If you're ever in the Florida Keys Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National Park is a (never completed) fort in the same style and definitely worth visiting on a day with good weather.
There's also a picture of that one in the article.
The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
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Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s also in a theater of asymmetric warfare. It’s not like the enemy has (serious) artillery, much less air power.
Yup, this architecture makes sure you have gun coverage for all your walls, in case people try to get close to them / scale the walls.
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Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's anachronistic in the sense that it was largely made obsolete by artillery advances during the 19th century, replaced by polygonal forts (which could even adapt to high-explosive payloads, and actually proved their worth in both world wars), as well as the more modern bunkers & fortified emplacements. It makes a lot of sense when unlikely to face artillery and bombers though, as it's pretty straightforward and ch…
It seems you're missing the point. The point is that bastions are prove to be effective as defensive structures (it minimizes blind spots in a battlefield) in scenarios where the enemy carries mostly light weaponry. The design is also effective to conduct psychological warfare for some of the reasons that they become tourist attractions in Europe.
What point did I miss exactly? I explained why the article would call the design anachronistic (which is what GP complained about) as well as — expecting your sort — why it made perfect sense anyway.
Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's anachronistic in the sense that it was largely made obsolete by artillery advances during the 19th century, replaced by polygonal forts (which could even adapt to high-explosive payloads, and actually proved their worth in both world wars), as well as the more modern bunkers & fortified emplacements. It makes a lot of sense when unlikely to face artillery and bombers though, as it's pretty straightforward and ch…
The decorative aspect is actually a major piece of it's function here. It's intended to be highly visible, and maintaining a highly visible military presence is part of counterinsurgency tactics. It's also a very French thing to do.
> The decorative aspect is actually a major piece of it's function here. It's intended to be highly visible
Decorative doesn't mean highly visible, it means the only value is in the looks.
Star forts in europe are purely decorative, they don't have any function aside from looking rather neat (and the historical context /value I guess).
Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#35On the same vein, US embassy in Tunis is closer to a fortification than to a diplomatic building. It even has a turret. It seems that other US embassies around the world became fortifications after 2001.
It’s a shame that a diplomatic mission of such a close friend needs to be armoured like this in London.
Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#36This article doesn’t mention the months of protests in Mali which culminated in a coup d'état on the 18th forcing the president to resign. Yes, it’s a cool construction, it likely does serve Operation Barkhane but I think there are some unmentioned colonial interests.
Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#37A lot of work to build all that to put a white flag atop it!
Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#38How practical are these against modern weapons? Couldn't some modern explosives just destroy a fortress wall, thus rendering its inherent purpose of withstanding a siege impossible? It's an interesting sight and architecturally curious but I'm wondering what the purpose of such an effort is.
Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#39How practical are these against modern weapons? Couldn't some modern explosives just destroy a fortress wall, thus rendering its inherent purpose of withstanding a siege impossible? It's an interesting sight and architecturally curious but I'm wondering what the purpose of such an effort is.
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Re: The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa
#40This article doesn’t mention the months of protests in Mali which culminated in a coup d'état on the 18th forcing the president to resign. Yes, it’s a cool construction, it likely does serve Operation Barkhane but I think there are some unmentioned colonial interests.
> The work was undertaken as part of Operation Barkhane, France’s military effort in the Sahel region
It's just a "military effort" by France in Africa. They're fighting terror! Please don't ruin everybody's fun with facts and historical context.