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The Curtain Wall
| White76Knight's Survival Plan | ||
| Page One: Bugging In and Bugging Out | Page Two: Digging In for Awhile | Page Three: Living in the Aftermath |
| Page Two B: Fortifying The Citadel | Page Two C: The Curtain Wall |
Page Note:
Many of the images on this page are "clickable", with links that can provide a larger version of the image itself, further information on how the pictured item is supposed to work, or information on where it should be obtained. Should you have any questions, however, or if anything doesn't make sense as written, feel free to browse these links before you ask, to see if that information makes the situation any clearer. Now, on with the show...
THE CURTAIN WALL
No doubt, a wall is one of, if not the, most important defensive aspect in our fortress. It should be able to stop the shambling horde of zombies, the packs of sprinting infected, or the armed attack of raiders.
As in The Citadel itself, the thickness, height, and length of the Curtain Wall must all be determined by our needs and the materials with which we are building. For example, a one foot thick concrete wall will stop most small caliber rounds, and three feet would stop up to a .50 caliber. Again, I don't believe that most people will have access to .50 caliber rifles After the SHTF, especially not here in Canada where I live. One thing that I do see as a threat, though, is an attacker simply attempting to crash a vehicle through the Curtain Wall, and so the wall must be at least three to four feet thick to withstand this. The walls foundations must, of course, be strong enough to keep a massive structure standing. As vehicles are, again, unlikely to strike the walls eight or ten feet off the ground, they need only be three to four feet thick at ground level, and can be two to feet three thick above this height, with the foundations, of course, as strong as necessary.
The only real drawback to the Curtain Wall is the amount of effort involved in its creation. As in The Citadel described previously, the manual labor needed to pile concrete bricks twenty feet high, or pour concrete to an equal height, will be immense. Traditional walls made of either material will likely require building before any apocalyptic situation, but if you add up the cost of enough cement or concrete blocks to build a wall that would be four feet thick, twenty feet high and possibly a couple hundred feet long, you again realize that the answer is another fuggedaboudit number. So if we build Before the SHTF, with money still required, a Curtain Wall would also be prohibitively expensive, and our odds of sourcing all the required material after the world has been ravaged are far from in our favor.
As with The Citadel, we will best turn our attentions, therefore, to natural rather than man-made materials. These are less expensive, and again, sometimes even entirely free. My material of choice for the Curtain Wall of The Castle will be Rammed Earth, as in the construction of The Citadel described on the previous page.
Just as described in the Fortification page, this technique would require one to dig a trench, then build a form in that trench, fill it with soil, then tamp that soil down until it has been compacted to the density of solid concrete. Your form is then removed and the area behind the wall back-filled. Grass is then seeded, behind the wall and in the trench as well (as seen here), to prevent erosion, strengthen the ground and absorb runoff, etc. The Curtain Wall will then be coated to preserve it against the elements. Again, such methods do involve a great deal of physical labor, but they may also be one of the overall cheapest building methods that are available.Again, the outer surfaces of the wall should also be faced in natural stone or some other material that is resistant to small arms fire. While the Rammed Earth should, in and of itself, withstand almost any bullet, sustained fire from fully automatic weapons would probably chew it apart eventually. The addition of some resilient material should serve to hold our walls together, much like the laminated glass used in windshields.
Given the likelihood that massive quantities of wrecked or abandoned motor vehicles will end up lining every highway and street for miles around, one readily available source of resilient material might be old tires. Tires can be stacked two-over-one and one-over-two, like bricks, and thereafter filled in with dirt, sand, rocks/pebbles, etc to increase their strength. An outer layer of old tires, constructed properly, will be more resistant to attack than would Rammed Earth alone as even bullets only tend to make small holes when shot through tires, rather than chewing away large chunks as they tend to do when fired into concrete. This may not be feasible, however, as it could require a ridiculously large number of tires.
