Talk:Defensive wall

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noxious trades weren't on the outskirits of just european cities-is somebody trying to imply that they know of a place where this wasn't true? Lir 13:07 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Middle East vs. Israel

Why are the walls of the Old City not included under Israel? Is it because there are those who don't consider the Old City part of Israel? I realize this is a highly politicized issue, but Israel did annex the place close to forty years ago. It's best for an impartial encyclopedia to go by de facto borders, because anything else presumes that there's some kind of higher authority that dictates nations' borders, and if some believe that there is such a power, they don't agree on what it is. So, I'm moving the Old City's walls to Israel. Feel free to discuss—I'm very much aware that this is a community project.


Whoever wrote the above- I totally agree with them. Why are Jerusalem Old City Walls and Akko in the Arab League section? This isn't recognizing the jewish democratic state of Israel.

[edit] Israeli West Bank barrier Israeli Gaza Strip barrier

How is this for an edition to walls? Its a wall whose stated purpose is defense...? gren グレン 09:57, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

They're not really walls, they're fences. Small portions of the barriers consist of walls, although you'll find more pictures of those portions since they sell more newspapers than a boring fence. I added them anyhow. --Joffeloff 21:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation from German to English

I am going start translating the German article Stadtmauer to add to this one. Any help / feedback welcome. ACH 20:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I strongly suggest that the list of walls is moved to a separate page. ACH 22:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Work in progress

First point, the title is misleading. The article is mostly about city walls, and that term redirects here, but is not mentioned in the introduction, and possibly not in the text at all.

Second I agree strongly with ACH that the huge list of fortified cities overwhelms the article.

Certainly in english usage, city walls is the more familier term for the secondary defences that protected the citizenry of fortified towns. I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but many British fortified towns consist of a citadel or castle - a military structure, and a walled town, usually attached to the castle, or more rarely surrounding the castle. The function of the walled town is subtly different from the castle. The castle both defends and controls the town. The city walls add to the defensive strength of the castle, protect the inhabitents from external threat but also provide a measure of control over the inhabitents. The wall keeps in, as well as out.

Carnarvon, Beaumaris, Berwick-on-Tweed all follow this pattern.

Further point, plain wall, usually called curtain wall, is relativly a very weak defensive structure.

An attacker can concentrate large amounts of force against a small section of the wall, and only a relativly few defenders can challange them. If the wall is scaled, the the attackers and defenders are very quickly fighting on even terms, not a desirable position from the defenders viewpoint. From the days of the Romans and before, defensive lines were composed of towers linked by short sections of wall, arranged so that a) the towers can enfilade attackers approaching the wall, and b) so that even if the wall is scaled the attackers have the benifit of the shelter of the towers to mount counter attacks against the invaders.

City walls that are only man high, and plain wall without reinforcing towers are not serious defensive features. Any reasonably large attacking force would have control of the wall in minutes.

Lastly cannon came to dominate both attack and defence from the 14th centuary on. From the end of the Roman era, where siege warefare was well developed, to the arrival of cannon, the strength of a wall was synonymous with its hight, and ditches were a secondary means of gaining a few feet of hight. From the arrival of cannon, a higher wall was simply a bigger target. Anything that a cannon could fire at it could destroy. Thus walls were no higher than could be protected by the ditch in front of them, and "walls" became huge banks of earth, "revetted" (faced) in stone and strongly equipped with defensive cannon. See the photograph of the walls of Berwick in the article Berwick-on-Tweed for a view of city walls of this era.


Well, you are more than welcome to add to the article in that respect - I do not have much knowledge of the topic (I am mainly translating the German article as stated above) so any expertise / experience is welcome. I did, at one point, wonder how to best describe the city defense with one term that I could then keep consistently througout the article - and of course the title seems to be misleading, too. Moreover, it is linked with the German article for city walls not some generic "defensive walls". I am not sure how to move the list of fortified cities to a separate page or whether I even can (I registered only a few days ago) so any help is appreciated. Thanks ACH 15:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd say that the consensus is to keep them separate - I'll remove the tag if no-one else has anything to say soon. ACH 13:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Separation barrier

===>Largely identical articles The scope and content of both largely overlap. I don't know which should redirect to the other, though. I'm inclined to say "separation barrier" should be the main article, as not all of these are strictly built for defense, but all walls, by definition, separate. Thoughts? Justin (koavf) 01:29, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the current defensive Wall article contains more information, mostly about medieval walls, their history, and structure. I suppose one way of going about it would be to merge the articles, but put the aforementioned information in a separate article, say "city walls", as it does not fit under such a generic header in my opinion. ACH 11:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd oppose a merger. Seems to me that the two are distinct concepts: one being structures designed primarily for military purposes (to stop or slow a potential invasion), the other being structures designed to stop the flow of people and goods across borders. Jbenton 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks to me like Defensive walls is more about fortified cities of an earlier era, whereas Separation barrier deals with much longer walls that separate territories and zones. No? //Big Adamsky 07:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Seperation barrier seems to me to be confused and over general. It discusses in very general terms fences and man made constructs then dives into fortified frontiers. An article that covered that subject well, from say the Hadrien and Antonine walls, the Great Wall of China, through Offas Dyke, the fortified boundries of Africe, the Maginot and Siegfried lines, the Russian fortified lines of the second world war, and the great Nordic fortifications built after the last war, with a focus on the history and politics that drove their construction would be an asset. Possibly Seperation barriers can become that article, but not without a lot of change. I think the Defensive walls article title is misleading, it was originally titled City Walls and is still largely covering that subject, and quite well. I'd suggest aiming this article at that objective. A third article covering the history, evolution, rationale, terminology, capability strengths and weakness, sucess and failure of "military" (for want of a better term) walls, ie wall from a military engineering perspective, is sadly lacking. I'd vote against merging the two articles, I believe despite the similarity of the names they cover or should cover substantially different subjects, and the names should be changed to refelect that.--Shoka 13:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The two articles seem diferent enough to keep separate. The Separation barrier article can be linked to Border control, which is a good key phrase -- Dogears 00:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


--- I OPPOSE - one is a broad subject, and this is an important sub catageory -- Fort Henry in Kingston Ontario has different form of Defensive Wall then a medieval fort - Themepark

[edit] Walled City

I came to Defensive wall from "Walled City" - can the redirect be made clear please - with a link to the former place in Hong Kong which I was looking for?Jackiespeel 17:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who put the merge tag on Medieval fortification?

I object to a merge, as that article is already extensive, and because it specifically supports the medieval subject.  The Transhumanist   11:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rampart, Bulwark terms

I was looking for the terms Rampart and Bulwark, both re-direct to Defensive wall, but neither seems to contain any iformation about these terms, or their modern semantics in relation to the Defensive walls. Because the "Defensive wall" is a catch-all article, a little Defensive wall-related glossary seems to be missing. Any opinions? Barefact (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)