T2K Fortification

[pmulcahy11b]

It's a bit of an exotic location for T2K...but basically all over Oahu in Hawaii, you'll find abandoned blockhouses and pillboxes built before and during World War 2. Many are still in good shape, though overgrown with vegetation. Another interesting location would be Ulupau Crater on Kaneohe MCAS; it's the rifle range for the island, and is to an extent honeycombed with rooms and corridors (and you find even find some ammo!). On the other side of the island at Mokapu Point, there is an abandoned Nike site; I never had the chance to go see for myself, but it's supposed to have a decent array of blockhouses, old buildings, and underground rooms and corridors.

[jester]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

It's a bit of an exotic location for T2K...but basically all over Oahu in Hawaii, you'll find abandoned blockhouses and pillboxes built before and during World War 2. Many are still in good shape, though overgrown with vegetation. Another interesting location would be Ulupau Crater on Kaneohe MCAS; it's the rifle range for the island, and is to an extent honeycombed with rooms and corridors (and you find even find some ammo!). On the other side of the island at Mokapu Point, there is an abandoned Nike site; I never had the chance to go see for myself, but it's supposed to have a decent array of blockhouses, old buildings, and underground rooms and corridors.

They are there.

One of my links was to a nike site, they were pretty universal.

You have 1 command site in the area and a dozen or so satelight sites. Like the one at Whites Point was the comand center for all of the ones from Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties which had about a dozen.

Each site had an underground silo, elevator venhilators and then a comand center. Some of the facilities had two elevators, each elevator was about the size of a semi trailer if i recall right.

Most topside facilities had a place for the personel to stay, a mess facility, a admin center, a guard post or two, some had firestations and missile asssembly areas and kennels as well. The one we used had three primary buildings.

[ChalkLine]

Fort Scratchley in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia is a victorian era coastal battery with some nice underground galleries. It's not too big to defend, PCs could manage it.

Go to the link above, there is ground plans of the fort. If you don't want to use the fort as a coastal battery, just site it on a bluff looking towards the probable direction of attack. It's international design makes it perfect for anywhere in the world and it is small enough to to be overlooked on many maps.

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Fort Scratchley in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia is a victorian era coastal battery with some nice underground galleries. It's not too big to defend, PCs could manage it.

Go to the link above, there is ground plans of the fort. If you don't want to use the fort as a coastal battery, just site it on a bluff looking towards the probable direction of attack. It's international design makes it perfect for anywhere in the world and it is small enough to to be overlooked on many maps.

I'd just like to add that this battery makes an ideal base for riverine or sea-going PCs.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

It's a bit of an exotic location for T2K...but basically all over Oahu in Hawaii, you'll find abandoned blockhouses and pillboxes built before and during World War 2. Many are still in good shape, though overgrown with vegetation. Another interesting location would be Ulupau Crater on Kaneohe MCAS; it's the rifle range for the island, and is to an extent honeycombed with rooms and corridors (and you find even find some ammo!). On the other side of the island at Mokapu Point, there is an abandoned Nike site; I never had the chance to go see for myself, but it's supposed to have a decent array of blockhouses, old buildings, and underground rooms and corridors.

Post-TDM, we (in the DC group) have proposed moving PACOM HQ to K-Bay. There is a large airfield, housing, ammo dumps, a pier, radar station, intercept/signal station and a mountain honeycombed with fortifications. The mountain was outfitted during 1942-4 as a coastal artillery position, equipped with the heavy guns salvaged off the USS Arizona from the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The positions are still there (the guns are not) and probably have extensive tunnels to support them. The prevailing winds are from the north, assuring that any fallout from the strikes on Honolulu don't effect the post. And the only landside access to the post is over a pair of causeways from the main part of the island. Ideal, IMHO...

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by chico20854

Post-TDM, we (in the DC group) have proposed moving PACOM HQ to K-Bay. There is a large airfield, housing, ammo dumps, a pier, radar station, intercept/signal station and a mountain honeycombed with fortifications. The mountain was outfitted during 1942-4 as a coastal artillery position, equipped with the heavy guns salvaged off the USS Arizona from the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The positions are still there (the guns are not) and probably have extensive tunnels to support them. The prevailing winds are from the north, assuring that any fallout from the strikes on Honolulu don't effect the post. And the only landside access to the post is over a pair of causeways from the main part of the island. Ideal, IMHO...

Actually, Kaneohe has a Back Gate (also called the Pali Gate, since it faces the Pali Outlook). This does not connect via causeway, though you do go through a winding mountain highway to get to it.

[jester]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Actually, Kaneohe has a Back Gate (also called the Pali Gate, since it faces the Pali Outlook). This does not connect via causeway, though you do go through a winding mountain highway to get to it.

Actualy Paul there is a causeway.

Once you enter the base after comming through the neighborhood in Kailua, ocean and beach on one side, Nuapia Ponds on the other. Just like the maingate.

And the base has other things,

1.) It has the crater near the rifle range filled with bunkers and what not, but also KT as well which sits in the center of the Island.

And then of course they have a few islands small ones but islands, one in the center of Kaneohie and another on the otherside we called "Rabbit Island"

And the Nuapia pond used to be the Hawaiian Royal Families private fishing pond, although now it is more marsh that stinks to high heaven.

As for the Dock, they used to have LSTs pull up and people sailed away on deplopyment that way. It isn't that big a dock as it has limited capacity but it could do the job for one or two ships.

The airfeild, well one issue is it faces the ocean on either end so that could pose a problem if you have any issues with aircraft. It can handle C-131s mind you, and I oftten wondered if one central street could do the job as it bisected the base and was much longer.

Another protector from radiation is the Pali mountain range bisects the island so there is the tallest point of mountains on the island seperating the base from Honolulu and Pearl which again is seperated by hills.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by jester

Actualy Paul there is a causeway.

Oops, left out a word. It should have read, "Actually, Kaneohe also has a Back Gate..."

Amazing how leaving out one word can screw up what one is trying to say.

[Raellus]

Has anyone seen the Israeli film, Beufort [sic]? I haven't seen it yet but it's about an Israeli unit occupying a Crusader castle in Lebanon during the '90s. It's on my Netflix list.

Seems like it could provide some interesting flavor or scenario ideas for fortifications in T2K.

[Marc]

Bon dia!

Mmmmm... no previous idea about the existence of the film, but I've searched in the Wikipedia after your post and it seems it could be interesting. The correct title is Beaufort and is directed by an IDF veteran.

Thanks for the suggestion. This post remembers me that I still have, in my hard drive, another film to see: The Goods must be crazy. I think it was suggested by Kato.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

It's a bit of an exotic location for T2K...but basically all over Oahu in Hawaii, you'll find abandoned blockhouses and pillboxes built before and during World War 2. Many are still in good shape, though overgrown with vegetation. Another interesting location would be Ulupau Crater on Kaneohe MCAS; it's the rifle range for the island, and is to an extent honeycombed with rooms and corridors (and you find even find some ammo!). On the other side of the island at Mokapu Point, there is an abandoned Nike site; I never had the chance to go see for myself, but it's supposed to have a decent array of blockhouses, old buildings, and underground rooms and corridors.

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.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I forget, did Hawaii get hit in 1.0?

[WallShadow]

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.

[ArmySGT.]

This gem was on Fox today.

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

[WallShadow]

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.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

I forget, did Hawaii get hit in 1.0?

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...

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

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!

[bobcat]

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.

[HorseSoldier]

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.

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by bobcat

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 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.