Looks like anyone wanting to invade is in for a rough patch, but maybe modern tech renders these types of things worthless.
Considering what a rough time the US (and Russia) has had in Afghanistan, I suspect they'd still be fairly effective.
Considering what a rough time the US (and Russia) has had in Afghanistan, I suspect they'd still be fairly effective.
I was wondering, how useful are ancient castles in modern battles? Armchair generals all over the planet kept prattling about them being useless because modern weaponry is awesome and all...
Then I went to look properly:
1. Kerak de Chevaliers, yes, that one crusader castle, was occupied during the Syrian war, and gave a hard time to the enemy outside, the castle worked exactly as intended, even with modern weapons.
2. Ditto to a bunch of other castles in some past wars.
3. A fortified monastery gave enemies a hard time in WW2 in Italy, I forgot its name now.
4. Not exactly "ancient castle", but a "star fort" in France was captured in the opening days of Battle of Verdun, in part because the french leadership believed castles to be outdated and didn't garrisoned it properly... the result was that the attempts to retake the fort resulted in 100.000 casualties on the French side before they succeeded.
5. Also in Verdun there was a smaller fort, the commander of that fort was old and the military ordered him to retire for medical reasons, he refused and basically "kept" the fort as his own, with a small garrison, the old guy and his small garrison fought fiercely against the invading Germans and caused 3000 casualties to the Germans before they lost.
Monte Cassino?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino#/media...
"On 15 February American bombers dropped 1,400 tons of high explosives, creating widespread damage.[6] The raid failed to achieve its objective, as German paratroopers then occupied the rubble and established excellent defensive positions amid the ruins. "
It binds ressources. Lots of them. You even write "slowly". Meaning fortification is still effective.
While the enemy artillery is busy bombing stone, your troops can attack other targets from from other angles.
It didn't matter, the Monte Cassino was a meat grinder for the Allies.
Anyway, why dredge WWII era stuff? The US got spanked in Afghanistan by an irregular militia with bolt action rifles. And their tactic is simple as it is brilliant - negate the advantage of air raids by fighting as close to the enemy as possible.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nad-e-+Ali,+Afghanistan/@3...
The same tactic was used to good effect, by the Viet Cong.
To the Germans' credit, they offered not to take the monastery as a position if the Allies wouldn't bomb it. They only took the advantageous positions after it'd been reduced to ruble.
The Germans also helped evacuate as much of the stuff inside as possible, moving it to the Vatican, where the monks trusted the Germans wouldn't steal the stuff. To further trust amongst the locals and monks, a monk accompanied every truck to the Vatican. As a result most of the library was saved.
Monte Cassino is one of the (many) examples of Allied war crimes and one of the (very) few examples of German honor in WWII.
But given your name, you might see things differently.
The reason almost any above ground strongholds still hold up today is that they're packed with civilians, not because their walls are that strong.
Same for some other castles in Syria from my research out of curiosity.
But I assume that people wanted to take the castles, not turn them into a parking lot... if you can nuke or throw MOAB into them, then it is obviously another matter entirely.
This ancient fortification was the only thing the Syrian army held in the city for months, if not years. It functioned exactly as an ancient fortress did - providing high ground, spotting enemy movement, safety of supplies, etc.
Another recent example is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Donetsk_Airpo...
This was NOT fortified, but allowed concealment, and was held through heavy bombardment, offering a tactical advantage.
Yes, US/Russia/China could pound it into the ground, but that takes a LOT of ordinance.
Btw, WW II is FULL of these examples.
I think the misconception comes from the fact that "modern weapons" - jets, radars, comm sites, missiles, etc cant be "secured" in these facilities. This is true. But that doesn't mean they can't be held through heavy bombardment and house mortars, snipers, ATGMs, small supply caches, etc.
That was the whole plan in WW2, take the army back to the mountains leave the city's and flatland to the enemy, then start Guerilla warfare and protect the big Mountain Fortresses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Redoubt_(Switzerland)
In other words, I think the Swiss wanted to tilt the cost/benefit calculation for invaders, not only by increasing the cost, but also by reducing the benefit.
(Much the same game-plan seems not to have worked for Afghanistan, though. High cost, zero benefit, lots of invasions.)
And that worked, as for sure germany did not wanted a neutral power in the middle of their empire, but due to cost/benefit the plan of invading was always pushed back till the war was over.
So this was also the plan for a potential cold war escalation.
There is lots of massive stone protecting them after all, you have to blast through. Which can be done, but is still a massive effort.
Unless you really know (and guard) all the exits and control the surface, how could modern tech render them useless?
For primitive caves(targeting Taliban), I believe there was a weapon developed where shockwave (and gas?) would kill anyone inside, but if you have multiple blast doors and air filtration inside, you still have to cut or blast your way inside.
And fighting in an enemy underground network is not something any soldier would look forward to.
So I guess the modern way to take the swiss bunkers out, would be
a) really scout them out
b) target critical infrastructure (bunker breaking bombs)
c) destroy all the exits
or
d) infiltration with commando troops
or
e) blow up the whole mountain
That and they only have about 25 aircraft that could realistically do any good air defense work.
The idea that the US would struggle against Switzerland is predicated on them not doing that, because they would've had to found a reason to invade in the first place.
The idea is that the USA (or any other power) would struggle to occupy Switzerland, not to obliterate it from the face of the Earth. No country could defend against that, not even the USA.
The whole point of the Swiss defense system is to make the country much more difficult and costly to invade, occupy and control than it could possibly be worth to an attacker, even if such a goal was eventually achievable. In this, history has proven them successful.
There's good reason to assume that similar projects still exist.