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Well since your willing to be my friend...I'd like to share this photo with you also...that I took on a top secret military base in New Mexico...
It's Air Force 1...well the retired version...actually it's Air Force 2...flown in by Al Gore...he was the last active Vice President to use it before they retired it...
I wasn't really suppose to take photos, but did not care...and now that I know longer work for this particular company...don't care at all...
But i did blur out other odd missle stuff next to the plane...just to be safe...
I am pro American don't you know...
But I just couldn't resist taking this shot...
1.5 M = 4.9 ft thick walls (rammed earth)
18 M = 59 ft high walls
Modern version:
Dual Ring Village : Ozmirage, Emerald City of Dreams (http://www.ozmirage.org/anic/tiki-index.php?page=Dual+Ring+Village - broken link)
Interesting concept, lock up the innocent people and let the criminals run free, similar to what I saw in New Orleans prior to Katrina.
People lived in gated communities with guards at the gate, drove to work in locked cars, parked in secured garages, and worked in buildings with iron grates on the lower windows and a guard station at the front.
Who is the prisioner? Who is being punished if the criminals have the freedom of movement, but the innocent are penned up?
Castles in Europe were used as military weapons. They were strong points that could control a river crossing, mountain pass, trade route, and usually travelers had to pay a toll to pass.
A castle could be manned by a small detachment of men at arms and still control vital points to restrict the movement of people or enemy forces for a small investment of trained soldiers.
The big castles where the lords and ladies lived were serious fortifications to protect them from kidnapping by other nobles.
The villiages outside the forts were usually fair game for rape and pillage, but the nobles were pretty safe inside their stone walls.
I remember the show Grizzly Adams, so you want to live by yourself with a bear, and your only friend is some old guy with a mule???
Interesting concept, lock up the innocent people and let the criminals run free
Huh? where does that come from???
You have it backwards...the 'innocent' will want the protection that fortified prison structures offer...ok....
Quote:
Who is the prisioner? Who is being punished if the criminals have the freedom of movement, but the innocent are penned up?
Again, you have it wrong...should such a time occur, it will be so bad that the criminals themselves, will wish they were back in the safe confines of prison walls...
Quote:
A castle could be manned by a small detachment of men at arms and still control vital points to restrict the movement of people or enemy forces for a small investment of trained soldiers.
The big castles where the lords and ladies lived were serious fortifications to protect them from kidnapping by other nobles.
The villiages outside the forts were usually fair game for rape and pillage, but the nobles were pretty safe inside their stone walls
And so possibly fortified prisons could be utilized in such a way in the future...
Quote:
I remember the show Grizzly Adams, so you want to live by yourself with a bear, and your only friend is some old guy with a mule???
No, I'm just saying...I remember how free that man was...so free...wasn't bogged down by every day stuff most of us are today...traffic conjestion, wrecks, endless fees and bills that just seem to gobble up your spare change....
He just always seemed so happy, cause he was free, not rich, but free, and living at his on pace...
Unfortunately, prisons don't work the way you think...
A Prison may look like it's highly fortified, but in reality it's focused to contain the inmates, not prevent the outside getting inside. So it's wrongly constructed for defending the inside from the outside, this is obviously so, if you look at all the chain-link fencing, that will allow small projectiles to travel mostly unaffected from the outside of the prison into the yards surrounding the buildings. While it may be argued that this also would allow defenders the same benefits, any attacker could use or construct cover, the yardage in most prisons is flat and clear (except for fencing), and the buildings have minimal blind spots from the outside and tower areas. The buildings themselves often in modern prisons could in another setting easily be mistaken for any light industrial building, once again their designed to keep people in, not out. Even the fences, the upper overhangs lean back towards the prison making it much more difficult to climb out from the inside, than in from the outside.
There are multiple points of attack since the introduction of chainlink too, and a chainlink fence is vlunerable to everything from simple wire cutters to buses. Older prisons with walls could provide better defensive opportunities, however even then many have been adapted to be less effective for holding defensively, than attacking, since in the 60's-90's many prisons around the world had riots that led to the inmates taking over the prison (here and abroad), and any findings that enabled the prisoners to hold the prison would have been incorporated into those older designs too. That also leads me to question the whole concept as the inmates could not hold the prisons in these cases, but all of these prisons were retaken with little loss of life on either side and losses on the prisoner side were orders of magnitude higher than on the police/guard side (i.e. one guard may have been killed but so were 10 prisoners), which runs counter to expected doctrine (attackers always suffer higher casualty rates)
One point about the towers too, once they fall it's game over, and the towers are right on the outside. In almost all cases the towers provide clear firing lines and elevation advantage, which would pen any defenders back into the buildings or cause complete carnage if they tried to hold the open areas between the building and the towers. It would then be a simple task of demanding surrender or smoking/burning out any surviving defenses once the towers are gained.
