6 ms·

Bastion Fort

60 points by Memosyne 8y ago

some_random 8y ago
It's always interesting to see random wikipedia articles pop up on HN, though I never really know what to say. I guess I'll just go with the default, something that sorta sounds right but is probably just reductionist bullshit. Ahem This whole concept of zig-zagging fortifications, while effective in actual combat, weakens the fort on the strategic. Since most sieges end with the defenders being starved out or attackers chased off, the supply of food and water is significantly more important than any tactical advantage in an assault. And of course, by building the walls in a more traditional fashion, the fort can shelter more food and peasants than a bastion for the same cost. Obviously, this style of building is simply a reflection of the hedonistic culture of the Italians and supported only by the Military-Cottage-Industrial Complex and should be rejected by any self-respecting civilized nation.
- gerdesj 8y ago
  Obviously, this style of building is simply a reflection of the hedonistic culture of the Italians and supported only by the Military-Cottage-Industrial Complex and should be rejected by any self-respecting civilized nation. (LOL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Western_Heights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Western_Heights Funny old world.
- Someone 8y ago
  So, instead of a fort that you can defend until you run out of food and water (say, after a few months), you favor a fort where you won’t run out of food, but that you cannot defend against contemporary guns, because it will fall after, say, a week?
  - some_random 8y ago
    ... ... ... I don't even know what to say, I thought I made it pretty clear that the entire post was a joke.
    - macintux 8y ago
      HN discourages jokes, which may contribute to the misunderstanding.
      - yesenadam 8y ago
        I think, rather, that HN discourages saying something when you have nothing to say.
        some_random 8y ago
        HN also apparently discourages reading comprehension.
xxyyzzzzyy 8y ago
Nerf Bastion!
- pmarreck 8y ago
  Just take my upvote. Call me a bastion against the ungaming heathens here
SVnHNtoxicity 8y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-... https://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/17/silicon-valley-takeover-468182.html https://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/17/silicon-valley-takeover-... https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/why-im-leaving-silicon-valley-72919edb3297 https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/why-im-leaving-silicon-... https://getlighthouse.com/blog/silicon-valley-bad-managers/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/silicon-valley-bad-managers/ https://www.philanthropy.com/article/A-Star-Performer-Created-a/243159 https://www.philanthropy.com/article/A-Star-Performer-Create... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/a-valley-too-far-is-the-toxic-culture-of-the-tech-world-beyond-repair/article35610645/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/internati... https://www.geekwire.com/2018/emily-chang-brotopia-silicon-valley-companies-can-tackle-toxic-culture/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/emily-chang-brotopia-silicon-v... https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297481 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297481 https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/11/bro-culture-poisoning-silicon-valley/ https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/11/bro-culture-poison... https://www.quora.com/Is-the-culture-in-the-Silicon-Valley-becoming-increasingly-toxic?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Is-the-culture-in-the-Silicon-Valley-b... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/ellen-pao-memoir-silicon-valley-toxic-culture https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/ellen-pao-memoir-sil... https://www.recode.net/2018/2/5/16972096/emily-chang-brotopia-book-bloomberg-technology-culture-silicon-valley-kara-swisher-decode-podcast https://www.recode.net/2018/2/5/16972096/emily-chang-brotopi... https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Silicon-Valley-Community-Foundation-Reviews-E331546.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Silicon-Valley-Community-F... https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-hates-silicon-valley-except-its-imitators/ https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-hates-silicon-valley-ex... https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/silicon-valley-has-lost-its-soul https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/silicon-valley... https://yourstory.com/2017/07/silicon-valley-bro-culture/ https://yourstory.com/2017/07/silicon-valley-bro-culture/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-quiet-efforts-to-battle-silicon-valleys-bro-culture-1541943938 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-quiet-efforts-to-battle-sil... https://thebolditalic.com/a-source-of-sorrow-in-silicon-valley-1a81ccd80ac2?gi=bc741a45779e https://thebolditalic.com/a-source-of-sorrow-in-silicon-vall... https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/01/25/is-silicon-valley-the-real-villain-in-the-theranos.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/01/25/is-... https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-become-next-detroit-struggles-survive-toxic-mess-created/ https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-become-next-... https://builttoadapt.io/so-you-want-to-build-a-silicon-valley-like-software-developer-culture-focus-on-the-people-809ddf4c426a?gi=af0b0c66fd4f https://builttoadapt.io/so-you-want-to-build-a-silicon-valle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3-bMDaMhLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3-bMDaMhLg https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley... https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-actress-alice-wetterlund-t-j-miller-co-stars-enabled-bullying-1201985168/# https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-actress-ali...! https://www.theneweconomy.com/technology/silicons-sexist-brogrammer-culture-is-locking-women-out-of-tech https://www.theneweconomy.com/technology/silicons-sexist-bro... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051800 https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/sections/schools/210-school-features/55819- https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/sections/schools/210-sch...