The trench serves, as in The Citadel, to deter any attempts to simply crash a vehicle in through the curtain walls. Any vehicle that drove over the edge of the trench would face a five foot drop to the ground below, losing both traction and speed in the process and probably sustaining damage as well. With a bit of luck, the vehicle may even be overturned or disabled entirely. This, by the way, is the reason why I omitted the sloped trenches that were used in Rocketman's design, and it can also be augmented with the inclusion of some Anti-Vehicle barriers at the outside of the trench, like concrete pylons or steel beams set in deep post holes. Even large boulders could be put to this purpose; as long as you don't use any obstacles that may be large enough to provide concealment or cover to an attacker, you should be good to go.
Again, it would also be beneficial to have a backhoe and a motorized tamper whilst excavating the trench and raising the Curtain Wall, as both of these will save labor and increase effectiveness immensely.
When building the Curtain Walls, we can include towers on three corners, and The Citadel itself will stand in place of the fourth. These towers would allow us to keep a watch on our surroundings, and to have an elevated firing position should we come under attack, while easily covering us from sight and enemy fire, and also the elements, on both hot summer days and cold winter nights. A few theories on these structures are discussed below.
The Earth Tower
This three-story structure focuses on Archer Slits for the protection of any occupants within and can still provide a good field of fire against an attacker outside. Using Archer Slits alone, we could easily lose the ability to shoot at a target at close distances, due to the narrowing firing lanes. However, if we use Slits on the top two stories, these lanes overlap one level to the next, to allow each person to cover areas that the person below them cannot. Each tower would also be situated to cover each of its neighboring towers from a close-range attacker.
The second floor would bring about a lot more work, when compared to any single story structure. However, as stated, it is necessary for the design to provide adequate coverage of the outer field. In the image below, the blue cones indicate the fields of view from the top floor, leaving the red to be the bottom floor. It is easy to see that in theory, the fields of view overlap around 15 feet away from the structure. Without such overlaps, in this design, the lanes would actually grow apart, and always leave
As was mentioned previously in The Citadel, the top story of these towers could also be enlarged slightly, allowing the inclusion of Machicolations in the towers defense.
It is also possible, instead of just building a roof on the top of the second floor, to create a third level on top, and equip this top level with crenelated battlements. This upper level would be used as a lookout post. Because of the layout of the lower two levels, it would be harder to obtain a full 360* view. With lookouts on top, it's possible to sacrifice a little protection for a better view. If these towers do get involved at combat, the lookouts can simply climb down, quickly, to the level below, for a better position.
The upper level would not be overly protective. It will not shelter one from the weather. It will, however, be relatively simple to build. After the main tower is completed, we would just need to put another Rammed Earth battlement atop of what we already have and a simple wooden guard shack, as seen to the left, can also be included on the top level to better provide shelter from the elements.The interior of each tower doesn't have to be exceedingly large either, as guards will not need to spend an entire day in it. The door is narrow so as to keep out the worst of the elements and the windows, facing outward, can be elevated to provide a better view. An elevated stool can be included for our lookout to sit on, and a small wood-burning stove serves to keep the occupants warm, or to heat up a drink or small meal. The doorways will be covered with either a thin door or a hanging tarp to block the wind and it would be possible to hang curtains of the material for hunting blinds in the Archer Slits, in order to thwart the elements further and to mask the movement of the guards from outside eyes.
If we should have them available, walkie-talkies or other radio systems should be employed to communicate between The Castle and the outlying Outposts. However, should such systems be unobtainable, or if the power sources for them are unreliable, manual methods may be put to use instead. These needn't be highly elaborate, but any signal flag or light that is visible by a lookout at the base may prove adequate for the task. A
Signal Lamp can also be included on all three corner towers, and on The Citadel as well, to allow communication between the occupants of The Castle and any outlying observation posts. These Signal Lamps also double as spotlights that can be used to pinpoint any attacker that breaches the compound under the cover of darkness. The maritime Signal Lamp as shown to the left, for example, could be just the sort of device to do the job. This light shown here, of course, is electrically operated, but oil burning lamps could accomplish the same goal. If bright enough, these can be used to send Morse Code signals to the horizon, even in bright sunlight conditions. Though it was originally believed that it was only possible to communicate via line-of-sight, in practice it is often possible to illuminate the cloud base, both during the night and day signalling, which allows a lamp such as this to provide communications even beyond the horizon. If any sort of Night Vision equipment should be available for our use, any night signals will usually be sent by lights operating in the infrared (IR) spectrum, thus making communications less likely to be detected by unintended observers.
