|
A bunker is a defensive military fortification. Bunkers are mostly below ground, compared to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. They were used extensively in World War I and World War II. During the Cold War, bunkers became a part of American culture when people built backyard fallout shelters. Famous bunkers include NORAD's underground facility at Cheyenne Mountain and the Canadian set of so-called Diefenbunkers. The Soviet Union maintained huge bunkers and in Albania, Enver Hoxha dotted the country with hundreds of thousands of bunkers. At one time Osama bin Laden was rumored to be hiding in massive 'underground fortresses' in Tora Bora. Bunkers in Albania (image under GFDL from Marc Morell used with permission) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Bunkers in Albania (image under GFDL from Marc Morell used with permission) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
A 19th-century-era block house in Fort York, Toronto In military science, a blockhouse is a small, isolated fort in the form of a single building. ...
Combatants Allies: Serbia, Russia, France, Romania, Belgium, British Empire, United States, Italy, and others Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire Casualties Military dead: 5 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total of dead: 8 million Military dead: 4 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total dead: 7 million The First...
Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II...
The Cold War was the protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their alliance partners. ...
Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in any given society. ...
This page may meet Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...
A sign pointing to an old fallout shelter in New York City. ...
NORAD is short for: North American Aerospace Defense Command Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
1,400 people work inside Cheyenne Mountain. ...
A Diefenbunker is the nickname Canadian federal opposition politicians of the early 1960s coined for seven nuclear fallout shelters built across the country at the height of the Cold War during the infancy of the ICBM threat. ...
Enver Hoxha, (IPA , October 16, 1908–April 11, 1985) was the paramount leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Communist Albanian Party of Labour. ...
Osama bin Laden UsÄmah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin LÄdin (Arabic: ; born March 10, 1957 [1]), most commonly known as Osama bin Laden or Usama bin Laden (أسامة بن لادن) is an Islamic fundamentalist, a primary founder of the al-Qaeda Islamic organization and a member of the immensely wealthy bin...
Tora Bora Tora Bora (black dust) (Persian: تورا بورا ) is an area located in the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, southeast of Kabul and southwest of Jalalabad, near the Pakistan border. ...
Bunkers as part of a trench system Another type of bunker or blockhouse is a small concrete box, partly dug into the ground, which is usually a part of a trench system. Such bunkers give the defending soldiers better protection than the open trench and also include top protection against aerial attack (grenades, mortar shells). The front bunker of a trench system usually includes machine guns or mortars and forms a dominant shooting post. The rear bunkers are usually used as command posts or Tactical Operations Center (TOC), for storage and as field hospitals to attend to wounded soldiers. A trench is a long narrow ditch. ...
Grenade may refer to: The well-known hand grenade commonly used by soldiers. ...
US soldier loading a M224 60-mm mortar. ...
A shell is a projectile, which, as opposed to a bullet, is not solid but contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage includes large projectiles without a filling which are properly termed shot. ...
A machine gun is a fully-automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. ...
A Command Post is a term, of military origin, referring to a field location from where the person in charge of a situation issues orders. ...
A Tactical Operations Center (TOC) is a command post for police, paramilitary, and military operations. ...
A Tactical Operations Center (TOC) is a command post for police, paramilitary, and military operations. ...
A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ...
Many mines in France were transformed into bunkers by both the Germans and the French in World War I and World War II. The El Chino Mine located near Silver City, New Mexico is an open-pit copper mine This article is about mineral extraction. ...
Combatants Allies: Serbia, Russia, France, Romania, Belgium, British Empire, United States, Italy, and others Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire Casualties Military dead: 5 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total of dead: 8 million Military dead: 4 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total dead: 7 million The First...
Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II...
Pillbox
 Pillbox on shingle bank North Norfolk England
 A pillbox on the East coast of England. Part of the defences were built during World War II (the railings are a modern addition) Dug-in guard posts (with loopholes for firing through) and made from concrete are also known as "pillboxes". The originally jocular name arose from their perceived similarity to the cylindrical boxes in which medicinal pills were once sold. They are in effect a trench firing step hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades and raised a little to improve the field of fire. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1280x960, 103 KB) Summary WW2 Type 22 Pillbox on the shingle beach at Kelling North Norfolk England Also avaliable at http://www. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1280x960, 103 KB) Summary WW2 Type 22 Pillbox on the shingle beach at Kelling North Norfolk England Also avaliable at http://www. ...
