[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Castles for SHTF (Page 1 of 3)
Posted: 8/6/2010 6:01:18 PM EDT
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I came across this website earlier, basically, these guys are building an authentic medieval castle using medieval technology and methods in the middle of Arkansas, probably in an attempt to drive archaeologists nuts a couple thousand years from now.
So I'm sitting here, had a few beers and it's starting to seem like a cool idea from a survival perspective. Everyone wants to turn their house into a defensible SHTF fortress/bunker, so why the hell not? I always wanted to turn an abandoned missile base into an evil lair/mansion but it seems like it'd be considerably cheaper to do it above ground. You'd have all the benefits of the bunker/bomb shelter, and be able to see/shoot out of it. I was thinking you could probably build one relatively cheap on your own. medieval castles were made of stone walls, with rubble and mortar poured in between, with walls like 4 meters thick - what I had in mind was build an inner and an outer cinder block wall, reinforce all the cores with rebar & concrete, then you can just put rebar, pour concrete in the middle, make it as thick as you need it - wanna be able to stop anything up to cannon fire. You won't be able to stand up to artillery, or a guy with a sack full of dynamite, but if you build it in an open area with clear fields of fire you can keep anyone from getting close with a few good marksmen on the towers. Mutant zombie bikers aren't gonna have any heavy artillery, either. Probably. But that's why you still need observation posts/roving patrols. Make it a square, 'keep' design - build up, not out. Smaller perimeter, easier to keep watch. Build it with a tower on every corner, built so each tower can watch two sides of the fort in their entirety. Maybe make it in a pentagram shape - better, overlapping sectors of fire, but need more people on watch. Have a main gate big enough to get a vehicle through and an internal garage - you're at your most vulnerable entering or leaving. Have a motorized gate/draw bridge, better yet with a counterweight that can fail-safe and raise it in seconds. Internal well, food stores and fallout shelter downstairs. Solar panels on the roof. So, yeah. Thinking out loud. Gonna go drink more. |
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But what happens when the local motorcycle gang pilfers some mortars from the local national guard armory?   I don't think they'd be likely to hit shit, having never used one before, but that's why you need friends four stories up in the towers with M82s and more guys on ATVs to counter attack. Or hell, if you have the money to build your own damn castle, you can buy your own mortar/whatever and respond in kind.
ETA: I just thought of looting an armory yourself, fabricating turrets and mounting 105s on all the towers, and popped wood It's like a stationary LAND BATTLESHIP, and you know how arfcom feels about battleships |
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But what happens when the local motorcycle gang pilfers some mortars from the local national guard armory? I don't think they'd be likely to hit shit, having never used one before, but that's why you need friends four stories up in the towers with M82s and more guys on ATVs to counter attack. Or hell, if you have the money to build your own damn castle, you can buy your own mortar/whatever and respond in kind. I see. Counter-battery fire FTW! ETA:Wouldn't you have to register each and every round as a DD and pay $200 for each one? |
| You'd do a lot better by jumping ahead a couple centuries and using the trace italienne, or star fort system. It gave you interlocking fields of fire. Look it up. Low profile, hard to target, use a good glacis and you have a fort that is hard to attack (if well manned) even with today's ground tactics. |
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Not a castle. There are better designs for a bunker. This did occur to me, but castles were the homes of the nobility as well as fortresses -there's a certain, I dunno, respectability. It'd be cool to carve your own damn fuhrerbunker out of a hillside and make it look like the bluffs at omaha beach, but you'd look batshit fucking loco instead of merely eccentric, the neighbors will complain and your wife will probably refuse to live there with you. Then again, not married and don't want to be. Idea has potential!
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No self respecting Lord has a castle and no serfs. You need to be able to go outside the walls and bend the will of the neighbors to your own, levy troops and gather taxes. A castle is just a lonely island without a fiefdom. Everyone talks about friends and relatives being like "I'm gonna move in with you if the SHTF, hurr durr" Make them man the ramparts. Or the dungeon... |
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Moses Lake Missile Silo Complex
And it's for sale. Be sure to watch the video |
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But what happens when the local motorcycle gang pilfers some mortars from the local national guard armory? INCOMING! GET TO THE CHOPPAH! Modern explosives make castles less than ideal for defensive retreats. Most Tank rounds, HE, and Air burst will shred it with repeated hits. Of course, did they bother to situate it over a spring to fight against a siege? |
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I found this site a while ago and SHTF automatically came to mind....
http://www.castlemagic.com/color.html |
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I'm not looking to build a massive fortress here - a normal sized house that happens to be impervious to small arms fire. I'm not thinking of it in terms of a 'real' castle, I'm thinking of it as a cool house that incorporates some traditional castle features and that would be much, much more defensible than a normal stick-built dwelling.