The Barbican
These defensive structures are not well known to modern folks, but these became popular designs in European castles during the 13th century. The design calls for the entrance through the Curtain Wall to be covered, forcing the attackers into ever smaller areas, with no way out. At the same time, the Barbican might often include archers slits, murder-holes and places for boiling water to be poured in. The Barbican might, in a way, be thought of as a fortress in miniature, surrounding and protecting a castle's Main Gates, which otherwise might have become a weak point to be exploited by attackers.
As with The Citadel itself, many of the same defensive features can be used on the Curtain Wall, Towers and Barbican which may add to the ability of the occupants to repel attackers.The Curtain Walls that surround The Castle will include a Crenelated Battlement, as should the Corner Towers. Such towers could also be possessed of Machicolations and Archer's Slits as well. These features would also be included in The Barbican, along with a few others that will serve to further fortify the Gates.Upon approaching the Barbican, the first thing the attackers would encounter would be a pair of security checkpoints. These should be simple three sided squares of concrete blocks or Rammed Earth, with a boom barrier gate like those used at railway crossings or parking lots that guards the approach to the next obstacle, the drawbridge. These Security Checkpoints are not really intended to be defensible during combat, but will mainly serve to keep track of the comings and goings from the compound. This Boom Gate, however, will be rigged to a set of retractable Anti-Vehicle Barricades that spring into place behind the Main Gates to reinforce them. The Barricades deploy automatically in the event of any attempt by an attacker to crash his vehicle through the Boom Barrier, or could be deployed manually as well. Simple guard shacks, like those atop the Corner Towers, can be added to protect the guards from the elements.
These two Checkpoints stand on either side of another well recognized medieval defensive feature, the Drawbridge. This retractable overpass can consist of a wooden span with one edge hinged at the gatehouse threshold, so that in the raised position even the bridge itself will be flush against the gate, forming an additional barrier to entry. Attackers attempting to assault the bridge can be fired upon from machicolated battlements above or archers slits in flanking towers. The bridge itself will be raised or lowered using ropes or chains attached to a windlass in a chamber in the gatehouse above the gate-passage. Only a very light bridge could be raised in this way without any kind of assistance, so some manner of counterweight arrangement will be used. The bridge will either extend into the gate-passage beyond its pivot point, over a pit into which the internal portion can fall (providing a further obstacle to attack), or it may be equipped with overhead counterweighted beams that drop into slots in the wall, such as those shown to the right.
Immediately behind this Drawbridge will be a massive Iron-bound Wooden Gate, such as the one seen to the left, that would serve as The Castle's primary point of entrance and egress. Like the main doors to The Citadel itself, the gates can be equipped with additional security measures such as dead bolts between the two gates and at the top and bottom as well. A small window panel will be included just above head height with a steel shutter hinged to open from the inside, to permit outgoing fire. The opening will also have grills or screens made of chain-link fence. There should also be a horizontal bar across both doors, plus a scaled up version of angled floor-to-door security bars. In the event that an attacker took the gate guards by surprise and simply tried to drive a vehicle across the Drawbridge and crash through the Gates, there would be a retractable set of counter-weighted Anti-Vehicle Barricades in the floor behind the Gates that can swing upward to reinforce them. These could be steel posts or concrete pylons hung horizontally across the passageway on a pivot, flush with the ground, so that as its heavy end swings downwards the other end will swing up behind the Gates.As seen in the layout diagram to the right, the zone immediately inside of the twin Timber Gates will be in the form of an open ended corridor, which would include Archers Slits and Machicolations to let the defenders fire downwards on any attackers in the corridor.
This can be facilitated by a set of steel Portcullises such as the one shown to the left. Each portcullis could be mounted in grooves in the Barbican walls so that they can be raised and lowered quickly by means of chains or ropes attached to an internal winch.There would be two portcullises in the corridor. The inner one will be closed and then, in the event that the Wooden Gates should be breached and attackers enter the corridor, the one on the outside would be closed behind them, leaving any attacker trapped and vulnerable to those defenders behind the Archers Slits and Machicolations.
