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Sally Port
A sallyport is a secure, controlled entry way to an enclosure, e.g., a fortification or prison. The entrance is usually protected by some means, such as a fixed wall on the outside, parallel to the door, which must be circumvented to enter and prevents direct enemy fire from a distance. It may include two sets of doors that can be barred independently to further delay enemy penetration. From around 1600 to 1900, a sallyport was a sort of dock where boats picked up or dropped off ship crews from vessels anchored offshore. That meaning occasionally still occurs, especially in coastal Great Britain. Etymology and historical usage The word ''port'' is ultimately from Latin for door. Often the term postern is used synonymously. It can also mean a tunnel, or passage (i.e., a secret exit for those besieged). A ''sally'', ultimately derived from Latin (to jump), or "salle" sortie, is a military maneuver, typically during a siege, made by a defending force to harass isolated or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Festung Dömitz Bastion Held
''Festung'' is the German word for fortress. Although it is not in common usage in English, it is used in contexts related to Central European, especially German, history. The term is used: * In the names of fortresses in German speaking Europe * For fortified areas in Switzerland's National Redoubt * In German World War Two propaganda for: ** Festung Europa — The defensive buildup of Western Europe against the Allies *** Vital locations along the Atlantic wall, including the entirety of Norway ** For key strategic locations which were to be held at all costs, especially towards the end of the war *** Festung Stalingrad following the city's encirclement in Operation Uranus *** Festung Warschau — used in different contexts in 1939 and 1944 *** Festung Posen *** Festung Kolberg *** Festung Breslau *** Festung Budapest *** Festung Königsberg *** Alpenfestung — the planned national redoubt ** For proposed post war German exclaves in key places such as Brest and Trond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Engines
A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while others have wheels to enable advancing up to the enemy fortification. There are many distinct types, such as siege towers that allow foot soldiers to scale walls and attack the defenders, battering rams that damage walls or gates, and large ranged weapons (such as ballistas, catapults/ trebuchets and other similar constructions) that attack from a distance by launching heavy projectiles. Some complex siege engines were combinations of these types. Siege engines are fairly large constructions – from the size of a small house to a large building. From antiquity up to the development of gunpowder, they were made largely of wood, using rope or leather to help bind them, possibly with a few pieces of metal at key stress points. They could la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doors
A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a ''doorway'' or ''portal''. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security by controlling access to the doorway (portal). Conventionally, it is a panel that fits into the doorway of a building, room, or vehicle. Doors are generally made of a material suited to the door's task. They are commonly attached by hinges, but can move by other means, such as slides or counterbalancing. The door may be able to move in various ways (at angles away from the doorway/portal, by sliding on a plane parallel to the frame, by folding in angles on a parallel plane, or by spinning along an axis at the center of the frame) to allow or prevent ingress or egress. In most cases, a door's interior matches its exterior side. But in other cases (e.g., a vehicle door) the two sides are radically different. Many doors incorporate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle Architecture
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace, and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for ''pleasance'' and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace. European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries after the fall of the Carolingian Empire, which resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. These nobles built castle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wicket Gate
A wicket gate, or simply a wicket, is a pedestrian door or gate, particularly one built into a larger door or into a wall or fence. Use in fortifications Wickets are typically small, narrow doors either alongside or within a larger castle or city gate. The latter were often double gates, large and heavy, designed to allow the passage of wagons, coaches and horsemen. The purpose of wickets was to avoid the risk of having to open the main gates to the castle or city for just one or two individuals on foot. Because the wicket was only one person wide, it only allowed entry one at a time and enabled the guards to better control access. In the Middle Ages the narrow doors in the city walls also enabled late arrivals to gain entry after the main gates had been closed. If the small entrance in the door of a large gate has a high threshold, it may be called a manway. If it is a separate, narrow entrance next to the main gate, it may be called a pedestrian entrance. This type of doub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postern