A pillbox on the East coast on England. ...
A pillbox on the East coast on England. ...
Their use seems to have developed during the period of the First World War when defence in depth using the Machine Gun Corps was being perfected. However, most of those seen in Britain, having been left over from the 1940 invasion scare, are designed for use by riflemen rather than for machine gunners. The concrete nature of pillboxes means that they are a feature of prepared positions and their original use is likely to have been in the Hindenburg Line. This is likely to have been the time when they acquired their incongruous English name. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest record of the use of the word pillbox in connection with a defensive post is from 13 September 1917, after the German withdrawal onto the Hindenburg Line. Combatants Allies: Serbia, Russia, France, Romania, Belgium, British Empire, United States, Italy, and others Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire Casualties Military dead: 5 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total of dead: 8 million Military dead: 4 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total dead: 7 million The First...
Defence in depth is a military strategy sometimes also called elastic defence. ...
The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in World War I. The Heavy Branch of the MGC were the first to use tanks in combat...
The majority of the fortifications scattered around the landscape of Britain date from World War II. They were constructed in a period of a few months during 1940 from the time of the Dunkirk evacuations. ...
A machine gun is a fully-automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. ...
The Hindenburg Line was a vast system of defences in Northern France constructed by the Germans during the winter of 1916– 17 during World War I; the Germans called it the Siegfried Line. ...
The Oxford English Dictionary print set The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP). ...
Pillboxes are often camouflaged in order to conceal their location and to maximize the element of surprise. They may be part of a trench system, form an interlocking line of defence with other pillboxes by providing covering fire to each other (defence in depth), or they may be placed to guard strategic structures such as bridges and jetties. Anolis caroliensis showing blending camouflage and counter-shading. ...
Industrial bunker Typical industrial bunkers include mining sites, food storage areas, dumps for materials, and sometimes living quarters.
Design of blast-resistant bunkers Bunkers deflect the blast wave from nearby explosions to prevent ear and internal injuries to people sheltering in the bunker. While frame buildings collapse from as little as 3 psi (0.2 bar) of overpressure, bunkers are regularly constructed to survive several hundred psi (over 10 bar). This substantially decreases the likelihood that a bomb can harm the structure. Pounds-force per square inch (lbf/in²) is a non-SI unit of pressure. ...
Look up bar and Bar in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Overpressure, in geology, is a term used to describe the pressure regime in a stratigraphic unit that exhibits higher-than-hydrostatic pressure in its pore structure. ...
The basic plan is to provide a structure that is very strong in compression. The most common purpose-built structure is a buried, steel-reinforced concrete vault or arch. Most expedient blast shelters are civil engineering structures that contain large buried tubes or pipes such as sewage or rapid transit tunnels. Improvised purpose-built blast shelters normally use earthen arches or vaults. To form these, a narrow (1-2 metre) flexible tent of thin wood is placed in a deep trench (usually the apex is below grade), and then covered with cloth or plastic, and then covered with 1-2 meters of tamped earth. In architecture, a vault is an arched structure of masonry, forming a ceiling or canopy. ...
Isometric view of a typical arch An arch is a curved structure capable of spanning a space while supporting significant weight (e. ...
Nuclear bunkers must also cope with the underpressure that lasts for several seconds after the shockwave passes, and block radiation. Usually these features are easy to provide. The overburden and structure provide substantial radiation shielding, and the negative pressure is usually only 1/3 of the overpressure.
The doors must be at least as strong as the walls. The usual design is a trap-door, to minimize the size and expense. To reduce the weight, the door is normally constructed of steel, with a fitted steel lintel and frame. Very thick wood also serves, and is more resistant to fire because it chars rather than melts. If the door is on the surface and will be exposed to the blast wave, the edge of the door is normally counter-sunk in the frame so that the blast wave or a reflection cannot lift the edge. A bunker must have two doors. Normally one door is convenient, and the other is strong. Door shafts may double as ventilation shafts to reduce the digging.
