or the last stand of the 106th Division. 110 men 12 .50 cals and 1 M-8

The fights that the 28th and 106th Infantry Divisions, 9th Armored Division, 14th Cavalry Group and their attached units are seldom heard about in any discussion of the Battle of the Bulge. Most people fix on the 101st Airborne at Bastogne as the turning point. Not discounting the bravery of the airborne; but the true, unsung heros of the Bulge were the infantrymen, tankers and artillerymen who held the line for the first, crucial 48-hours.

One of the critical fights was for the twin villages of Krinkelt-Rocherath, were the 3rd Battalion, 393rd Infantry, 99th Infantry Division and 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division fought fought major elements of of the 277th Volksgrenadier Division and the 12th SS Panzer Division. To give an idea of the scale of the fighting, the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry went into the battle for the twin villages with a strength of 600 men, 217 men survived to rejoin the US lines.

The defense of the twin villages brought precious time for the remainder of the 2nd Infantry Division and for the 1st Infantry Division to build up a defensive line along Elsenborn Ridge that held the northern shoulder of the Bulge.

For the Germans, the twin villages were just as bloody, the 277th Volksgrenadier suffered the loss of all of its battalion commanders, 80% of its company commanders and the majority of its NCOs (the poor training and poor quality of the new troops required its leadership to lead from the front) as well as the loss of an estimated 1,500 soldiers. The 12th SS Panzer suffered the loss of about 60 AFVs in the fight and its 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment suffered 60% losses.

Group,

While remnant fortifications could be used, these are mainly a matter of research for interested GMs.

I'm reminded of (I think) some wealthy industrialist in Poland living with his family in a castle near Krakow with a small security force. Not a warlord or anything like that, just surviving. So old castles can be used as fortifications by military units, refugees and other survivors.

The Twilight war didn't come out of nowhere, war broke out after years of hostilities and tensions. Therefore, shelters and depots like the one in Allegheny Uprising would be fairly common. There would not just be leftover Cold War bomb shelters and installations (in various states of rehabilitation) but newly-built ones if there was a crash program to enhance government and military survivability in case of nuclear attack.

Further, these hardened facilities (government/military communication centres, command posts, depots, etc.) not just in the CONUS but all throughout Europe in both NATO and PacWar territory.

Further, modern fortifications are not difficult to construct. They mostly require normal construction equipment and common materials that could easily be commandeered by the military/government. Now that mobile warfare has basically stopped, many cantonments and former cantonments might have permanent fortifications constructed. Anything from a series of isolated concrete bunkers and pill boxes to interlocking defensive positions to a full blown permanent fortress where none existed before the war. Again, these would litter Europe and North America.

Tony

Absolutely agree helbent4, my focus in my comment was on the older stuff floating about. There is a reason all the modern facilities are buried by and large, or at least masked so direct fire can't hit them.

My personal fave fortification in the "modern" era?
The swedish KARIN. How can you not love a fully automatic, watercooled, 120mm cannon that has a range of 27km?

Unless your weapon has a range of 27.5km... ;)

Al,

That would be a "hard rain" indeed!

Fortifications dating back to WWII and beyond in history litter Europe and to a lesser degree, North America. it's almost worth just saying using google to ferret them out if your campaign is in that area!

Fascinating article on interwar (post-WWI) German fortifications in what is now Poland (built to defend Germany from Polish attack in case of war with France):

http://www.holidayapartmentpoland.co...ers_poland.htm

Castles near Krakow detailed in "Free City" and "White Eagle" include the Stronghold of Ojcow (abandoned) and Pieskowa Skala (occupied by the self-styled "baron of Ojcow", an industrialist and recluse).

List of castles near Kracow:

http://www.krakow-info.com/eagle.htm

I don't have a copy of "Castle by the Sea", and I think Twilight Encounters might have had castle floor plans, too.

Tony

(farmer's) field-expedient fortifications.
 