Additionally, burning wood and fire-heated sand could be dropped onto them as well. Boiling water could also be used for the purpose. Boiling oil, however, would not, and wouldn't have been used in medieval times either, contrary to popular belief and for the same reasons; any flammable oils would be far too valuable and rare to waste in this way, especially when other equally effective options are available.
A portcullis was usually one single solid grate of either wood or steel but, should time and resources permit, it may be possible to create a garage-door-like system, where the portcullis actually rolls up, instead of simply being lifted stiffly out of place.
Should The Castle come under siege, each portcullis should also be temporarily reinforced to withstand even greater attacks than normal. Each portcullis would include a bracket on the back, with matching brackets built into the walls on either side. If the attackers have some kind of battering ram, which they easily could, a heavy wooden beam would be laid in the brackets both as extra bracing against horizontal motion and as a means of preventing an attacker from simply lifting the portcullis up and out of the way.
For combat purposes, the Corner Towers and the Flanking Towers that make up each side of the Barbican should be equipped with defensive weaponry of some manner. Regular small arms as carried by the defenders of The Castle will be adequate against enemy personnel, either Zed or Raider varieties, but if an attacker should possess vehicles, small arms will be insufficient to stop them. As heavy machine guns or grenade launchers and the like will almost certainly not be available for our use, we must turn our attentions to weapons that we could fashion for ourselves, with resources that we might realistically possess. Shown to the right, the Ballista is such a weapon. To put it in simple terms, this was a gigantic winch cranked crossbow that fired either stones or arrows the size of broom handles that could pierce a man through, armor and all, and occasionally the man standing behind him as well. Equipped with an oversize equivalent of a broad-head, these arrows would have no problem with wreaking havoc on an engine, or a radiator at the very least. They could also be used to puncture the vehicle body to strike the occupants directly. One could even, if the proper materials are all available, make every javelin sized arrow even more lethal by attaching an improvised explosive such as a Pipe Bomb to the arrows in place of the usual steel point or broad-head to inflict greater anti-personnel damage. Presupposing again that proper material is available, an improvised Shaped Charge could be affixed to the arrow to perform an anti-vehicle role. In the unlikely event that an attacker brought siege towers to bear, the broad-head arrow could be fixed to a cable and used to harpoon the tower, whereupon a heavy weight affixed to the other end of the cable should be thrown from the other side of the walls, pulling the tower sideways and causing it to topple (BTW, this very same technique is used to great effect by Orlando Bloom in the movie "Kingdom of Heaven").
Of even greater potential, the Polybolos was an ancient Greek variant of the ballista reputedly invented by Dionysius of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. Philo of Byzantium encountered and later described this polybolos as a ballista that could fire again and again, without need to reload, with gears that powered its chain drive and dropped bolt after bolt into a firing slot from a hopper mounted above its bowstring. The weapon was different from an ordinary ballista in that it had a wooden magazine over the bowstring, capable of holding several dozen bolts at a time. The mechanism was driven by flat-link chains connected to a windlass. When firing, this windlass rotates counter-clockwise with the trigger claw raised; driving the mensa (upper receiver) forward towards the bow string, where that claw engages the string. Once the string is captured by the trigger mechanism, the windlass is then rotated clockwise, drawing the mensa backward, and the bow string with it. The round wooden pole in the bottom of the magazine is rotated toward the mensa as it is drawn to the back of the polybolos, dropping a single bolt into the tray, ready to be fired, and as the mensa is pulled farther back, it meets another lug that retracts the claw and automatically fires the polybolos, and the process is repeated.So it was a tripod mounted crossbow that fired, and kept firing, as long as the user continued to turn the crank? How very like modern machine gun, no? As seen in the picture above, Adam and Jamie of the Mythbusters attempted to build their own version of this ancient Greek Polybolos. Although their version was of smaller scale, firing ordinary arrows rather than javelins, and suffered less than stellar accuracy as it wasn't tripod mounted, you can see on Youtube in Part One and Part Two of the build that they were impressed by the overall results. I would make these weapons, of a javelin firing size, so that its chain drive was operated by hydraulic motor, rather than a windlass attached directly to the machine itself. In this way, one person can aim and fire the Polybolos by himself without the second person, who would otherwise be operating the windlass, being underfoot. This motor could be powered by an electric hydraulic pump, connected via hoses, so that as long as we've got power, each Arrow Machine Gun could be a one man weapon. As a backup against the event of power failure, a windlass should still be part of the design, but would instead be a separate component that connects to the hydraulic pump rather than onto the Polybolos itself, allowing the person cranking the windlass and the person operating the weapon to stay out of each others way.