A large ground shock can move the walls of a bunker several centimeters in a few milliseconds. Bunkers designed for large ground shocks must have sprung internal buildings, hammocks, or bean-bag chairs to protect inhabitants from the walls and floors.
Earth is an excellent insulator. In bunkers inhabited for prolonged periods, large amounts of ventilation or air-conditioning must be provided in order to prevent heat prostration. In bunkers designed for war-time use, manually-operated ventilators must be provided because supplies of electricity or gas are unreliable. One of the most efficient manual ventilator designs is the Kearny air pump.
Ventilation openings in a bunker must be protected by blast valves. A blast valve is closed by a shock wave, but otherwise remains open. One form of expedient blast valve is tire-treads nailed or bolted to frames strong enough to resist the maximum overpressure. A blast valve is used to protect a shelter, such as a fallout shelter or bunker, from the effects of sudden outside air pressure changes. ...
If a bunker is in a built-up area, it may include water-cooling or an immersion tub and breathing tubes to protect inhabitants from fire storms. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1919x1284, 583 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Bunker Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1919x1284, 583 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Bunker Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used...
Bunkers must also protect the inhabitants from normal weather, including rain, summer heat and winter cold. A normal form of rainproofing is to place plastic film on the bunker's main structure before burying it. Thick (5-mil or 0.13 mm), inexpensive polyethylene film serves quite well, because the overburden protects it from degradation by wind and sunlight. Polyethylene or polyethene is a thermoplastic commodity heavily used in consumer products (over 60M tons are produced worldwide every year). ...
Experts in preparedness (such as Cresson Kearny, see below) for war recommend purchasing and stockpiling the materials for an expedient blast or fallout shelter, and then constructing it only if war appears very likely. In real wars, such materials have almost immediately become unavailable as emergency construction depleted stocks. The storage needed is modest, and the materials are inexpensive in peacetime, and easy to inspect and maintain.
When a house is purpose-built with a bunker, the normal location is a reinforced below-grade bathroom with large cabinets.
Some vendors provide true bunkers engineered to provide good protection to individual families at modest cost. One common design approach uses fiber-reinforced plastic shells. Compressive protection may be provided by inexpensive earth arching. The overburden is designed to shield from radiation. To prevent the shelter from floating to the surface in high groundwater, some designs have a skirt held-down with the overburden. A properly designed, properly installed home shelter does not become a sinkhole in the lawn. Fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) is a composite material comprising a polymer matrix reinforced with fibres usually of glass, carbon, or aramid (and in the case of Duroplast even cotton or wool) and is commonly used in aerospace, automotive and marine industries. ...
See also One of six Flak towers built during World War II in Vienna. ...
This is a reconstruction of the layout of the Führerbunker. ...
A bunker buster bomb is designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground. ...
Subsidence craters left over after underground nuclear (test) explosions Bunker-busting nuclear weapons are a type of nuclear weapon which are designed to penetrate into soil, rock or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead. ...
A sign pointing to an old fallout shelter in New York City. ...
Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of the civil population as well as military personnel against enemy attacks from the air. ...
The Maginot Line (IPA: [maʒino], named after French minister of defense André Maginot) was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, machine gun posts and other defenses which France constructed along its borders with Germany and with Italy in the wake of World War II. Generally the term...
The original Siegfried line (Siegfriedstellung) was a line of defensive forts and tank defenses built by Germany as a section of the Hindenburg Line 1916-1917 in northern France during World War I. However, in English, Siegfried line more commonly refers to the similar World War II defensive line, built...
German coast artillery in the Pas-de-Calais area, with laborers at work on casemate. ...
A pillbox on the GHQ Line The GHQ Line was a defence line built in the United Kingdom during World War II to contain an expected German invasion. ...
It has been suggested that Hawthorn, Wiltshire be merged into this article or section. ...
Wiltshire (abbreviated Wilts) is a large southern English county. ...
The majority of the fortifications scattered around the landscape of Britain date from World War II. They were constructed in a period of a few months during 1940 from the time of the Dunkirk evacuations. ...
References
External links Look up bunker in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Feeds |
Contact