I find the frontier blockhouse to be fascinating because it's basically a castle shrunk down to the size of an outbuilding.
Blockhouses were built either on their own or as an element of larger forts from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between.
In Washington State many were constructed both by the Government to provide local residents with refuge from Indian attacks as well as by settlers who built their own.
All of these blockhouses have design elements in common. They were all two story, with firing loops on both levels. The top story was always wider & longer than the bottom story, which allowed for machicolations.
If an enemy did make it to the structure itself, the defenders could then shoot down from the overhang. There was no place for an attacker to hide. It's a very simple structure, but it's a structure that's readily defended.
What do you think about building a modern version of this? I'm thinking heavy post & beam construction with the interior sheathed with steel plate and the outside sheathed in plywood and then coated in a thick layer of fireproof stucco. It should also have some kind of fireproof roof.
The idea would be to defend against not just bullets, but fire as well. Or even tornadoes, depending on how strongly you could build and anchor it.
All in a structure you could build in your back yard and use as a kids playhouse or man cave until disaster struck at which point you'd have a bulletproof fireproof tornado proof fort that would protect your family.
>build it out of cinderblocks + concrete with sandbags behind >keep the wood facade to absorb damage/ easily repair/ and make it look less aggressive >surrounded with trees >steel roof additionally, you should Ideally connect it with a network of several other ones via underground tunnels with fake doors etc
I thought they were call Magazines, not blockhouses.
Ethan Reed
I think I once calculated that it would cost about $19,000 in AR500 plate to make a small-conservatively sized block house 100% LV IV bulletproof. as in the block house would be assembled out of cut and welded AR500 on all 4 sides. Cozy log interior and exterior then laid on top and you'd be g2g.
ideal home would be pic related with firing ports and most walls steel lined.
Magazines are where you store munitions. Ex: a Battleships powder magazine.
James Taylor
A magazine is the heavily reinforced / armored place you'd store ammunition in a fort.
Damn that's a good looking blockhouse. I'd love to own something like that.
I realize that bullet proofing a building would cost an arm and a leg which is why the pic I posted is a settlers blockhouse, designed for just a family and maybe a few neighbors to shelter in on a temporary basis. I think you could build a very small blockhouse and fireproof / tornado proof / bullet proof it for not a ridiculous amount of money. The price is going to escalate dramatically the bigger it gets.
Evan Baker
It wouldn't be hard to winterize it. Remove them during times of strife.
Jaxon Cooper
regular logs will stop most bullets desu. and destabilize the ones that pass through. You'd need a anti-tank rifle to do reliable damage.
Jacob Kelly
I seriously doubt 8 inch logs will stop .556
Ayden Bennett
that's dumb as hell use masonry or concrete reinforced
Michael Moore
>just build a modern fortification out of reinforced concrete
if I wanted to live in a sea defense bunker I would have said so retard, this is a thread about blockhouses.
Sebastian Richardson
Yeah, I think ideally a modern apocalypse blockhouse should fit in. It shouldn't be super obvious what it is. Paint it to match your house. Make it look cute. Tell people it's your kids play house. If you build it like an atlantic wall bunker then people will know what you have.
Noah King
is this bait
Ryder Russell
you cant use concrete then, there's no way to hide pouring that much concrete.
Instead,you paint thick plates, make them look like plywood. Then you good to go.
I remember reading a journal on here from a guy who had to survive a city during a prolonged conflict. All the wood in the city, from trees to furniture, was gone because people needed it for fuel. All the obviously fortified places were promptly knocked over and pillaged.
If people can't make an entry with bullets or fire then they'll just do it with a barrel bomb or a shitty truck with a cinderblock on the throttle. They don't give a fuck.
The guy only had security because his family had a marketable skillset and their hideaway was in a semi-collapsed building with an entryway through the rubble.
Basing off of that; you'd be better-off building something you could quickly disguise as a pile of shit with some type of controlled demolition.