Waterluvian 8y ago
A truly beautiful design. Functional, but clearly communicates its purpose. Citadels that take on this design look intimidating, strong, quiet, calm.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  From the air. From the ground they look like an irregular and haphazard series of corners, which is part of the point.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    I visited Fort George in Scotland recently as I have family in the area and its interesting how little of the fort you can actually see from immediately in front of it - just the very top of the main walls - even though there are a lot of fortifications between those two areas. You can see this in Google streetview if you go to the car park for visitor access - you can see almost nothing of the enormous fort even though it is only a couple of hundred metres away.
dh5 8y ago
It's fascinating how advances in siege technology resemble fast Darwinian evolution until of course the bigger fish in planes and tanks come in and eat everything else up.
- Theodores 8y ago
  But the bastion - as in the HESCO Bastion - has made a comeback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion Thanks to the wars in Afghanistan the founder got rich enough to buy Segway. Then he drove off a cliff in his Segway ending his life. Camp Bastion in Afghanistan is a big base that is named after the HESCO Bastions it is made of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Shorabak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Shorabak There is a surprising amount of money to be made in making containers for rocks, making black plastic bags for refuse and other things where you would not imagine a fortune could be made. As per the HESCO example it is a gruff Northerner with a 'where there is muck there is brass' attitude that inevitably exploits the potential. Shame about the Segway incident though.
miguelmota 8y ago
This is pretty interesting. Now I know where the term bastion host used in devops came from.
chiph 8y ago
Star Forts were built in the US as well. During the Revolutionary War, soldiers loyal to the English King built an earthen 8-point fort near the town of Ninety Six South Carolina. It successfully repulsed an attack by 50 Patriots under the command of General Nathanael Greene. The British commander Sir Francis Rawdon, 1st Marquess of Hastings, relieved the forces there shortly afterwards and abandoned it as part of a general retreat to Charleston. https://www.nps.gov/nisi/learn/historyculture/the-star-fort.htm https://www.nps.gov/nisi/learn/historyculture/the-star-fort....
- riffraff 8y ago
  The wiki article points out a pretty familiar American star fort: the pedistal of the statue of liberty.
  - fiduciary 8y ago
    and by aesthetic (i.e., non-convex) inspiration, Fort Sumter and the Pentagon.
- User23 8y ago
  Fort Ticonderoga in New York is a surviving star fort that's in good condition and open to tourists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ticonderoga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ticonderoga
fiduciary 8y ago
related 3-mth old discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18482590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18482590
dathinab 8y ago
If someone happen to care, there is a small bastion fort in Berlin (small as it only has 4 bastions): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitadelle_Spandau https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitadelle_Spandau (German Wikipedia has nice images) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandau_Citadel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandau_Citadel (English, pretty short) PS: It ~400 Years old, had been redesigned into a bastion fort at same point and doubled as a prison later on.
- lou1306 8y ago
  We have an even smaller one (still 4 bastions) in my hometown. This one was designed as a bastion fort from day one, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_Spagnolo,_L%27Aquila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_Spagnolo,_L%27Aquila https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_spagnolo https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_spagnolo (the Italian wiki has some additional photos)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
blunte 8y ago
One of the things I really enjoy about living in Europe is the frequently encountered remains of relatively ancient structures, including forts and bastions. I currently live 10 minutes by bike from a village that still has its star defense structures standing, and there's a nice walking path around part of it. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJzendijke#/media/File:IJzendijke_1649_Blaeu.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJzendijke#/media/File:IJzendi... There are also several towns in this country which still have impressive walls and gates. I still admire them when I see them.

