Hacker News Reader

Comment by WilTimSon | Hacker News Reader

How 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.

View on HN

Assuming "modern weapons" means light arms carried by modern infantry: These are different from a castle. If the enemy makes a mad rush for the breach, they're going to get cut down by your guns, so the walls are more to provide cover from enemy fire than to physically keep them out.

Assuming "modern weapons" means bombers, tanks, cruise missiles: this is not going to stop them at all.

ISIS whenever they launched attacks in Syria or Iraq against some army base or prison structure they filmed it with drones and put it on youtube. Their strategy was multiple suicide trucks or cars filled with explosives (some were decoy vehicles) that had to survive the speeding attack to the walls to blow themselves up for a breach where the foot soldiers could come in and raid, so these were mad max looking vehicles covered in makeshift armor, coming in from all directions hoping to exploit a blind spot in the structure's defenses. So in other words having no blind spots seems like the best defense against that kind of enemy or one that tries and lobs mortars at you while you have clear sight of them doing so.

They're basically the most effective, quick defence to put up (a somewhat long but informative British army video on the effects of small arms on various walls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j31Crn-y6tM)

They'll withstand most SVBIED (Suicide Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices) attacks. And incase one Hesco barrier is not enough, several are usually used to create sufficient thickness.

So for a counter-insurgency war such as this in Mali, yes you couldn't get better

No, it's still perfectly possible to build a fortification impervious to most or all firepower. What changed in WWII is it became possible for the entire enemy army to simply drive and fly past your fortresses; the Maginot Line is an infamous example. Against an enemy without armor or aircraft, a bastion like the one from the article is an appropriate defense.

I guess that fort is build with the threat of the Al Quaeda/ISIS groups in mind, which are mostly equipped with firearms and a few RPGs and such but nothing too advanced. It's not intended to take on a full siege by a regular army.

Typically they're shaped differently, but US forces in Iraq / Afghanistan use the same type of structures built from dirt-filled barriers. They're highly effective if the enemy does not have artillery and / or air power.

Why destroy the wall when it traps valuable equipment that you can lob explosive shells at.

lobbing explosive shells into that need's at least a mortar, which at least needs rudimentary setup, which means you are dead a short time after firing your shell.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com