THE BAILEY WALL As seen in the layout diagram pictured to the right, the area inside the curtain wall would be divided into two sections by the Rammed Earth Bailey Wall. In this case, the Bailey Wall would be about twelve high and can be possessed of Crenelated Battlements and Archers Slits as well, though as it would only be twice the height of a man, Machicolations may fall well within the reach of attackers standing on the ground, and would thus be omitted.
As is also shown in the diagram, the passage through the Bailey Wall should be protected by a smaller version of the Barbican, which, in this case, itself consists of a pair of Security Posts (with boom barrier gates), a Drawbridge and two Portcullis Gates. The drawbridge here can be much narrower, wide enough, in fact, to permit only foot traffic or small vehicles, such as ATV's or other comparably sized machines. This should prevent regular sized trucks and other vehicles from being used against The Citadel itself.
The passage through the Secondary Barbican between the Inner and Outer Bailey would be blocked by a Partial Wall made out of Timber Boxes filled with Rubble (each box would be about 4x4x4 ft, with the boxes stacked two high and the lowest box set down in a pit that is about 2 ft deep). As mentioned previously, the space between the boxes is too narrow to admit most vehicles, but if necessary, the Rubble could be shoveled out, the Timber Boxes removed and a wider temporary drawbridge put in place to admit larger vehicles.
Just as described in the Fortification page, this Bailey Wall would require us to dig a trench, then build a form in that trench, fill it with soil, then tamp that soil down until it has been compacted to the density of solid concrete. Your form is then removed and the area behind the wall back-filled. Grass is then seeded, behind the wall and in the trench as well (as seen here), to prevent erosion, strengthen the ground and absorb runoff, etc. The Curtain Wall will then be coated to preserve it against the elements. Again, such methods do involve a great deal of physical labor, but they may also be one of the overall cheapest building methods that are available.Again, the outer surfaces of the wall should also be faced in natural stone or some other material that is resistant to small arms fire. While the Rammed Earth should, in and of itself, withstand almost any bullet, sustained fire from fully automatic weapons would probably chew it apart. The addition of some resistant surface should serve to hold the walls together, much like the laminated glass used in windshields.
The trench serves, as in The Citadel, to deter any attempts to simply crash a vehicle in through the curtain walls. Any vehicle that drove over the edge of the trench would face a five foot drop to the ground below, losing both traction and speed in the process and probably sustaining damage as well. With a bit of luck, the vehicle may even be overturned or disabled entirely. This, by the way, is the reason why I omitted the sloped trenches that were used in Rocketman's design, and it can also be augmented with the inclusion of some Anti-Vehicle barriers at the outside of the trench, like concrete pylons or steel beams set in deep post holes. Even large boulders could be put to this purpose; as long as you don't use any obstacles that may be large enough to provide concealment or cover to an attacker, you should be good to go.
Again, it would also be beneficial to have a backhoe and a motorized tamper whilst excavating the trench and raising the Curtain Wall, as both of these will save labor and increase effectiveness immensely.
Once constructed, the Outer Bailey will serve as a primary Parking Lot for all the vehicles belonging to the group, with the Vehicle Maintenance Garages located there as well. There will be a heavy duty underground cable which runs from the water powered Dedicated Generator in our Basement Workshop (detailed in Section C: Digging In) into the Vehicle Maintenance Garage to power such tools as should be required during the routine repair and maintenance of our vehicles.The Fluid Transfer Pipes for Ground Source Heat Pump (as described in Section C: Digging In) will also be buried under the Outer Bailey, as this is the largest open area which is still contained inside our Curtain Walls. It would also be possible, of course, to bury the pipes outside of the Walls, but this may leave them vulnerable in the event of an attack.
