Defensive barracks - a set of barracks facilities adapted for long-term defense and protected from siege artillery fire.
The defensive barracks were brick buildings with thick walls and arches. They housed casemates for one or two guns, firing through large loopholes .
Historical examples
Defensive barracks were built throughout the entire existence of the Russian Imperial Army . Among others, one can note such masterpieces of fortification as defensive barracks [1] :
( Fig. from the article β Defense Barracks β
" Military Encyclopedia of Sytin ")
- Brest-Litovsk fortress , the citadel of which was a closed two-story defensive barracks, which had the plan in the form of an oblong polygon with a perimeter of about 1.8 km with 4 semicircular ledges (towers). It contained 500 bombs safe from bombs, containing 12 thousand garrison personnel, a hospital and food supplies. This citadel fringed the island, formed by the branching of the river. Muhavets, which further increased her defensive strength;
- Modlin fortress , the defensive barracks of which were 2β4 floors high, forming a common retranschement; it was up to 2 km long and could accommodate 17,000 people. The outer French coroners were reinforced with ravelins and connected by caponier fronts with ravelins handed down behind the glacis; defensive walls with casemates in flanks and outgoing corners, known as bonnet caponiers and assigned to defend the moats of the fence, were located at all the Scarps [2] ; this defense was also based on fire from caponiers, from fractures of the main shaft and from cavaliers located in the middle of caponier fronts;
- The Grankovsky citadel , which was formed by a two-story defensive barracks of a lunate shape, with two flanking towers, with a total length of about 1.5 km. Gorge barracks, facing the Vistula River, was closed by a defensive wall with a caponier .
The construction of defensive barracks within the framework of the second fort ring also took place during the First World War in 1912 - 1915 . They were all similar in layout: in the back there was a barracks with several casemates, and in the front there was an exit connected to the barracks by an underground passage. The gorge part of the barracks was equipped with several loopholes for shelling the area.
Defensive barracks, built shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, can be found near the Brest Fortress .
Architectural Significance
The Russian fortresses of the imperial period were always distinguished by the completeness of their forms. In this regard, a very interesting example is the defensive barracks of the Novogeorgievsky fortress , built in 1831 . Despite the huge length of the building and its small height, it makes an excellent impression and expresses its military purpose well. The strict rhythmicity of the facade, the breakdown into individual links by large windows, the allocation of links with gates by special processing and the successful combination of building sections of different heights with a change in relief indicate the skill and taste of the builders [3] .
Notes
- β Yakovlev V.V. Division Four. Fortification ideas and forms of the first half of the 19th century // History of fortresses: evolution of long-term fortification . - SPb. : Polygon, 1995 .-- pp. 107-148. - 311 p. - ISBN 5-89173-077-4 .
- β Bonnet-caponier // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.
- β Gumilevsky L.I. Russian engineers. - Publishing house " Young Guard ", 1953. - S. 12. - 438 p.