Talk:Star fort

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This site has a great deal of information on the terminology of fortifications.

http://www.angelfire.com/wy/svenskildbiter/madict.html#Introduction


from that site some somewhat convoluted definitions.

Hope they can be reduced to something less impeneterable, without loosing too much accuracy.


Star fort: A field work constructed in the shape of a star, by using four or more salients and no curtains.


Saliant, Salient: The forward projecting point of a bastion or other projecting work.
Salient angle: The angle facing away from the centre of the place.
Salient work: A work incorporating salient angles. See bastion trace, redoubt, sconce.
Bastion: A work projecting from the curtain wall of a fortification which commanded the foreground and the outworks. Designed to provide flanking fire to adjacent curtains and bastion. Bastion has been used to refer to the flanking towers of a castle as well as the arrow headed bastions of the Italian bastion trace. See arrow headed bastion, curtain tower, mural tower. (L. bastia, build).
Bastioned flank: The salient angle of a bastion and the opposite flank.

--Shoka 23:23, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Recent change by Kennithj

"Age of Blackpowder" when the cannon came to dominate the"

Change is questionable. The original was using cannon in the plural.

Could have been written as "when cannons came to dominate", but cannon is the more normal plural form.

Revised form does not convey quite the original sense.

Other opinion sought. Grammer Mavens ? --Shoka 20:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


Rather than quibble over plurals it might be more useful to set these technological developments in some historical context, of which this article is currently wholly innocent. --Wetman 00:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] redundancy?

seems to be a lot of overlap between this and trace italienne; should they be combined? 67.68.235.106 19:42, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur that there is overlap. Unclear how best to proceed though. Star fort is a descriptive term. Trace italienne refers to the origin of this style of fortification. Personally I think that star fort is the better title for the article.--Shoka 21:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result was merge into Star Fort. —Michael Z. 2007-10-16 23:04 Z 23:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I propose to merge the articles Bastion fortress, Star fort, and Trace italienne. These 3 articles discuss the exact same thing! In stead of 3 fragmented articles, the combined info could be very comprehensive. I suggest merging the info to Bastion fortress: it seems to me as the most fitting title. -- P199 17:02, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This sounds very sensible; the other titles remain as redirects. Star fort being so familiar might have its own subsection. --Wetman 20:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
That would be much more managable. As it is, the articles could stand to be improved (particularly sourcing and layout). The two merged into bastion fortress could both have their own sections, in fact, with trace italienne reflecting its origins in the Renaissance period. --Grimhelm 21:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Concur that the three articles overlap. Not clear that collecting the text from all three articles into sections in a single article is the best way of merging them. Have some concerns with the accuracy of some of the statements in bastion fortress, particularly the statement that the increasing range of siege weaponry lead to their obsolecence. --Shoka 22:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
That is something that didn't truly start to happen until the second half of the 19th century, and even then, commanders were reluctant to move away from Star forts. In some cases, star forts have still showed use in the mid-20th century. However, I feel we can work better on accuracy and references one page, eventually using Bastion fortress as the parent article for the other two. --Grimhelm 23:02, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


Definitely merge the three articles here. If the article grows very large and detailed, then a sub-topic can be split off again.

Star fort has the longest edit history, and has a solid introduction and description, so it will make a good core article. The sections of trace Italienne can be merged at least partly intact. Bastion fortress is shorter and its writing is not as strong, so facts can be individually incorporated from that article.

"Star fort" is the simplest descriptive title, while "bastion fortress" can be confused with "bastion". Other suitable titles are star fortress (more evocative of a large masonry structure than "fort") and Vauban fortress or Vauban fortification (which are the best-known to me, but not really inclusive enough). But anyway, I suggest we merge to this article for the reasons above, and then the merged article can be moved to whichever title we choose in the meantime.

I've added merge notices to the three articles. If there's no objection, I'll start merging in a few days. —Michael Z. 2007-10-01 22:03 Z


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


[edit] Merged, needs copyedit

I've completed the merge. Pretty much everything from trace italienne came into this article, and I made sure that nothing covered in bastion fortress was missed.

It now needs some editing and cleanup, particularly to shorten the introduction. —Michael Z. 2007-10-17 00:00 Z