4 ms·

Walls can not protect you from dhijadists either, the mortars take out the city- and besieging starves it out. In sudan- a "walled and ditched" city recently f

Walls can not protect you from dhijadists either, the mortars take out the city- and besieging starves it out. In sudan- a "walled and ditched" city recently fell to the djandjhawid.. https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/commentary/fall-el-fasher-sudans-war-outpaces-truce-plan https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/commentary/fall-el-fa...

bluGill 3mo ago
They give you time though. It's certainly not perfect, but no wall ever was. You could scale the old wall with a ladder if you wanted to, but it slowed you down and that gave the defenders time to do something about that.
yorwba 3mo ago
Of course no fortification can withstand overwhelming force indefinitely, but el-Fasher held out 1.5 years while completely surrounded, which isn't too shabby. (Here's a map from a year prior: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/5/52/20241203103929%21War_in_Sudan_%282023%29.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/5/52/... It's the small pink blob of army-controlled territory labeled "Al-Fashir" within the gray mass of the RSF.) And the RSF are a formerly government-affiliated civil war faction with a lot more firepower than jihadist militias like JNIM or ISSP. If some trenches and an earth wall turn a short raid into a long siege, that at least gives the army some time to send reinforcements and attack the besiegers.
- MaxPock 3mo ago
  Kuweires airbase in Syria never fell to isis and held for over two years.
ceejayoz 3mo ago
Alone, no. But the fact that modern militaries still build them around bases in insecure areas should give you a moment's pause before dismissing them entirely.
kergonath 3mo ago
Besieging a city is difficult and expensive. And it fixes a significant attacking army that has to monitor the whole city’s surroundings. They do fall every now and then, but the whole point is that it takes a disproportionate amount of power to do it.
TFNA 3mo ago
Please do not use German-based transliteration on HN. It is foreign to most readers. Both of the Arabic terms you use have established English transliterations.

bluGill 3mo ago

They give you time though. It's certainly not perfect, but no wall ever was. You could scale the old wall with a ladder if you wanted to, but it slowed you down and that gave the defenders time to do something about that.

yorwba 3mo ago

Of course no fortification can withstand overwhelming force indefinitely, but el-Fasher held out 1.5 years while completely surrounded, which isn't too shabby. (Here's a map from a year prior: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/5/52/20241203103929%21War_in_Sudan_%282023%29.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/5/52/... It's the small pink blob of army-controlled territory labeled "Al-Fashir" within the gray mass of the RSF.) And the RSF are a formerly government-affiliated civil war faction with a lot more firepower than jihadist militias like JNIM or ISSP. If some trenches and an earth wall turn a short raid into a long siege, that at least gives the army some time to send reinforcements and attack the besiegers.

MaxPock 3mo ago
Kuweires airbase in Syria never fell to isis and held for over two years.

ceejayoz 3mo ago

Alone, no. But the fact that modern militaries still build them around bases in insecure areas should give you a moment's pause before dismissing them entirely.

kergonath 3mo ago

Besieging a city is difficult and expensive. And it fixes a significant attacking army that has to monitor the whole city’s surroundings. They do fall every now and then, but the whole point is that it takes a disproportionate amount of power to do it.

TFNA 3mo ago

Please do not use German-based transliteration on HN. It is foreign to most readers. Both of the Arabic terms you use have established English transliterations.