A friend of mine ran a USA-based campaign local to South Central PA: during one scenario, we encountered an agricultural freehold that was fortified with pre-formed concrete silo wall arc-sections scavenged from a neighboring abandoned farm. Pretty handy, re-bar reinforced, easily maneuvered with a medium sized truck mounted crane. Plow some earth infront and brace behind it--voila!

Good idea
 

Therese is a co. In Norway tatt used to make culverts and cisterns etc that also sell sections of these reinforced etc as pre made firing positivismen and shelters for 1-4 troops. Dig hole and haule piece in. Fill in drit.done.

Ruins, literally, of Warsaw
 

In Ruins of Warsaw, rubble walls and elevated gun emplacements are de rigeur for field-expedient fortifications.
A question regarding this: for "blocked rubble" hexes, are they already considered as a rubble hex wall, or does one still have to apply more rubble to it to gain that defensive advantage? And as for being blocked, just how "blocked" is it? What negative movement modifiers are applied to any unit attempting to traverse the hexside? Can they manage it at all? No vehicular traffic? I can see how judicious use of isolated gun platforms in a sea of rubble could close off the non-blocked rubble hex paths and really cause the Baron a headache or two, providing the blocked hexes are impassable.

Now, if you've marked and rigged for remote detonation any UXB's discovered in the rubble, these would be an extra pain in the Baron's backside.

http://www.nps.gov/features/saju/001/virtual/

Forts of the Caribbean can give good examples of layouts

An interesting thing about 2tK is that every type of fortification can be encountered. What resources you have to make them are important (barbed wire, backhoe loader, ISO containers, precast concrete sewer pipes...).

- The weapons available to your enemies, how effective they are with them, and how much ammo they have are all relative.

- Barbed wire is very common in hardware stores in US, and with the lack of heavy weapons. WWI trenches (dug by modern Heavy Equipment?) and supported by barbed wire could be very effective, just check history of former Yugaslavian Wars.

- ISO containers (the standardized shipping containers used to move stuff) have been used a lot to create barriers. Against people armed only with small arms, they could make effective forts very quickly. Against a force that you outgun, they would be effective castles.

- Already mentioned, but armored vehicels that dont run, or have no fuel, make effective pillboxes. So do sewer lines. Park a nonfunctional truck (drained fuel) over a manhole cover and you can build a very effective MG nest in plain sight, and have both effective fields of fire down the street, and covered approaches.

- Land mines are not hard to fabricate, they were first used in American Civil War and simple ones are easy to make. Can be set as mines to detonate when driven over or stepped on, or 'command detonated' either by wire or radio control, just like IEDs. Can also be set as boobytraps (again, this was very common in former Yugaslavia. "Minefield' signs may mark actual mines, or dummy minefields.

- bridges over major rivers, are very likely to be fortified on one or both ends.

- Road blocks and checkpoints, can have a great amount of variation. Wrecked vehciles and boobytraps on roads and bridges are easy. Dropped trees covered by sniper fire are effective. Can be supported/reinforced by mortars pre-registered on targets. This would delay many enemies to allow reinforcements to move or militia to muster...

- I'd expect most protected area would have some level of defense in depth. Out posts and/or opservation/listening posts, on the outskirts to provide early warning. Road-blocks and checkpoints securing key terrain and blocking avenues of approach. A mobile reserve force, containing the best combat power available and a heavily fortified redoubt, to which the population can withdraw.

- A common and relatively labor effective redoubt would be a couple lines of trenches, surrounded by barbed wire fences at 400 and 200 meters (in good times used to graze cows). These could protect several heavy industrial buildings or maybe a brick high school or some such...

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...t/starfort.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ifications.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...arthenring.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2..._house_web.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...vaubanfort.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...go-wexford.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...anmilefort.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ottishDoon.jpg

Ah, Vaubon style fortifications. (The ones that are all star shaped)

The good:

In the TW2K Verse where heavy (as in cannon) weapons are scarce and rifle calibre stuff is about as heavy as it gets by and large, its perfect. They was designed to defeat infantry assaults without breaking a sweat. Its when you bring direct HE fire things fall apart. Which is the bad.