I may have started out a little excited but I'm on my fifth beer so I'm starting to chill out a little. Anyone with a construction background see a problem with my idea for building the walls? That is, inner and outer wall of cinder blocks, cores filled with concrete and reinforced with rebar, and a couple feet between the walls - then fill that void with concrete. Instant form, just pour. Of course, I'm not a construction dude - would you do just as well filling with sand or debris? need to reinforce it more? Let's make it square, two stories (with a crenellated upper deck, so maybe 2 and 3/4ths as the outer shell is concerned), about 40 feet on a side, so what, 3200 square feet total, if anyone could estimate cost/whether or not it'd work. Whatever. |
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I'm not looking to build a massive fortress here - a normal sized house that happens to be impervious to small arms fire. I'm not thinking of it in terms of a 'real' castle, I'm thinking of it as a cool house that incorporates some traditional castle features and that would be much, much more defensible than a normal stick-built dwelling. I may have started out a little excited but I'm on my fifth beer so I'm starting to chill out a little. Anyone with a construction background see a problem with my idea for building the walls? That is, inner and outer wall of cinder blocks, cores filled with concrete and reinforced with rebar, and a couple feet between the walls - then fill that void with concrete. Instant form, just pour. Of course, I'm not a construction dude - would you do just as well filling with sand or debris? need to reinforce it more? Let's make it square, two stories (with a crenellated upper deck, so maybe 2 and 3/4ths as the outer shell is concerned), about 40 feet on a side, so what, 3200 square feet total, if anyone could estimate cost/whether or not it'd work. Whatever. You got the money, and enough concrete you can get it done. But it will have the same problems any static defense would have. Where abouts in GA? Better to build a bunker or two on a hill or mount. Avenue of escape, and you can see the enemy coming. |
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A whole castle? No.
But an outer rectangular wall with walkways on top of the walls, Round towers on the corners with circular stairwells, and authentic "arrow slits" yes. Build a McMansion in the middle of a hedge maze in the middle. Thats what my lottery winnings will go for. Large Class AA reinforced "storm cellar" underneath the house. With camouflaged exit tunnels. |
| There's a house here in Southlake that is "castle inspired".. However, it's around 16K SqFt on 5 acres. |
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I'm not looking to build a massive fortress here - a normal sized house that happens to be impervious to small arms fire. I'm not thinking of it in terms of a 'real' castle, I'm thinking of it as a cool house that incorporates some traditional castle features and that would be much, much more defensible than a normal stick-built dwelling. I may have started out a little excited but I'm on my fifth beer so I'm starting to chill out a little. Anyone with a construction background see a problem with my idea for building the walls? That is, inner and outer wall of cinder blocks, cores filled with concrete and reinforced with rebar, and a couple feet between the walls - then fill that void with concrete. Instant form, just pour. Of course, I'm not a construction dude - would you do just as well filling with sand or debris? need to reinforce it more? Let's make it square, two stories (with a crenellated upper deck, so maybe 2 and 3/4ths as the outer shell is concerned), about 40 feet on a side, so what, 3200 square feet total, if anyone could estimate cost/whether or not it'd work. Whatever. You got the money, and enough concrete you can get it done. But it will have the same problems any static defense would have. Where abouts in GA? Better to build a bunker or two on a hill or mount. Avenue of escape, and you can see the enemy coming. Stationed at Ft Gordon, don't own any land here. This is all purely theoretical in nature. I think any home I did build, though, would have a hidden undeground safe room, maybe even an escape tunnel terminating in the nearest patch of good concealment. |
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I'm not looking to build a massive fortress here - a normal sized house that happens to be impervious to small arms fire. I'm not thinking of it in terms of a 'real' castle, I'm thinking of it as a cool house that incorporates some traditional castle features and that would be much, much more defensible than a normal stick-built dwelling. I may have started out a little excited but I'm on my fifth beer so I'm starting to chill out a little. Anyone with a construction background see a problem with my idea for building the walls? That is, inner and outer wall of cinder blocks, cores filled with concrete and reinforced with rebar, and a couple feet between the walls - then fill that void with concrete. Instant form, just pour. Of course, I'm not a construction dude - would you do just as well filling with sand or debris? need to reinforce it more? Let's make it square, two stories (with a crenellated upper deck, so maybe 2 and 3/4ths as the outer shell is concerned), about 40 feet on a side, so what, 3200 square feet total, if anyone could estimate cost/whether or not it'd work. Whatever. You got the money, and enough concrete you can get it done. But it will have the same problems any static defense would have. Where abouts in GA? Better to build a bunker or two on a hill or mount. Avenue of escape, and you can see the enemy coming. Stationed at Ft Gordon, don't own any land here. This is all purely theoretical in nature. I think any home I did build, though, would have a hidden undeground safe room, maybe even an escape tunnel terminating in the nearest patch of good concealment. Good luck with that. I tried to do something similar, however I was struck down by the city and state (thanks to a certain .GOV facility being close to where we got our land). 