These are just some of the defensive no-no's I've spotted from a cursory glance at some US prisons, and not really placed much thought into how I'd go about capturing one.
Incidentally, even a true castle has issues if it's trying to be held against an attacker. Castles and castle defense relied on retreating behind the walls and defending, until such a time as a relief army could be raised and sent; then the castle defenders and that relief army could link up to defeat the attackers. In many cases where castles were captured, they opened the gates when this relieving force was destroyed by the attackers, even before food or disease became issues. A single castle without any hope of a relieving army would be a simple thing to capture.
In medieval warfare a Castle was placed as MTSilvertip described, however they had a secondary and perhaps more useful purpose, they required any attacking force to try to neutralize it, most castles had reasonable sized forces that could not be allowed to run around in any attackers rear areas, so at minimum a holding force had to be left to pen up the defenders of the castle. This reduced the attacking forces numbers (by the same number as the holding force left), or stalled any attack entirely, subsequent attacks beyond that strong point had reduced numbers, and thus had less effect and strategic options. Meanwhile the Castles owner or his Lord would be raising another army to come and remove those attackers, and figure out his recapture strategy.
So to simplify a Castle was like a shield, without a relieving army (a sword) it was pretty useless in medieval warfare against any serious attacker, however having an army without a castle (a shield) was a difficult prospect, since that army couldn't be in two places at once. The castle allowed a small unit of defenders (and many castles had a standing army of 100 or less), to act as that shield, and also focus attacks so that the army wasn't out beating the bushes looking for the attackers since the attackers were going to be attacking the castle. There are many examples from the English/Scots and 100 years wars where armies walked within a few miles of one another without joining in battle because they just didn't know where the other one was. For instance if you look up the Battle of Neville's Cross this happened at the time it did by accident (it's actually on a nice cusp between two forces crossing in the night, and joining for battle), where an outfit of troops stumbled into the rear units of the much smaller (than the Scots 12,000 men) English army, and were defeated, this alerted both the Scots and English main forces to their opposing armies positions, and the Battle happened as recorded in history.
since you aint GOT a castle, aint gonna HAVE a castle, and since snipers can easily pick off anyone who shows their head, and you aint got a well and lots of food inside or the manpower to staff the castle,why bother discussing castles, hmm?
since you aint GOT a castle, aint gonna HAVE a castle, and since snipers can easily pick off anyone who shows their head, and you aint got a well and lots of food inside or the manpower to staff the castle,why bother discussing castles, hmm?
Because a fortified position isn't necessarily a castle, and an unfortified position is easily overrun / compromised / captured / destroyed.
Assembling the HESCO bastion entails unfolding it and filling it with sand, dirt or gravel - usually using a front end loader.
If you connect the dots, the Chinese Hakka tulou (earthen fortress), made from rammed earth, and the HESCO gabion both rely on cheap mass to fortify their position.
A modern hybrid "tulou" could be built using rammed earth forms constructed of fiber reinforced cement (i.e., ferrocement), filled with local subsoil, tamped, and the ferrocement forms become protective skins for the rammed earth.
....
A fortified position is not invulnerable, and may only slow down a determined attacker, but that's not the only benefit to making one's home into a "castle".
What other things won't happen to a rammed earth castle keep? (Or dual ring fortified village)?
Damage from
[] Fire
[] Flood, storm surge
[] Flying projectiles (wind storm)
[] Earthquake (curved walls resist racking)
[] Pests, vermin, etc.
[] Temperature extremes (short term)
[] Civil unrest and criminal opportunists looking for "easy" victims.
Unfortunately, prisons don't work the way you think...
A Prison may look like it's highly fortified, but in reality it's focused to contain the inmates, not prevent the outside getting inside. So it's wrongly constructed for defending the inside from the outside, this is obviously so, if you look at all the chain-link fencing, that will allow small projectiles to travel mostly unaffected from the outside of the prison into the yards surrounding the buildings. While it may be argued that this also would allow defenders the same benefits, any attacker could use or construct cover, the yardage in most prisons is flat and clear (except for fencing), and the buildings have minimal blind spots from the outside and tower areas. The buildings themselves often in modern prisons could in another setting easily be mistaken for any light industrial building, once again their designed to keep people in, not out. Even the fences, the upper overhangs lean back towards the prison making it much more difficult to climb out from the inside, than in from the outside.
