City Walls

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by notPresidentAndrew, Jan 17, 2003.

  1. notPresidentAndrew Banned Banned

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    City walls have always an interesting part of history for me. How tall were the highest city walls of the ancient world? What were average city walls like? I've seen cartoon representations of city walls in books, but they all seem to be exagerated.

    At what point in history did city walls become obsolete?
     
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  3. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    the last question is easy

    the advent of gun powder made walls obsolite as well as knights because a cannon could take down a wall as easerly as a musketear could shoot a knight

    im not sure on the dates that gun powder came to the west
     
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  5. Coldrake Registered Senior Member

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    Asguard is correct. Gun powder was introduced to Europe during the early 14th century, although it took almost 100 years for it to become an essential part of medieval warfare. Europeans had first become aware of it during the Crusades, when the Saracens used gunpowder in some capacity against the Europeans. But it would be another 200 years before Europeans really explored its use because of their lack of interest in science before the Renaissance. But by the early 15th century they were starting to really understnad its potential and by the 16th century they were beginning to fully develop its use.
     
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  7. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    the introduction of gunpowder didn't necessarily make walls redundant. The old castle, turned into fort, fort turned into bunker. Some protection is always better than none. Maybe citywalls become obsolete when power wasn't associated anymore with the city, but government became more centralized...or maybe not.
     
  8. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    umm rome HAD citty walls,

    and they were the most centralised goverment in the whole ancent kingdoms
     
  9. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    they had, but maybe there were other factors to consider? were they able to respond rapidly to threads? Did the defense needed to be decentralized...

    anyhoo...it was just an suggestion...i don't know shit
     
  10. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    when we are talking about rome we are talking about the most advaced millatary in the acient kindoms

    the legions

    they were flexable as they could be atached to archer, engineers, and\or cavlry depending on the mission

    they were spread in garisons over the whole of the roman empire
     
  11. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    but spread out thinly enough to require citywalls?
     
  12. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    yes because the roman empire was HUGE

    they were in fortifide garisons over the empire

    an interesting thing to note is that the romans were the EXPERTS are field fortifications

    they always stoped an hr before the other armys and would spend that time on there encampment making it a fort everynight
     
  13. Coldrake Registered Senior Member

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    808
    Perhaps the creation of the European nation-state in the 17th century had something to do with it. As those former small kingdoms, centered around a walled fortress, gave to to a state with expanded borders, and as the urban area populations grew and continuously spread beyond the walls, the effectiveness of the old city walls diminished, particularly as the use of cannon fire became more effective in the 17th century. It was obviously impossible to build a wall around a nation, with governments having to rely on natural defenses whenever possible, although the French did build their Maginot Line, and the Belgians had their fortress system, each on their German borders. Of course, they didn't take into account German paratroopers into account. Just a thought.
     
  14. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    more speculation and notions

    even iraq during the last gulf war implemented some kind of static defense at the border. It wasn't very effective.

    Static defenses seem to be strong in some aspects, but certanly have their weaknesses. The Russians during the Second WW used a lot of static defenses, but layered them. So if one broke, then the advancing army would find itself opposed by another defensive 'wall'.
     
  15. Coldrake Registered Senior Member

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    808
    Re: more speculation and notions

    Russians didn't have a chance to use a lot of static defenses because of the rapid advance of the German panzers, although they did have time to build a layered defense around Moscow, whcih along with winter, helped stop the blitzkrieg within 30 miles of the city. The Germans built a lot of defenses along the Siegfried line, mainly by layering concrete 'dragon's teeth' of considerable depth.
     
  16. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    i guess i was referring to the battle of kursk...

    also the germans build the atlantic wall...although it looked good on paper, large sections were unfinished, and the defense, behind the wall was not very good planned.

    also the presence of paratroopers might not make any wall or barrier redundant as some people might think. Paratroopers are comparatively lightly armed. Landing them behind enemy lines gives some advantages, but if they can't be reinforced, or meet too high resistance there power turns into weakness. But a well planned paratrooper attack can do wonders.
     

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