For a throw up the dirt and hide behind it sort, It serves. Add in mines and wire, muuuuuch better. Earth takes HE reasonably well. Depend on masonry construction however and its not too good.

Dubrovnik
 

That its true - the masonry chip on HE impact and becomes shrapnel in iotself before it all crumbles and falls down in a smouldering heap. But bear in mind that thats after x number of impacts. Infantry portable mortars like 60s and 81s , AA automatic cannons, HMGs etc dont really cut it when it comes to bringing down sturdy masonry and concrete - as seen in Dubrovnik for instance. All the roofs went, and lots of peopl ekilled. But No breach. Also the "Håkons hall" in Bergen in 1944 - a German munitions ship blew up on the dock next to it. Untold number of tons of HE. 14th century walls still good.

Examples the one way - but there are of course the othr way too..

Masonry aka brick absorbs kinetic energy and turns to powder. It is stone and concrete that shatter and throws fragments.

To a point yes: But even then, large fragments will fly out.

Its not the fragmentation though that makes masonry fortifications a bad idea - unless you put a lot of rebar and the like in it - Its the fact that unlike earth, its relatively brittle. The 'shatter' effect of direct fire HE on stone/concrete/brick is amazing. But, Earth is more, for lack of a better word, flexible. Of course, you have to take the fact that foot for foot it isn't as good as masonry into consideration when deciding how thick and how high it goes, but it is in the modern world, overall better than old fashioned works.

Its the addition of Rebar - and lots of it - that changes the equation once again. Now we have a 'binder' of sorts that, although HE will shatter the concrete, the rebar density is to the point that it will keep the wall in shape for far longer. Tiergarten is a very good example: it was so laced with rebar and such that it survived everything the soviets could through at it - and like every other flak tower of berlin, none was taken by storm. Even direct fire at almost point blank range by 203mm artillery pieces didn't faze them.

The Flak towers in Berlin are reinforced concrete. The Pre-WW1 forts were masonry or masonry over stone/concrete because the brick essentially absorbed a bullet or a shell burrowed into it. No ricochets.

Building with masonry was and is more expensive than pouring concrete.

Even with explosives, when an explosive detonates the shearing forces turn the surrounding brick facade into a crater and the path of least resistance is away from the wall.

Enjoy this video by the U.S Marine Corps. http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...30260633420235

I realize we're talking about basically 500 year old weaponry but one of the great things about building early forts in FL from Coquina rock is that cannonballs (and musket balls) had a tendency to just chunk right in and stop. On the surface.

true
 

In my student days I lived in Bergen where you had a church tower that still had English cannon balls lodged in plain view from 180something when the Brits in dastardly and conniving manner subjected the fair and peaceloving Danish-Norwegian union to unlimited blockade and naval warfare with disasterous collateral damage results.

But back to the point - the cannon balls(s) lodged themselves in there.

Another thing - I saw mythbusters ( yes..they are a tv show and not scientists etc etc ) paint a brick wall with a prepping paint ( it was red) I dont know the English word for it - we call i t grunning. This greatly enhanced the walls AV regarding concussion damages as it where.

The advent of efficient artillery ended the days of the high walled fortifications in favour of more squat and in some cases earthen covered stone constructions.

But as larger military hierarchies with access to efficient artillery become rarer - the days of the walled fortification are coming back im humble o

But dedicated fortifications are not the only ones- a multistory reinforced- concrete building ( like a sturdy built housing complex) could with a few tweaks become an efficient stronghold. It has space, firing positions could be made and so on. It wouldnt do if the enemy has modern heavy artillery - but that is getting seldom in the T2K verse as I see it.

There is also a fair bit found on the East Coast of Canada, and few on west coast might have surrived as well, I know there are simular forts in the US eastern and wester coasts, Fort MacArthur in Calforina comes to mind.

On another note how about a fortification using old cars, apc tanks, ect, like the wagon circles of the old west.

