What purpose do fortifications serve, in detail.
- Thread starter Tjakari
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Lateknight
Banned
I'm not qualified to go into detail but forts usually control and create choke points in the terrain ideally attacks are forced to attack the fort so the defenders have the fullest advantage.
You need to give details man. Time period, situation, type of fortification in question.
The only generalization that can be said if it's that vague is that where else are you gonna sleep at night? And even that's not completely true since there's so many different types we could be talking about.
The only generalization that can be said if it's that vague is that where else are you gonna sleep at night? And even that's not completely true since there's so many different types we could be talking about.
It depends a whole lot of which kind of fortification, who made it (and probably who modified it), when and where.
Simply said, there's no one answer that could be gaven : it's not a case-by-case situation, but rather contextual.
Simply said, there's no one answer that could be gaven : it's not a case-by-case situation, but rather contextual.
They allow troops to remain protected in fort. Enemy has to either attack it and accept casualties, starve them and accept loss of time and troops that aren't doing anything else or bypass them and risk troops stationed in fort to sally out and attack him in the back.
Fort allows stationing of large number of troops and artillery plus supplies for all of it that would otherwise be vulnerable in the open.
Basically they are force multipliers for defenders. Problem is that development of airpower and later PGM made them obsolete since they became vulnerable from direction they weren't before.
Fort allows stationing of large number of troops and artillery plus supplies for all of it that would otherwise be vulnerable in the open.
Basically they are force multipliers for defenders. Problem is that development of airpower and later PGM made them obsolete since they became vulnerable from direction they weren't before.
In the most general way, forts exist to control a specific patch of ground. They can do this by physically occupying a piece of land that controls a choke point ( a mountain pass, etc). They can also do this by providing a secure base for forces (in the "rear") which can disrupt the enemies lines of communication which means the "enemy" has to leave forces behind to protect the LOC or reduce the fort to eliminate the threat. These reasons apply to both forts on land and forts guarding ports and bays etc.
this is a very GENERAL STATEMENT
this is a very GENERAL STATEMENT
They allow defenders to fight behind wall and in higher place than their opponent ?
Except when they don't : a large part of fortifications are about protecting armies and/or populations without allowing an active defense.
I suppose forts are there, in the most fundamental sense, to control territory. The gamey idea of a fort having a 'zone of control' is probably not that far-off from the strategic reality.
In tactical terms, a fort is a system of artificial obstacles that marks out a space where enemies will have to devote outsize effort into taking. So generally speaking, being inside a fort generally grants more protection than being outside of a fort.
This attribute makes forts the ideal place to protect vulnerable things from the enemy. Of course there are other ways of protecting vulnerable things - hiding or dispersing them, for example - but there are some things that can't just be kept hidden or dispersed from the enemy. These things include local administration, supply caches, populations, and so on.
In the most extreme cases - like a nomad vs. settled conflict - failing to protect your administration/supplies/people essentially resets your control over the land to 0 every time an enemy invades and these things get physically eradicated/taken away. On the other hand, a successful fort ensures that once the enemy is gone, you still possess the infrastructure to quickly re-assert your original control over the land. It's obviously a bit more qualified in settled vs. settled conflicts, but basically in strategic terms possessing a fort grants permanence to your control of the land (which can be defined in terms of control over population, strategic land, supply routes, etc.). This contrasts starkly with the invading enemy whose control over the land is entirely contingent on the physical presence + local superiority of his forces.
Why is permanent control better than contingent control? Because when you permanently control land, the status quo defaults in your favor. So the enemy has to actively work against you (siege, subterfuge, etc.) and deploy more resources than you in order to wrest control of the land. And in a world where resources are finite and thousands of competing priorities exist, that means that the enemy (whose control over the land is only contingent, assuming he hasn't built forts of his own) faces a much harsher cost-benefit/opportunity cost analysis than you do and will thus be more tempted to give up/not attack you in the first place.
EDIT: I realize the title was fortifications, not forts, but I think the principle is largely the same, nonetheless. Of course, one can argue that a few city walls were made with non-military purposes in mind (like civic pride or class differentiation).
In tactical terms, a fort is a system of artificial obstacles that marks out a space where enemies will have to devote outsize effort into taking. So generally speaking, being inside a fort generally grants more protection than being outside of a fort.
This attribute makes forts the ideal place to protect vulnerable things from the enemy. Of course there are other ways of protecting vulnerable things - hiding or dispersing them, for example - but there are some things that can't just be kept hidden or dispersed from the enemy. These things include local administration, supply caches, populations, and so on.
