The HESCO bastion is both a modern gabion used for flood control and military fortification and the name of the British company that developed it in the late 1980s. It is made of a collapsible wire mesh container and heavy duty fabric liner, and used as a temporary to semi-permanent dike or barrier against blast or small-arms. It has seen considerable use in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Originally designed for use on beaches and marshes for erosion and flood control,[1] the HESCO Bastion quickly became a popular security device in the 1990s.[2] Hesco barriers continue to be used for their original purpose. They were used in 2005 to reinforce levees around New Orleans in the few days between Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.[3] During the June 2008 Midwest floods 27,000 feet of Hesco barrier wall were shipped to Iowa.[4] In late March, 2009, 35,000 feet of Hesco barrier were delivered to Fargo, North Dakota to fight floods.
Specifically, the brand name for the barrier is 'Concertainer', with 'HESCO Bastion' being the British company that produces it,[5] though the barrier itself is quite generally referred to as a HESCO Bastion, or simply "Hesco".
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The HESCO bastion was originally developed by a British entrepreneur named Jimi Heselden, who in 1989 founded Hesco Bastion Ltd. to manufacture his invention.[6]
Assembling the HESCO bastion entails unfolding it and filling it with sand, dirt or gravel - usually using a front end loader. The placement of the barrier is generally very similar to the placement of a sandbag barrier or earth berm except that room must generally be allowed for the equipment used to fill the barrier. The main advantage of HESCO barriers, strongly contributing to their popularity with troops and flood fighters, is the quick and easy setup. Previously, people had to fill sandbags, a slow undertaking, with one worker filling about 20 sandbags per hour. Workers using HESCO barriers and a front end loader can do ten times the work of those using sandbags.[7]
The HESCO barriers come in a variety of sizes. Most of the barriers can also be stacked, and they are shipped collapsed in compact sets. Example dimensions of typical configurations are 1.4m x 1.1m x 9.8m (4’6” x 3’6” x 32’) to 2.1m x 1.5m x 30m (7’ x 5’ x 100’).
A new system of HESCO Bastion concertainer developed specially for military use is deployed from a container, which is dragged along the line of ground where the barrier is to be formed, unfolding up to several hundred meters of barrier ready for filling within minutes.[8]
Filled with sand, 60 centimetres (24 inches) of barrier thickness will stop rifle bullets, shell fragments and other shrapnel. Approximately 1.2 metres (four feet) of thickness provides protection against most car bombs. It takes 1.5 metres (five feet) of thickness to prevent penetration by a rocket-propelled grenade round. In addition, HESCO bastions are even more effective than sandbags against water and rain, which will not compromise the formers' competence.
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