I forget, did Hawaii get hit in 1.0?

modern gabions
 

http://alshamswiremesh.com/hesco.html

This type of item filled with large gravel, without the fabric liner, was being used to reinforce the faces of cuts (e.g. in streambeds, to resist erosion) back in the 80's or before. I recently saw the modern version up close and personal at the Carlisle, PA US Military History Institute (Army War College), which has numerous outside military displays of several time periods. This one was a modern display.

I think that the defenders of Sielce might be able to scrounge up some chain link fence to build the wire cages out of, lined with scraps of salvaged carpet, perhaps? A tripod swing arm with a block and tackle could be built to maneuver the filled gabions into place. Any guesses as to how many man hours each hexside of these would take to place--build cages, fill with chunks of rubble, wire lid on, hook up to crane, swing into place, secure with tie-wires.
It's like filling and placing giant sandbags, but you have to make the sandbags themselves.

This gem was on Fox today.

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2012/0...ntcmp=features

Reading, PA has Stokesay Castle, a sturdy stone structure restaurant, and just up the hill is the Pagoda Overlook both of which are somewhat secluded and have a limited access. The Pagoda is visible for miles especially when it is lighted up red at night. It would be a good observation post and handy to call in artillery fire from.

Out my way, a little further west of Harrisburg, there's the King's Gap State Park, which boasts an Environmental Education Center made from the stone villa built by a Cameron in the early 1900's. It sits nicely isolated at the top of thev Northern end of the Blue Ridge mountains and oversees a huge section of the Cumberland valley and it's northern opening--not much could move across it unnoticed by observers in the Villa. And just down the road, literally, is a State Fish Hatchery--ready-made protein and a resource to be guarded and husbanded.

IIRC, Pearl, Hickam/Honolulu International, Ft Shafter, and Barbers Point took hits, but I don't remember what the yield was. I believe Kaneohe MCAS was missed -- either a mistake on the part of the designers, a deliberate miss on the part of the designers, or a miss by the Russians.

Pearl, Hickam AFB/Honolulu International, Ft Shafter and Barbers Point are pretty much clustered in a semicircle around Pearl Harbor (the bay, not the base), and it's less than 10 miles between Hickam on the east side and Barbers Point on the west. Pretty much mindless overkill...

Yeah, but they didn't make the same mistake the Japanese made!;)

while some would deem it a waste of valuable resources you can use an M113 as a gate. heck if ya dig big enough holes in the ground(a working bulldozer or massed labor) you can make a nice bunker complex from conexes, buses, or even a couple broke down APC's. you can even camouflage the entrances with a scrap village. a few huts with little in them wouldn't be looked at twice until your patrol gets wiped out from the hidden bunker system beneath.

I remember reading that the USMC did this with excessively battle damaged amtraks in Vietnam -- dug a hole, put the hull in, and then covered it back up except for an access tunnel to the back ramp. Ready made bunker requiring no more than some bulldozer time and minimal engineering manpower.

I don't have the link at hand but some group was making a bunker system here in the US out of stripped-out school-bus hulks lined up in a bull-dozed-out pit, then, after appropriate entrances and vents had been set up, buried in lots and lots of concrete.

That's the Ark Two and it is in Ontario, Canada actually.

The floor plan is wacky. There are some really smart feature here and there though.

http://webpal.org/SAFE/aaaarktwo/index.htm

It just shows you what a REALLY GOOD interior decorator can do for a TEOTWAWKI mega-shelter!;)

Fortifications in T2k
 

Castles became obsolete with the advent of effective gunpowder weapons during the Renaissance. Fortifications continued to play an important role in European warfare, from Vauban's 17th century star-shaped forts to the 20th century's Maginot Line. But as evidenced by the ignominious fate of the latter, large, fixed fortifications could be neutralized by modern firepower and mobility.

Largely as a result of shortages of combat aircraft, and large caliber shells for artillery and direct fire weapons, castles and other antique fortifications would once again become important strongholds/bases in the later days of the Twilight War. Castles would no longer be musty tourist attractions- they would regain a lot of their original importance, at least on a local level.

