Quote:
Originally Posted by Homer
In the US and some of its current and former possessions, there are numerous coast artillery positions that are still extant around major port cities and key waterways. Some of the later era (Endicott and Taft period) fortifications were built tough with steel reinforced concrete structures while even the earlier fortifications have masonry walls and all have ravelins, outer works, and hardened or buried magazines. Most of the later forts began closing their doors in the 40s, with some remaining in service into the Nike-Hercules era in the 60s and 70s before shuttering. A few were incorporated as non-functional items into subsequent military installations.
Going into T2K, some of the ones in better condition include Fort Monroe, VA; Fort Kamehameha (Hickam AFB) and Fort Ruger (Diamond Head/Fort Ruger State Military Reservation), HI; Fort Baker (Presidio of San Francisco), CA; Fort Jay (USCG Governor’s Island as mentioned in Armies of the Night), NY; Fort Trumbull (Naval Underwater Systems Center) (and associated fortifications on Fisher’s Island and Tern Island), New London, CT; Fort Niagara, NY; Fort McHenry, MD; The Harbor Defenses of Boston; Fort Terry (Plum Island), NY; and Fort Vancouver, WA. It’s doubtful they are serving their original role, but they all provide fairly defensible structures, many of which would have survived nuclear explosions quite well and all of which would pose a challenge to direct attack by a post TDM force.
Most have their own water supplies, some have generators (especially the Taft area forts), and all have either hardened barracks built into the structure or a cantonment area with barracks, etc (most of the “fort” part of Fort Niagara is a post civil war area administrative post with brick Barack’s and support structures). Because they were all designed to be defensible (and the separate batteries and facilities were also designed to be defensible) with a minimal sized force to enable the bulk of the garrison to work the guns, they could be a good refuge for a party and their allies or a decent base of operations.
|
Piping up solely because I've been there a number of times, Fort Monroe does not have its own water supply. The Army kept trying, but after a 2,248 foot deep well still only drew saline water, they gave up and had water shipped to the fort. That part of the Chesapeake got smacked by a bolide ~35 million years ago that disrupted all the aquifers. One other problem with Monroe is it's a stinking huge fort by enclosed fort standards - the area inside the walls is 63 acres, and those walls are 1.3 miles. By comparison, Fort McHenry has 2 acres inside its walls. You'd need a lot of people to adequately cover those walls, and those people will need a lot of water brought in to Monroe.
I'd also add Fort Washington (MD) to the list. The existing masonry fort dates to 1824 but was kept in decent shape because it was a staging area for units being assembled for World War One and was the Adjutant General's School in World War Two before being transferred to Interior. There are also ten Endicott Batteries that were built there, ranging from a pair of 3" quickfire guns to a battery of eight 12" mortars, although the batteries I saw nearest the fort are in rough shape. There's also a large marina within rifle shot of the fort with 300 slips from 25' to 50' that could be useful. There aren't any useful guns there (some preserved smoothbores only IIRC), but the site would still have good potential.