60 points by Memosyne 8y ago

It's always interesting to see random wikipedia articles pop up on HN, though I never really know what to say. I guess I'll just go with the default, something that sorta sounds right but is probably just reductionist bullshit. Ahem This whole concept of zig-zagging fortifications, while effective in actual combat, weakens the fort on the strategic. Since most sieges end with the defenders being starved out or attackers chased off, the supply of food and water is significantly more important than any tactical advantage in an assault. And of course, by building the walls in a more traditional fashion, the fort can shelter more food and peasants than a bastion for the same cost. Obviously, this style of building is simply a reflection of the hedonistic culture of the Italians and supported only by the Military-Cottage-Industrial Complex and should be rejected by any self-respecting civilized nation.

gerdesj 8y ago
Obviously, this style of building is simply a reflection of the hedonistic culture of the Italians and supported only by the Military-Cottage-Industrial Complex and should be rejected by any self-respecting civilized nation. (LOL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Western_Heights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Western_Heights Funny old world.
Someone 8y ago
So, instead of a fort that you can defend until you run out of food and water (say, after a few months), you favor a fort where you won’t run out of food, but that you cannot defend against contemporary guns, because it will fall after, say, a week?
- some_random 8y ago
  ... ... ... I don't even know what to say, I thought I made it pretty clear that the entire post was a joke.
  - macintux 8y ago
    HN discourages jokes, which may contribute to the misunderstanding.
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      I think, rather, that HN discourages saying something when you have nothing to say.
      - some_random 8y ago
        HN also apparently discourages reading comprehension.

xxyyzzzzyy 8y ago

Nerf Bastion!

pmarreck 8y ago
Just take my upvote. Call me a bastion against the ungaming heathens here

SVnHNtoxicity 8y ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-... https://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/17/silicon-valley-takeover-468182.html https://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/17/silicon-valley-takeover-... https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/why-im-leaving-silicon-valley-72919edb3297 https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/why-im-leaving-silicon-... https://getlighthouse.com/blog/silicon-valley-bad-managers/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/silicon-valley-bad-managers/ https://www.philanthropy.com/article/A-Star-Performer-Created-a/243159 https://www.philanthropy.com/article/A-Star-Performer-Create... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/a-valley-too-far-is-the-toxic-culture-of-the-tech-world-beyond-repair/article35610645/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/internati... https://www.geekwire.com/2018/emily-chang-brotopia-silicon-valley-companies-can-tackle-toxic-culture/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/emily-chang-brotopia-silicon-v... https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297481 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297481 https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/11/bro-culture-poisoning-silicon-valley/ https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/11/bro-culture-poison... https://www.quora.com/Is-the-culture-in-the-Silicon-Valley-becoming-increasingly-toxic?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Is-the-culture-in-the-Silicon-Valley-b... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/ellen-pao-memoir-silicon-valley-toxic-culture https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/ellen-pao-memoir-sil... https://www.recode.net/2018/2/5/16972096/emily-chang-brotopia-book-bloomberg-technology-culture-silicon-valley-kara-swisher-decode-podcast https://www.recode.net/2018/2/5/16972096/emily-chang-brotopi... https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Silicon-Valley-Community-Foundation-Reviews-E331546.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Silicon-Valley-Community-F... https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-hates-silicon-valley-except-its-imitators/ https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-hates-silicon-valley-ex... https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/silicon-valley-has-lost-its-soul https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/silicon-valley... https://yourstory.com/2017/07/silicon-valley-bro-culture/ https://yourstory.com/2017/07/silicon-valley-bro-culture/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-quiet-efforts-to-battle-silicon-valleys-bro-culture-1541943938 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-quiet-efforts-to-battle-sil... https://thebolditalic.com/a-source-of-sorrow-in-silicon-valley-1a81ccd80ac2?gi=bc741a45779e https://thebolditalic.com/a-source-of-sorrow-in-silicon-vall... https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/01/25/is-silicon-valley-the-real-villain-in-the-theranos.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/01/25/is-... https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-become-next-detroit-struggles-survive-toxic-mess-created/ https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-become-next-... https://builttoadapt.io/so-you-want-to-build-a-silicon-valley-like-software-developer-culture-focus-on-the-people-809ddf4c426a?gi=af0b0c66fd4f https://builttoadapt.io/so-you-want-to-build-a-silicon-valle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3-bMDaMhLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3-bMDaMhLg https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley... https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-actress-alice-wetterlund-t-j-miller-co-stars-enabled-bullying-1201985168/# https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/silicon-valley-actress-ali...! https://www.theneweconomy.com/technology/silicons-sexist-brogrammer-culture-is-locking-women-out-of-tech https://www.theneweconomy.com/technology/silicons-sexist-bro... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051800 https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/sections/schools/210-school-features/55819- https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/sections/schools/210-sch...

