The French Army Is Building Renaissance-Style Fortresses in Africa

It's anachronistic in the sense that it was largely made obsolete by artillery advances during the 19th century, replaced by polygonal forts (which could even adapt to high-explosive payloads, and actually proved their worth in both world wars), as well as the more modern bunkers & fortified emplacements.

It makes a lot of sense when unlikely to face artillery and bombers though, as it's pretty straightforward and cheap to build and operate.

But it is a throwback to something which has largely become decorative in the lands or originate from.

> Nothing anachronistic about it; this is likely an optimal design when considering how to maximise the effective coverage of guns.

I guess what makes it slightly anachronistic is that these "pointy" designs look like they are somehow designed with fluid or aero-dynamics in mind, and back in the days I guess they were when an amassing army would literally try and storm the walls. In that situation, you want the opposing army to be forced against a point rather than a flat wall so that every flat wall they attack, they are flanked by another one right next to it, creating a "kill zone".

While I'm sure the design is by no means "useless" by today's standards, I have to wonder if the original intent of the design makes sense in an era of air strikes and tanks. But then again, if you're up against a less advanced adversary, maybe "storming the gates" is literally what they'll be forced to attempt.

Yeah they were usually just a boring circle. But there was a time around 2007 in Iraq I traveled through a combat outpost that was made with 15 meter high concrete walls and had turrets (which also held guns) on 4 sides. It was a proper little castle.

Though the enemy in Iraq did have a lot of mortars so the patrols stationed did see causalities from indirect fire.

Yes our patrol base in Afghanistan was made partly of these and partly of the adobe mud walls of the compound we were in. This shape would've been really useful, as on more than one occasion people were able to sneak up by utilising the visibility dead-zones

Diplomatic buildings have often been strong points designed to keep staff safe in uncertain times. This is true even in safer locations; the new US embassy in London is very much a fort although the defensive features (like the water-filled moat/pond, and bollards hidden in the hedges) are well integrated into the landscaping.

The new site is probably considerably harder to assault than their old building, even though that looked more like a military building. The Grovesnor Square building was so ugly that even the official picture on the US Embassy website tries to hide it from view behind some trees!

https://uk.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/policy-history/rcg...

Federal buildings in the US built after the Oklahoma bomb are also very fortified and don't have a a lot of windows.

It’s a shame that a diplomatic mission of such a close friend needs to be armoured like this in London.

Actually not similar, only the shape is similar. The trick with the "trace italienne" is that each tower (edge of the star) can reach and attack people below the other towers, so each tower is protected by its neighbors.

As far as I can tell, Fort Bourtange never had towers for defense but rather relied on it's walls to protect it enough.

There's also a picture of that one in the article.

What I gleaned from the article was that the French only released a handful of non-security-compromising photos (eg, closeup of a flag raising), and the author padded out the remainder of the article with drawings and pictures of other forts.

Why destroy the wall when it traps valuable equipment that you can lob explosive shells at.

Assuming "modern weapons" means light arms carried by modern infantry: These are different from a castle. If the enemy makes a mad rush for the breach, they're going to get cut down by your guns, so the walls are more to provide cover from enemy fire than to physically keep them out.

Assuming "modern weapons" means bombers, tanks, cruise missiles: this is not going to stop them at all.

They're basically the most effective, quick defence to put up (a somewhat long but informative British army video on the effects of small arms on various walls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j31Crn-y6tM)

They'll withstand most SVBIED (Suicide Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices) attacks. And incase one Hesco barrier is not enough, several are usually used to create sufficient thickness.

So for a counter-insurgency war such as this in Mali, yes you couldn't get better

I guess that fort is build with the threat of the Al Quaeda/ISIS groups in mind, which are mostly equipped with firearms and a few RPGs and such but nothing too advanced. It's not intended to take on a full siege by a regular army.

Typically they're shaped differently, but US forces in Iraq / Afghanistan use the same type of structures built from dirt-filled barriers. They're highly effective if the enemy does not have artillery and / or air power.

ISIS whenever they launched attacks in Syria or Iraq against some army base or prison structure they filmed it with drones and put it on youtube. Their strategy was multiple suicide trucks or cars filled with explosives (some were decoy vehicles) that had to survive the speeding attack to the walls to blow themselves up for a breach where the foot soldiers could come in and raid, so these were mad max looking vehicles covered in makeshift armor, coming in from all directions hoping to exploit a blind spot in the structure's defenses. So in other words having no blind spots seems like the best defense against that kind of enemy or one that tries and lobs mortars at you while you have clear sight of them doing so.

No, it's still perfectly possible to build a fortification impervious to most or all firepower. What changed in WWII is it became possible for the entire enemy army to simply drive and fly past your fortresses; the Maginot Line is an infamous example. Against an enemy without armor or aircraft, a bastion like the one from the article is an appropriate defense.

If those institutions are completely staffed and run by Europeans, protected by European security forces, you will jumpstart the development of the country by several decades.

If you want to frame your outrage, Africa is a continent. This is mainly about Mali and its fight against Al Qaida/ISIS.

France sent troops in with UN support in 2013 after a plea for help from the Malinese government (1)

That government was overthrown by the "National Committee for the Salvation of the People" very recently (2) so it's hard to say what the future holds, and if they should remain there. Most of the west (including the US) is not too excited about the new leadership though.

1) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35863/the-french-army-...

2) https://www.voanews.com/africa/france-keeping-close-eye-mali...

It's mentioned in the second paragraph of the article.

Literally in second paragraph.

Mali and the surrounding countries were a French colonial territory for about 80 years from the late-19th through mid-20th centuries.

France has maintained relationships with its former colonies in West Africa, and frequently performs counter-terrorism operations there.

Some local West Africans are OK with it, others are not. A 2016 attack on a beach resort in Côte d'Ivoire was claimed by the attackers (AQIM - Al'Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb), to be directly because of the foreign presence in West Africa, and the beach resort was targeted specifically because it is popular with foreigners (4 of the 19 killed were French).

France's history in West Africa is complicated but it's probably because of that history that they continue to operate there.

Because people follow the news and know about the UN mandate that the French forces (and all the other Europeans there) are enforcing.

The Economist has lots of coverage of the Sahel and the ongoing developments in Mali. It’s one of the few mainstream publications with significant coverage of that issue available in the US.

They’ve got a bunch of podcasts that largely cover the content of their articles, with the voices of reporters and occasionally primary source recordings mixed in, all available for free. Worth checking out for sure.

Now I’m wondering, does anyone else have good resources for coverage of the Sahel or other international interests outside the US’s 24-hour news cycle?

Why would you mention it? It's not the same shape if you haven't noticed.

It is not interesting at all if Stalins and Hitlers ghosts are still haunting, it would have been odd if d'Gaulles ghost wasn't around.

It says so in the article if you care to read it.

Please don't let the fact that you didn't bothered to read the article you're commenting on stop you from accessing the information you never bothered to search.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency_in_the_Maghreb_(200...