>believing that fake Bosnian civil war survivor story keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek
Ian Wood
You understand it's a type of steel right? Just because you can't get a lv IV rifle plate in it because it would be 1/2" thick doesn't mean it isn't sold in 4x8 foot sheets from just about any metal supplier of worth. >go be a newfag somewhere else
AR500 is a meme. Not what you'd want for a fortification. They take a few dollars of steel, overlap them, and sell the plates for hundreds. You can get big sheets of milled steel at your local metalworking shop or a scrapyard, which combined with a basic knowledge of ballistics and concrete can make you a solid structure. Also heads up, logs can stop musketballs and possibly cannon shells, but not armor piercing 7.62.
Source: I know the steel industry
Aaron Mitchell
Can boolet proof just about any house with chicken wire and sandbags, just depends on how high you want protection. Dunno about the upper floor, then yeah maybe some sort of plates.
Benjamin Cox
Put a basement in it too.
Benjamin Thomas
these houses are fucking retarded. you could just sneak up to the front and no one would see you. even if the homeowner is on the 2nd floor, he can't see you because of the overhang (not sure what it's called).
You don't live in it. It's a fighting position and emergency shelter.
Grayson Walker
>Those loopholes would make winter a bitch.
Because making insulated shutters would be super fucking hard. Oh wait, it's actually not at all.
Brayden Morris
the bigger thing is in southern states and during the summer these things would be hotter than a motherfucker without at least second floor shuttered windows (which could easily double as gun ports but still)
these things can get pretty big. during normal use imagine cots or bunkbeds all along the top floor. 10+ men easy. Or if you had one on your property, or multiple with a wall you'd have a frontier fort. 10ft oak palisade around a courtyard with a blockhouse big enough to bring in livestock and with some internal buildings and you've got a hardcore defensible position for some 7 years war frontier conflict. I'd know if I was going to build a cabin, it might as well just be a blockhouse.
You don't go to the middle of no where and build 2 houses when one of them can fulfill all of your needs. Either a normal cabin of this.
Aiden Baker
Ooooh. Stalker village flashback.
Adam Sanchez
You are probably right, I know 5.56 will go through a 4x4 wood block and 2 bails of hay, and still have enough energy to dent the wood on the barn.
John Hall
>Blockhouses were built either on their own or as an element of larger forts from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between.
Lmao, I'd bet good money that American teens used those as fuck-shacks like what happened to public bunkers in Eastern Europe.
Noah Morales
Now I want to build a house using this design, no windows below just a garage door for an entrance. Garage area and bathroom on first floor, only way to second floor is either ladder or attic stairs which I can lock once on the second floor. Another ladder (retractable) on second floor leading to a lookout/office on second floor that also gives me access to the roof.
>I find the frontier blockhouse to be fascinating because it's basically a castle shrunk down to the size of an outbuilding. >Blockhouses were built either on their own or as an element of larger forts from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between. >In Washington State many were constructed both by the Government to provide local residents with refuge from Indian attacks as well as by settlers who built their own. >All of these blockhouses have design elements in common. They were all two story, with firing loops on both levels. The top story was always wider & longer than the bottom story, which allowed for machicolations. >If an enemy did make it to the structure itself, the defenders could then shoot down from the overhang. There was no place for an attacker to hide. It's a very simple structure, but it's a structure that's readily defended. >What do you think about building a modern version of this? I'm thinking heavy post & beam construction with the interior sheathed with steel plate and the outside sheathed in plywood and then coated in a thick layer of fireproof stucco. It should also have some kind of fireproof roof. >The idea would be to defend against not just bullets, but fire as well. Or even tornadoes, depending on how strongly you could build and anchor it. >All in a structure you could build in your back yard and use as a kids playhouse or man cave until disaster struck at which point you'd have a bulletproof fireproof tornado proof fort that would protect your family.
An old rule of thumb. If you can hug a tree and get your arms around it, it's not stopping 7.62x39 or higher.
Jordan Hughes
British 2nd Boer War Blockhouses are peak frontier defense. Corrugated metal walls inside and out, voids filled with sand and rock. Even today it would probably stand up to most sub 50 BMG rifle rounds. Could be delivered to a site and built in 6 hours by 6 trained men.
Cooper Collins
I would think something closer to a bastle house would be more useful for a template for a modern live-in fortification.