There a couple of castles mentioned in the original Poland modules, but Poland is plain lousy with them (there are dozens), many built by the Teutonic order. Europe is littered with medieval fortifications in various states of preservation. There are also numerous extant Vauban-style fortifications throughout Europe. On an interesting side note, that style is coming back into use today IRL.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...sses-in-africa

(During the Vietnam War, both the French and the Americans relied on similar fortifications to help them control the surrounding territory. A few American Special Forces camps were laid out Vauban-style.)

In addition to castles (Bran Castle is believed to inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula novel), Romania has fortified churches.

In T2k, castles make great bases for warlords, OPFOR, and friendly forces. Castles could serve as an effective linchpin/central hub for a cantonment. I was so inspired by images of Malbork castle that I wrote a whole adventure module around it!

I'm hoping that this thread will be the place to discuss various fortifications, from general to specific, from big to small, all over the world, that could be relevant to T2k campaigns. Has your campaign ever featured castles or other old fortifications made new again? Were your PCs lucky enough to take control of their own castle? Feel free to post relevant pics as well.

You may even see them make a comeback here in the US. There are a few old fortifications here in the US - Fort Monroe for instance comes to mind - that could be put back into use as well. Now depending on where the nukes hit at Norfolk that particular fort may be out of commission but there are others - Castle Williams on Governors Island in NYC for instance which in Armies of the Night is the base for the Harbor Rats.

The Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine would be useful. It protects the harbor, with the ocean-facing walls being 19 feet thick. As stone, it would be AV 10 or 11, but given coquina's semi-ductile nature and that it can absorb 2-4 times as much energy as sandstone, it should probably be a bit higher. There's a well in the courtyard of the fort, which is 100 feet square. The dry moat could be flooded relatively easily. Its only normal entrance is a drawbridge with a barbacan on the opposite side. The parapet is 6 feet high and three feet thick, with 64 piercings for artillery. With around 40 feet of space on top of the walls, there's plenty of room to mount stuff. There are 32 rooms within the walls of the fort.

It's a bit close to the Sea Lord's territory in Jacksonville, but against your typical marauders it would be an incredibly tough nut to crack.

There are quite a few half forgotten "fortresses" that would be available for use. A few Nike missile complexes were still relatively intact in 1997 plus quite a few bunkers at various costal sites or shutdown/abandoned military bases. Even some of the WW II Atlantic Wall fortifications might be able to be refurbished for use.

I'm having no luck finding good pictures but expedient fortifications from the Euromaiden protests in Ukraine in 2014 were really interesting. That ones I think are most interesting for T2K are the tire walls. Really just soil/sand filled tires stacked as walls.

A person height wall (filled with soil) weighs tons so you're only going to knock it down with heavy weapons or vehicles. Even a single tire thick wall will stop most small arms, fragments, and block line of sight for attackers. Tires also burn with thick black sooty smoke so if you need to cover movement or escape you just burn down your walls.

Tires are also everywhere. They don't need to be in driveable shape to be used in a wall. A junk yard or tire dump is a nice defensive wall waiting to happen. Your cool castle wall took a SMAW and has a hole in it? Fill it in with old tires and dirt, it'll take another SMAW!

Structurally they're similar enough to HESCO barriers that whole defensive perimeters and internal cordons can be built out of them.

Wawel Castle
 

Honestly, I'm not shure, if I stumbled across the following site because of a link in this forum. Nevertheless, Wawel is of some importance. They have a museum there and I think, the site gives quite some info.

https://wawel.krakow.pl/en

On that note.... https://www.homedit.com/earthship-ho...ecycled-tyres/

In addition to tons of castles in Poland, there are some left over German bunker complexes.

http://harbinger.twilightwar.net/mgbunker_small.jpeg

These are pretty big files, but you can zoom in on MG bunker and Arty bunker for a layout and the writeup (in English and Polish) if you want more of an idea of the facilities in each.

http://harbinger.twilightwar.net/mgbunker.jpeg
http://harbinger.twilightwar.net/bunker1.jpeg
http://harbinger.twilightwar.net/bunker2.jpeg
http://harbinger.twilightwar.net/bunker3.jpeg
http://harbinger.twilightwar.net/artybunker.jpeg