The Gardening Sheds and Livestock Barns (as will certainly be required for the farming and animal rearing described in Section D: Living) will also be located in the Outer Bailey, as this would allow easy access to the gates for bringing the animals to and from pasture, and for bring agricultural supplies out of and produce into The Castle.
The area within the Inner Bailey will primarily be utilized for Supply Sheds and Bulk Material Storage (Firewood, extra Timber and raw materials, etc). Foodstuffs would not be stored in the Inner Bailey Sheds unless it proved absolutely necessary (ie - Interior storage capacity is insufficient and no other space is available) and, in the event of attack, all noncombatant personnel should immediately be put to work carrying as much of it as possible inside The Citadel to prevent loss should the Inner Bailey be overrun and the occupants thereafter find themselves besieged within. Once past the Inner Bailey, the approach into The Citadels Bridge-walk is guarded by two Security Posts (with boom barrier gates), a Drawbridge and two Portcullis Gates. The drawbridge here too is much narrower, wide enough only to permit foot traffic or small vehicles, such as ATV's or other comparably sized machines. This would again prevent regular sized trucks and other vehicles from being used against The Citadel itself.
The passage beneath the Bridge-walk could be blocked, as with the Secondary Barbican, by a Partial Wall made out of Timber Boxes filled with Rubble (each box will be about 4x4x4 ft, with the boxes stacked two high, and the lowest box set in a pit that is 2 ft deep). As was mentioned previously, the space in between these boxes will be too narrow to admit most vehicles, but if it should prove necessary, all the Rubble can be shoveled out, the Timber Boxes removed, and a wider temporary drawbridge put in place to admit larger vehicles. Roving Patrols
Melee weapons with reach are almost a must. A single zombie outside the wall seems to matter little, but how would our defenders ever be able to leave the safety of The Castle to do something as menial as harvesting the new grown tomatoes? Additionally, the numbers infected will gradually continue to grow. That 8 ft fence might hold out indefinitely against a handful of zombies, but what about a hundred? A thousand?
For as long as manpower permits, guards would be tasked with foot patrols all around the outer perimeter, just inside the stockade fences. The prevalence of infected in the area would determine whether these patrols will be carried out around the clock, or only during daylight hours, for if the infected are commonplace and outnumber our guards, then our outer perimeter fence must be left to fend for itself after dark. If this is the case, then a sweep and clean will have to be done by the armed patrols first thing in the morning before anyone else can enter the fields.
It can clearly be seen, therefore, that it is imperative to constantly eliminate and dispose of the zombies gathering, an undertaking that, with a spear-like weapon, is simple and requires no non-renewable resources. Simply stab over the top of the outer fence, or through the fencing itself, to eliminate a threat, then wait until daylight hours, when there are no living attackers, to collect and dispose of the corpses.
As long as we are constantly whittling down their numbers, their numbers cannot slowly grow, causing us to lose the game of Life-and-Death due to attrition caused by simple negligence.
OUTPOST LOCATION AND DESIGN
If resources and manpower to occupy them permit, a series of outposts may be built surrounding The Castle. A lot of thought must be put into the locations of these outposts, as well as their management and design. The basic idea of the outpost is to make the occupants of The Castle aware of the approach of hostile forces, whether these should be sprinting infected, shambling undead, or armed-for-bear raiders. If this hostile force is a small one, such as a handful of zeds, the outpost should be well enough equipped to deal with the threat independently. The landscape must be kept in mind as we place and build our outposts. If we have a large open field, or a suburban area, building an outpost here would help to keep an eye out on the open areas. The same goes for any location atop a rise or hill. My intention is to include one outpost overlooking any approach to The Castle by road, with others to be set up in other strategic places as determined by terrain.
Again, from a defensive standpoint, the outpost must be able to put up a decent fight. Depending on the threats in the area, and the available material to build from, these structures could be anything from a fortified abandoned house to a custom built, lighthouse like structure. More important than what kind of threat it can withstand, is KNOWING what kind of threat it can withstand. If the outpost guards were to take cover in an abandoned house, expecting it to protect them from two dozen zombies, only to realize once the Zeds were pouring in upon them that it should only have held against half a dozen, they would obviously be realizing this too late.