In the most extreme cases - like a nomad vs. settled conflict - failing to protect your administration/supplies/people essentially resets your control over the land to 0 every time an enemy invades and these things get physically eradicated/taken away. On the other hand, a successful fort ensures that once the enemy is gone, you still possess the infrastructure to quickly re-assert your original control over the land. It's obviously a bit more qualified in settled vs. settled conflicts, but basically in strategic terms possessing a fort grants permanence to your control of the land (which can be defined in terms of control over population, strategic land, supply routes, etc.). This contrasts starkly with the invading enemy whose control over the land is entirely contingent on the physical presence + local superiority of his forces.
Why is permanent control better than contingent control? Because when you permanently control land, the status quo defaults in your favor. So the enemy has to actively work against you (siege, subterfuge, etc.) and deploy more resources than you in order to wrest control of the land. And in a world where resources are finite and thousands of competing priorities exist, that means that the enemy (whose control over the land is only contingent, assuming he hasn't built forts of his own) faces a much harsher cost-benefit/opportunity cost analysis than you do and will thus be more tempted to give up/not attack you in the first place.
EDIT: I realize the title was fortifications, not forts, but I think the principle is largely the same, nonetheless. Of course, one can argue that a few city walls were made with non-military purposes in mind (like civic pride or class differentiation).
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Napoleonrules
Banned
There are also forts meant to be the place of last refuge for the local population. Enemy forces are coming!... A city or sizable village is too big to really defend from a wall that might not even encircle the entire city since "suburbs" have sprung up as the city grows out and it's too expensive to keep expanding the walls which simply means more people to man a longer wall anyways. So you hold your walls best you can, get women and children into the fortification (castle) and fall back to defend a smaller more compact and higher thicker wall.
Another function of a fortification, similar to mentioned before in this thread, is to occupy and remind the population who is in charge. When the English took New Netherland from the Dutch they renamed the village around Fort Orange from Beverwyck to Albany; abandoned Fort Orange which was the type of fort described by me above as last refuge, and built Fort Albany. Fort Albany was at the top of the hill overlooking the village of Albany and the fort was just as much about being where the Dutch could see the English flag flying and be reminded that they were under English control as it was about protecting the village from raids by the Iroquois and Algonquins to the west.
Another function of a fortification, similar to mentioned before in this thread, is to occupy and remind the population who is in charge. When the English took New Netherland from the Dutch they renamed the village around Fort Orange from Beverwyck to Albany; abandoned Fort Orange which was the type of fort described by me above as last refuge, and built Fort Albany. Fort Albany was at the top of the hill overlooking the village of Albany and the fort was just as much about being where the Dutch could see the English flag flying and be reminded that they were under English control as it was about protecting the village from raids by the Iroquois and Algonquins to the west.
Fortifications are force multipliers for defenders.
Even infantry in hastily-dug shallow trenches gain a 3 to 1 advantage to invaders walking across open ground. Hastily-dug trenches protect defenders against arrows, bullets, mortars, artillery, etc. limiting casualties to direct hits.
Forts are usually built along transportation bottlenecks like ports, bridges and narrow valleys. They allow sailors to refit and rest secure form ocean storms, pirates and other navies. Forts over-looking the entry channels to ports prevent enemy ships from sailing in a damaging or stealing anchored vessels.
Forts over-looking bridges or canals allow local rulers to levy taxes on merchants .. to pay for repairs to canals.
Forts also protect the nation's wealth in the form of grain silos and crown jewels.
Forts foster peaceful commerce.
Even infantry in hastily-dug shallow trenches gain a 3 to 1 advantage to invaders walking across open ground. Hastily-dug trenches protect defenders against arrows, bullets, mortars, artillery, etc. limiting casualties to direct hits.
Forts are usually built along transportation bottlenecks like ports, bridges and narrow valleys. They allow sailors to refit and rest secure form ocean storms, pirates and other navies. Forts over-looking the entry channels to ports prevent enemy ships from sailing in a damaging or stealing anchored vessels.
Forts over-looking bridges or canals allow local rulers to levy taxes on merchants .. to pay for repairs to canals.
Forts also protect the nation's wealth in the form of grain silos and crown jewels.
Forts foster peaceful commerce.
I'll add that forts can also be used to delay an enemy army. You place a fort in a location where an invader will be forced to pause and conduct a seige. The idea is less to control the surrounding territory than it is to block an enemy force while you raise an army of your own and organize your defenses. In this case the fort will still have served it's purpose even if it falls, so long as it holds out long enough to stop the invader's momentum and deny them the initiative in future operations. So the fort derives it's value in forcing an enemy to besiege it.
Fortifications preserve your forces as a force-in-being against a superior opponent. If you hold up in a fort or castle, your enemy has a few options:
2 and 3 tend to stop the advance, both by tying up forces and because the fortifications are often placed so they block the best lines of supply and communication in the area, and the delay buys time to bring up a larger force to relieve the siege. In some times and place, delay alone can break an invasion, if the army is made up of levies that have to go home for the harvest, or if it's a paid force raised for a single war or campaign (mercenaries or volunteers) which the attacker can only afford to keep raised for so long.