A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often placed in concealed locations, allowing inconspicuous entrance and exit. In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a sally port, allowing defenders to make a sortie on the besiegers. Placed in a less exposed, less visible location, they were usually relatively small, and therefore easily defensible.Van Emden, Wolgang. "Castle in Medieval French Literature", ''The Medieval Castle: Romance and Reality'' (Kathryn L. Reyerson, Faye Powe, eds.) U of Minnesota Press, 1991, p.17 Tactical use Posterns were one of the essen ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vehicular Sally Port
A vehicle () is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to land vehicles such as human-powered vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velomobiles), animal-powered transports (e.g. horse-drawn carriages/wagons, ox carts, dog sleds), motor vehicles (e.g. motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters) and railed vehicles (trains, trams and monorails), but more broadly also includes cable transport (cable cars and elevators), watercraft (ships, boats and underwater vehicles), amphibious vehicles (e.g. screw-propelled vehicles, hovercraft, seaplanes), aircraft (airplanes, helicopters, gliders and aerostats) and space vehicles (spacecraft, spaceplanes and launch vehicles). This article primarily concerns the more ubiquitous land vehicles, which can be broadly classified by the type of contact interface with the ground: wheels, tracks, rails or skis, as well as the non-contact technologies such as ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ravelin
A ravelin is a triangular fortification or detached outwork, located in front of the innerworks of a fortress (the curtain walls and bastions). Originally called a ''demi-lune'', after the ''lunette'', the ravelin is placed outside a castle and opposite a fortification curtain wall. The ravelin is the oldest and at the same time the most important outer work of the bastion fortification system. It originated from small forts that were supposed to cover the bridge that led across the moat to the city or fortress gate from a direct attack. From this original function, to protect the gate bridge, also comes its original Italian name "''rivellino''" (which means small bank work or with the German expression common for it: ''Brückenkopf'' – "bridge head"). Therefore, the ravelin was at first only a small work, which should only make the access to the bridge in front of the fortress gates more difficult. When it was realized in the 16th century that this would generally provide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtain Wall (fortification)
A curtain wall is a defensive wall between fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town. Ancient fortifications Evidence for curtain walls or a series of walls surrounding a town or fortress can be found in the historical sources from Assyria and Egypt. Some notable examples are ancient Tel Lachish in Israel and Buhen in Egypt. Curtain walls were built across Europe during the Roman Empire; the early 5th century Theodosian Walls of Constantinople influenced the builders of medieval castles many centuries later. Curtain wall castles In medieval castles, the area surrounded by a curtain wall, with or without towers, is known as the bailey. The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site. In medieval designs of castle and town, the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult. Walls were topped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenaille
A tenaille (archaic tenalia) is an advanced defensive-work, in front of the main defences of a fortress, which takes its name from resemblance to the lip of a pair of pincers. It is "from French, literally: tongs, from Late Latin tenācula, pl of tenaculum". ''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. In a letter to John Bradshaw, President of the in London, writing from Dublin o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Towers
A Roman siege tower or breaching tower (or in the Middle Ages, a belfry''Castle: Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections''. Dorling Kindersley Pub (T); 1st American edition (September 1994). Siege towers were invented in 300 BC. ) is a specialized siege engine, constructed to protect assailants and ladders while approaching the defensive walls of a fortification. The tower was often rectangular with four wheels with its height roughly equal to that of the wall or sometimes higher to allow archers or crossbowmen to stand on top of the tower and shoot arrows or quarrels into the fortification. Because the towers were wooden and thus flammable, they had to have some non-flammable covering of iron or fresh animal skins. Evidence for use of siege towers in Ancient Egypt and Anatolia dates to the Bronze Age. They were used extensively in warfare of the ancient Near East after the Late Bronze Age collapse, and in Egypt by Kushites from Sudan who founded the 25th dynasty. During classical antiq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortification
A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ("strong") and ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were the first small cities to be fortified. In ancient Greece, large cyclopean stone walls fitted without mortar had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae. A Greek ''Towns of ancient Greece#Military settlements, phrourion'' was a fortified collection of buildings used as a military garrison, and is the equivalent of the ancient Roman, Roman castellum or fortress. These constructions mainly served the purpose of a watch tower, to guard certain roads, passes, and borders. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