The original bastle houses were built in the 15th-17th centuries on the English-Scottish border to protect from Reivers. Built of meter thick stone walls. First floor was stable space for animals. Vaulted stone ceiling. Second floor accessible only by a ladder and had all the family living quarters.
Alternatively, for blockhouses constructed using more modern methods, the Brits built a bunch out of concrete and stone in South Africa to protect transport lines during the 2nd Boer War
Eli Sanders
dude are you the same guy who posted this before? quit larping, no its not your friends serbian friend who knew someone like you said last time. the bosnian life in hell story is FAKE
Im kinda curious about this, I don’t doubt it was faked but what were the details about it being debunked? Any links or things to look up specifically?
Colton Campbell
> he can't see you because of the overhang (not sure what it's called) Look at this pleb who doesnt subscribe to Lindy
Robert Watson
I think those are the stone ones that were too time consuming and expensive to build. Pic related is the 6 hour tower of colonial power
>Look at this pleb who doesnt subscribe to Lindy imagine wasting your life watching some unemployed idiot, who lives with his mom, rant about shit he has no clue about other than what her read from some book a few nights before..
Tyler Perry
I could see making one of these that looked like a water/grain tower so people would notice it at first.
Eli Ward
>source: dude trust me
Mason Wright
To preface this I'm completely illiterate on construction stuff. if one were to build something similar to this using cinder-blocs what would be a good material to substitite for the horizontal beams supporting the second floor, I beams? Also, is it wise to have the room using the fireplace as support? Got a plot of land in Florida me and a few buds wanna build something on and this seems simple enough. Nabbed some Hesco barriers on teh cheap that can be filled with sand and some vines to make them less imposing.
James Thomas
Reading about these they were called "Rice Pattern" blockhouses.
Corrugated armor actually does make a lot of sense. You're drastically increasing the effective thickness for 50% of the armor. If a bullet hits on a peak or a valley then the effective thickness is only going to be the thickness of the metal. But if a bullet hits on a slope the effective thickness is going to be much greater.
I wonder if they filled the gap between the inner and outer layer of metal with dirt / gravel.
Tyler Sanchez
When was the last time you read a book nigger?
Chase James
I read a book a week at least. even post reviews on goodreads. stay mad buddy.
Jose Nelson
A chainsaw and Alaskan mill would be my first investments.
Camden Powell
>build a 25x40 concrete structure >put a small concrete tower on one end >armor plate it in the cheapest ar 500 you can find >install anti vehicle bollards to catch vehicles >deploy home made mines as a last resort against invaders
Yes, rocket launchers and explodes would knock your structure down eventually, but no structure is 100% safe from anything.
Juan Gray
I like the idea of building a very small version, a frontier style settler blockhouse. Not something you'd want to live in long term but that could provide emergency shelter and housing.
This would also make it wayyy more affordable. The settler blockhouse in this pic is 15'x15'.
Here's a pic back when the Ebey blockhouse was being repaired. You can see these settler blockhouses were pretty small and could be assembled with only a few people.
>I wonder if they filled the gap between the inner and outer layer of metal with dirt / gravel. That's what user claimed in the original post. It would make sense too, and make it much stronger.
Tell me more...how thick a piece of timber will stop 7.62
Daniel Myers
>Reivers unrelated but I'm descended from them :) my granda told me a story years ago (he has not internet and uses like a nokia brick for calling) about us being descended from people who raided along the Scottish border. Subset of the Armstrong clan.
Whenever I read the Reivers were real it made me real happy that that story has been passed generation to generation and is still right.
Ethan Ward
Martello towers seem to be the 1800s British equivalent.
There's masses of those in Vietnam. The french built loads of them. They almost always fell to viet minh sappers after a few hours. Loads of them fell because the troops had taken concubines from the local population who opened the door to the guerillas. They were a massive and expensive failure, according to Street Without Joy
Alexander Gomez
>the the russian America company put these sumbitches everywhere in southcentral and southeast alaska in a bid to assert sovereignty It's too bad that all of them were dismantled for building material after the natives were reduced to a ghost of their former selves.