Having the option to hold up in fortifications lets you adopt a nodal defensive strategy, with small forces to hold strongpoints against attack while a larger field army is held in reserve to relieve sieges directly or to counterattack elsewhere while they enemy's field army is tied up in the siege.
- Attack you directly, in which case he takes a lot of casualties storming a prepared defensive position.
- Lay siege and starve you out, which ties up substantial forces for months or years.
- Invest and reduce the fortifications with sapping and artillery. Effectively a compromise between #1 and #2.
- Ignore you and leave you with a secure base behind his main force from which you can raid his rear areas and interdict his supplies.
- Go away and seek for braver foes.
2 and 3 tend to stop the advance, both by tying up forces and because the fortifications are often placed so they block the best lines of supply and communication in the area, and the delay buys time to bring up a larger force to relieve the siege. In some times and place, delay alone can break an invasion, if the army is made up of levies that have to go home for the harvest, or if it's a paid force raised for a single war or campaign (mercenaries or volunteers) which the attacker can only afford to keep raised for so long.
Having the option to hold up in fortifications lets you adopt a nodal defensive strategy, with small forces to hold strongpoints against attack while a larger field army is held in reserve to relieve sieges directly or to counterattack elsewhere while they enemy's field army is tied up in the siege.
Fortifications can be political statements (as mentioned to show who is now in charge) -- NOTE that the dike/ditch between Wales and England marked a border and made it hard to claim that "oops I didnt know the border was there".
Hadrians Wall was similar and also was used to channel/control/monitor trade (both ways) through the gates at strongpoints.
They were also the seats of administration and authority
Forts can be built to counter someone else's fort (many histories mention king X building a fort(castle) on their side of the border/boundry opposite an existing fort/castle to nullify its influence.
Sometimes they were quite temporary - as in Roman Legion marching forts which they rebuilt every time they stopped for the day (digging a dirt wall and making a pallisade out of the 2 wood stakes every legionary carried.
Hadrians Wall was similar and also was used to channel/control/monitor trade (both ways) through the gates at strongpoints.
They were also the seats of administration and authority
Forts can be built to counter someone else's fort (many histories mention king X building a fort(castle) on their side of the border/boundry opposite an existing fort/castle to nullify its influence.
Sometimes they were quite temporary - as in Roman Legion marching forts which they rebuilt every time they stopped for the day (digging a dirt wall and making a pallisade out of the 2 wood stakes every legionary carried.
Riain
Banned
The most basic tactical purpose of fortification is as a force multiplier to the defender by giving him a place from which to fight which protects him from the majority of the weapons of the enemy while giving him the opportunity to use his own weapons effectively. This is true from your most basic weapons pit, stockade or archers tower to the elaborate Krak de Chevaliers or the Siegfried Line.
The next purpose is how this protected force is utilised to guard an offensive element, perhaps that is ballista or catapult artillery, or the howitzers of a Vietnam War firebase, or a body of troops used for offensive patrolling. This is how the Burghs of Alfred the Great worked, the Fyrd of poorly armed and trained farmers stood behind the walls of the Burghs and freed up the armed, armoured and trained troops to take the field. In Vietnam the firebases provided a protected refuge for the artillery to shell anything within range and cover infantry patrols.
The next purpose is the Operational or Strategic placement of this protected body of troops and/or offensive weapons. This is the most obvious thing about major fortifications, their troops/weapons cover an important place like a river crossing, port, hill/mountain pass or even just the lands of the person who own the fortification. It is this strategic placement that allows fortifications to control vast swathes of land, but cutting them up and controlling access to and from them for any person or group that lacks the strength to withstand the offensive force in the fortification.
The next purpose is how this protected force is utilised to guard an offensive element, perhaps that is ballista or catapult artillery, or the howitzers of a Vietnam War firebase, or a body of troops used for offensive patrolling. This is how the Burghs of Alfred the Great worked, the Fyrd of poorly armed and trained farmers stood behind the walls of the Burghs and freed up the armed, armoured and trained troops to take the field. In Vietnam the firebases provided a protected refuge for the artillery to shell anything within range and cover infantry patrols.
The next purpose is the Operational or Strategic placement of this protected body of troops and/or offensive weapons. This is the most obvious thing about major fortifications, their troops/weapons cover an important place like a river crossing, port, hill/mountain pass or even just the lands of the person who own the fortification. It is this strategic placement that allows fortifications to control vast swathes of land, but cutting them up and controlling access to and from them for any person or group that lacks the strength to withstand the offensive force in the fortification.