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And stealth ninja technology. Nothin' will ruin your plan quicker that parachuting, shuriken throwin', gun totin' party ninja monkeys... Castle walls- they can breach them in their sleep.
Castles went obsolete due to gunpowder and cannonballs. Think about it. Seems it would be a good plan for zombies tho.... |
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And stealth ninja technology. Nothin' will ruin your plan quicker that parachuting, shuriken throwin', gun totin' party ninja monkeys... Castle walls- they can breach them in their sleep.
Castles went obsolete due to gunpowder and cannonballs. Think about it. Seems it would be a good plan for zombies tho.... Yeah, but with modern technology, we can just rig the gate guards to dead-man switches that lock the doors and flood the inner bailey with molen lava if killed. |
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Quoted: You'd do a lot better by jumping ahead a couple centuries and using the trace italienne, or star fort system. It gave you interlocking fields of fire. Look it up. Low profile, hard to target, use a good glacis and you have a fort that is hard to attack (if well manned) even with today's ground tactics. Bingo! Build down, not up. Subterranean areas keep a lower profile. Maybe have a central structure in the middle that's slightly raised so that it has awesome fields of fire......but keep your building's profile low, it draws less attention that way. |
| I can dig it, but going underground is definitely harder and not necessarily possible - depends on the land. The 17-19th century forts definitely have the tactical edge, but dunno about their suitability as a dwelling. That and they were adaptations to improvements in artillery - that would probably be missing from a post-apocalyptic battlefield. |
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Quoted: I can dig it, but going underground is definitely harder and not necessarily possible - depends on the land. The 17-19th century forts definitely have the tactical edge, but dunno about their suitability as a dwelling. That and they were adaptations to improvements in artillery - that would probably be missing from a post-apocalyptic battlefield. The Castle Of Versailles had like 700 rooms but not one single bathroom. 
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But what happens when the local motorcycle gang pilfers some mortars from the local national guard armory? I don't think they'd be likely to hit shit, having never used one before, but that's why you need friends four stories up in the towers with M82s and more guys on ATVs to counter attack. Or hell, if you have the money to build your own damn castle, you can buy your own mortar/whatever and respond in kind.
ETA: I just thought of looting an armory yourself, fabricating turrets and mounting 105s on all the towers, and popped wood It's like a stationary LAND BATTLESHIP, and you know how arfcom feels about battleships 
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If you built a home between 1995 and 2006'ish in FL, it's damn near a fortress, minus the roof and windows. Cinder block walls with rebar and poured in cement. So a good 8 inches of solid concrete and steel between you and bad guys (or a hurricane). Add in a moat and a drawbridge, you'll be g2g. |
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You'd do a lot better by jumping ahead a couple centuries and using the trace italienne, or star fort system. It gave you interlocking fields of fire. Look it up. Low profile, hard to target, use a good glacis and you have a fort that is hard to attack (if well manned) even with today's ground tactics. Bingo! Build down, not up. Subterranean areas keep a lower profile. Maybe have a central structure in the middle that's slightly raised so that it has awesome fields of fire......but keep your building's profile low, it draws less attention that way. Heat conservation, build the inner structure and push dirt up around it. Use the natural camo of the hill and grass to conceal the installation. The dirt use to profile the inner structure could be used to construct the moat. Line moat with concrete at steep angles to form a trap, fill with water, let it get algaed over. Dirt over head will form a barrier for rounds coming from above, and the interlocking system of fire should protect the approaches. |
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I can dig it, but going underground is definitely harder and not necessarily possible - depends on the land. The 17-19th century forts definitely have the tactical edge, but dunno about their suitability as a dwelling. That and they were adaptations to improvements in artillery - that would probably be missing from a post-apocalyptic battlefield. The Castle Of Versailles had like 700 rooms but not one single bathroom. yeah, they used the stair wells  Must have been very aromatic on a nice warm French day.
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DO WANT |