In our case, the outposts would simply be a freestanding version of the guard towers seen at the corners of the Curtain Walls. The three story structure focuses on Archer Slits for protection of the occupants within and will still provide a good field of fire against attackers outside. Using Slits on the top two stories, the lanes of fire will overlap one level to the next, to allow each level to cover the area that the level above or below them cannot see. Archers Slits in the rounded towers will thus provide serious protection for the occupants; with two stories giving them their required field of vision; with the overlapping viewpoints allowing for free lines of sight and lines of fire. As was mentioned previously in The Citadel, the top story of each tower should also be enlarged slightly, thereby allowing the inclusion of Machicolations in the occupants overall defenses of the tower itself. It is also possible, instead of just building a roof on the top of the second floor, to create a third level on top, and equip this top level with Crenelated Battlements. The upper level could be used as a lookout post. Because of the layout of the lower two levels, it would be harder to obtain a full 360* view. With lookouts on top, it's possible to sacrifice a little protection for a better view. If these towers do get involved at combat, the lookouts can simply climb down, quickly, to the level below, for a better position.
The upper level would not be overly protective. It would not shelter one from the weather. It will, however, be relatively simple to build. After the main tower is completed, we would just need to put another Rammed Earth battlement atop of what we already have and a simple guard shack can also be included to provide shelter from the elements.
Again, the interior of each tower doesn't have to be excessively large, as guards will not need to spend the entire day in it. The door will be on the second story, with a retractable staircase, and an elevated stool would be included for a lookout to sit on, with a small wood-burning stove that would serve to keep them warm, or to heat up a drink or small meal. Curtains of the same material used for hunting blinds will be hung over the Archer Slits, to thwart the elements and mask the movement of the guards from outside eyes.
Another factor that is of importance to the defenders is a good plan of retreat. The outpost was not meant to fight against a large horde of zombies or to hold off packs of raiders. If an overwhelming force appears, our defenders will need a clear plan to leave the outpost unnoticed, and quickly and quietly head back to The Castle. To this end, we will also have an escape tunnel concealed in the outpost that makes its exit well outside the tower, similar to the one used in The Bunker, likewise intended to allow defenders an alternate point of egress in case the main entry is blocked or overrun. The escape tunnel will be equipped with a steel hatch, shown to the right, which should be in some way concealed (perhaps amongst shrubbery or bushes) so as to prevent its discovery by outsiders, and this hatch will also have an armored protective pocket welded to the outside of the leaf which can protect the external lock from weapons effects and from folks with undesirable social skills. If we should have them available, walkie-talkie or radio systems would be used to communicate between the Outposts and The Castle. However, should any such systems be unobtainable, or if the power sources are unreliable, manual methods will be used instead. They needn't be highly elaborate, but any signal flag or light that is visible by a lookout at the base may prove adequate for the task. As with The Castle itself,
Signal Lamps can also be included on these outpost towers to allow communication between the tower and occupants of The Castle. A maritime style Signal Lamp as shown to the left, for example, could be just the sort of device to do the job. This light shown here, of course, is electrically operated, but an oil burning lamp could accomplish the same goal. If bright enough, they might be used to send a Morse Code signal to the horizon, even in conditions of bright sunlight. Though it was originally thought that it was only possible to communicate by line-of-sight, in practice it was often possible to illuminate the cloud base, when signalling during day or night hours alike, which allows a lamp like this to provide for communications even beyond the horizon. These have a secondary function of being used as spotlights that can be used to pinpoint any attacker that attempts to breach our compound under the cover of darkness. As was mentioned previously, should any type of Night Vision equipment be available for use by my group, any signalling at night will usually be sent with lights that operate in the Infrared (IR) Spectrum, thereby making communication less apt to be detected by unintended observers. .
| White76Knight's Survival Plan | ||
| Page One: Bugging In and Bugging Out | Page Two: Digging In for Awhile | Page Three: Living in the Aftermath |
| Page Two B: Fortifying The Citadel | Page Two C: The Curtain Wall |
White76Knight |
Latest page update: made by White76Knight
, Feb 15 2012, 1:33 AM EST
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