Waterluvian 8y ago

A truly beautiful design. Functional, but clearly communicates its purpose. Citadels that take on this design look intimidating, strong, quiet, calm.

sandworm101 8y ago
From the air. From the ground they look like an irregular and haphazard series of corners, which is part of the point.
- arethuza 8y ago
  I visited Fort George in Scotland recently as I have family in the area and its interesting how little of the fort you can actually see from immediately in front of it - just the very top of the main walls - even though there are a lot of fortifications between those two areas. You can see this in Google streetview if you go to the car park for visitor access - you can see almost nothing of the enormous fort even though it is only a couple of hundred metres away.

dh5 8y ago

It's fascinating how advances in siege technology resemble fast Darwinian evolution until of course the bigger fish in planes and tanks come in and eat everything else up.

Theodores 8y ago
But the bastion - as in the HESCO Bastion - has made a comeback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion Thanks to the wars in Afghanistan the founder got rich enough to buy Segway. Then he drove off a cliff in his Segway ending his life. Camp Bastion in Afghanistan is a big base that is named after the HESCO Bastions it is made of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Shorabak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Shorabak There is a surprising amount of money to be made in making containers for rocks, making black plastic bags for refuse and other things where you would not imagine a fortune could be made. As per the HESCO example it is a gruff Northerner with a 'where there is muck there is brass' attitude that inevitably exploits the potential. Shame about the Segway incident though.

miguelmota 8y ago

This is pretty interesting. Now I know where the term bastion host used in devops came from.

chiph 8y ago

Star Forts were built in the US as well. During the Revolutionary War, soldiers loyal to the English King built an earthen 8-point fort near the town of Ninety Six South Carolina. It successfully repulsed an attack by 50 Patriots under the command of General Nathanael Greene. The British commander Sir Francis Rawdon, 1st Marquess of Hastings, relieved the forces there shortly afterwards and abandoned it as part of a general retreat to Charleston. https://www.nps.gov/nisi/learn/historyculture/the-star-fort.htm https://www.nps.gov/nisi/learn/historyculture/the-star-fort....

riffraff 8y ago
The wiki article points out a pretty familiar American star fort: the pedistal of the statue of liberty.
- fiduciary 8y ago
  and by aesthetic (i.e., non-convex) inspiration, Fort Sumter and the Pentagon.
User23 8y ago
Fort Ticonderoga in New York is a surviving star fort that's in good condition and open to tourists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ticonderoga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ticonderoga

fiduciary 8y ago

related 3-mth old discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18482590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18482590

dathinab 8y ago

If someone happen to care, there is a small bastion fort in Berlin (small as it only has 4 bastions): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitadelle_Spandau https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitadelle_Spandau (German Wikipedia has nice images) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandau_Citadel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandau_Citadel (English, pretty short) PS: It ~400 Years old, had been redesigned into a bastion fort at same point and doubled as a prison later on.

lou1306 8y ago
We have an even smaller one (still 4 bastions) in my hometown. This one was designed as a bastion fort from day one, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_Spagnolo,_L%27Aquila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_Spagnolo,_L%27Aquila https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_spagnolo https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_spagnolo (the Italian wiki has some additional photos)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

blunte 8y ago

One of the things I really enjoy about living in Europe is the frequently encountered remains of relatively ancient structures, including forts and bastions. I currently live 10 minutes by bike from a village that still has its star defense structures standing, and there's a nice walking path around part of it. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJzendijke#/media/File:IJzendijke_1649_Blaeu.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJzendijke#/media/File:IJzendi... There are also several towns in this country which still have impressive walls and gates. I still admire them when I see them.