them being used to stage assaults on the rest of the fort. They are defensible positions meant to be eventually ceded to the enemy during an assault.

>There are doors designed to facilitate the retreat of the men in them
How? (worst example I know but it always looks risky)

do you have to be a man child to find military history interesting?
I'm not the guy you were replying to but I think it's pretty arrogant to put down someone else's interests just because you don't like it.