There are multiple points of attack since the introduction of chainlink too, and a chainlink fence is vlunerable to everything from simple wire cutters to buses. Older prisons with walls could provide better defensive opportunities, however even then many have been adapted to be less effective for holding defensively, than attacking, since in the 60's-90's many prisons around the world had riots that led to the inmates taking over the prison (here and abroad), and any findings that enabled the prisoners to hold the prison would have been incorporated into those older designs too. That also leads me to question the whole concept as the inmates could not hold the prisons in these cases, but all of these prisons were retaken with little loss of life on either side and losses on the prisoner side were orders of magnitude higher than on the police/guard side (i.e. one guard may have been killed but so were 10 prisoners), which runs counter to expected doctrine (attackers always suffer higher casualty rates)
One point about the towers too, once they fall it's game over, and the towers are right on the outside. In almost all cases the towers provide clear firing lines and elevation advantage, which would pen any defenders back into the buildings or cause complete carnage if they tried to hold the open areas between the building and the towers. It would then be a simple task of demanding surrender or smoking/burning out any surviving defenses once the towers are gained.
These are just some of the defensive no-no's I've spotted from a cursory glance at some US prisons, and not really placed much thought into how I'd go about capturing one.
Incidentally, even a true castle has issues if it's trying to be held against an attacker. Castles and castle defense relied on retreating behind the walls and defending, until such a time as a relief army could be raised and sent; then the castle defenders and that relief army could link up to defeat the attackers. In many cases where castles were captured, they opened the gates when this relieving force was destroyed by the attackers, even before food or disease became issues. A single castle without any hope of a relieving army would be a simple thing to capture.
In medieval warfare a Castle was placed as MTSilvertip described, however they had a secondary and perhaps more useful purpose, they required any attacking force to try to neutralize it, most castles had reasonable sized forces that could not be allowed to run around in any attackers rear areas, so at minimum a holding force had to be left to pen up the defenders of the castle. This reduced the attacking forces numbers (by the same number as the holding force left), or stalled any attack entirely, subsequent attacks beyond that strong point had reduced numbers, and thus had less effect and strategic options. Meanwhile the Castles owner or his Lord would be raising another army to come and remove those attackers, and figure out his recapture strategy.
So to simplify a Castle was like a shield, without a relieving army (a sword) it was pretty useless in medieval warfare against any serious attacker, however having an army without a castle (a shield) was a difficult prospect, since that army couldn't be in two places at once. The castle allowed a small unit of defenders (and many castles had a standing army of 100 or less), to act as that shield, and also focus attacks so that the army wasn't out beating the bushes looking for the attackers since the attackers were going to be attacking the castle. There are many examples from the English/Scots and 100 years wars where armies walked within a few miles of one another without joining in battle because they just didn't know where the other one was. For instance if you look up the Battle of Neville's Cross this happened at the time it did by accident (it's actually on a nice cusp between two forces crossing in the night, and joining for battle), where an outfit of troops stumbled into the rear units of the much smaller (than the Scots 12,000 men) English army, and were defeated, this alerted both the Scots and English main forces to their opposing armies positions, and the Battle happened as recorded in history.
My goodness, you just wrote a PBS show script...relax...and allow me to simplify this a bit...
I'm not saying prisons will be used in defense of standing armies, like Germany, with tanks and heavy artilery...
That's not what I mean...
I simply mean simple deterence or defence against your average run of the mill roving 'gang'....like in the movie 'Mad Max'...or the movie 'The Road'...or even in the movie 'The book of Eli'....
Heck, I doubt most roving 'groups' would even be that orginized...
These roving groups aren't going to have 10's of thousands of ammo or rounds to waste trying to get into a fortified prison, just to get some Cambell soup....
The sight of a prison alone, with armed men around it, would be enough to detour most...unless they were hungry and looking for a place of refuge...
Aside from the Government, not many groups would have the resorces to launch a full scale campaign on those inside...
So what i'm saying is prisons simple provide kind of a ready made fortress, to those needing one....
But more than likely, those with resorces, $money$, would be the ones utilizing buildings for such purposes anyhow...(state officials)
And I trust that modern day engineers could remedy all the issues you named above...
The powerful, and those with resorces, will be taken care of regardless...
The rest of us will be forced to fend for ourselves...
There's many like me, who know what's coming...but are basically helpless to do anything about it...
Stuck in these wretched urban areas, where every other person is on food stamps or living in public housing, and have no idea how to survive on their own...nor care too...
They will be rounded up in 'government'...or Fema camps...like you see in foreign countries when mass war breaks out and refugees flee...
But they'll be right at home, feel 'cared for'...cause it's what they're use to...and as long as their fed 3 meals a day, they'll feel they're getting a good deal out of it...
Sometimes thinking about it just depresses me...
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