The best obstacle is that which can be made to fulfil a given object with the least expenditure of time and labour. From this point of view barbed wire is far the best. One of its greatest advantages is that it gives no cover whatever to the enemy.
Fougasses have always for convenience been classed as obstacles. A fougasse is a charge of powder buried at the bottom of a sloping pit. Over the powder is a wooden shield, 3 or 4 in. thick, and over the shield a quantity of stones are piled. The illustration, fig. 96, gives a clear idea of the arrangement. A fougasse of this form, charged with 80 ℔ of powder, will throw 5 tons of stones over a surface 160 yds. long by 120 wide. They may be fired by powder hose, fuze or electricity. Their actual effect is very often a matter of chance, but the moral effect is usually considerable.
Dams are most effective obstacles, when circumstances allow of their use. They are constructed by military engineers as small temporary dams would be in civil works.
A most important question, especially in connexion with obstacles, is that of lighting up the foreground at night. Portable electric searchlights are most valuable, especially for detecting the enemy’s movements at some distance; but their use Illumination. will naturally always be restricted. Star shells and parachute lights fired from guns are not of much use for the immediate foreground, and do not burn very long. They were formerly chiefly of use in siege works, to light up an enemy’s working parties. Germany has introduced lightballs fired from pistols, which will probably have a considerable future.
Various civilian forms of flare-light would be very useful to illuminate obstacles, but cannot well be carried in the field. Bonfires are very useful when material is available. They require careful treatment, e.g. they must be so arranged that they can be lighted instantaneously (they may be lighted automatically, by means of a trip wire and a fuze); they must give a bright light at once (this can be ensured with shavings or straw sprinkled with petroleum); they must be firmly built so that the enemy cannot destroy them easily; and if possible there should be a screen arranged behind them so that they may not light up the defence as well as the attack.
Blockhouses are familiar to the public from the part they played Blockhouses. in the South African War of 1899-1902. In the old-fashioned permanent fortification they were used as keeps in such positions as re-entering places of arms and built of masonry. Stone blockhouses have long been used in the Balkans for frontier outposts; they are sometimes built cruciform, so as to get some flanking defence. In the form of bullet-proof log-cabins they have played a great part in warfare between pioneer settlers and savages.
| From Mil. Engineering, by permission of the Controller H.M. Stationery Office. |
| Fig. 96.—Fougasse. |
In the 19th century blockhouses were usually designed to give partial protection against field artillery; the walls being built of two thicknesses of logs with earth between them, the roof flat and covered with 2 or 3 ft. of earth, and earth being piled against the walls up to the loopholes. Nowadays they are employed only in positions where it is not likely that artillery will be brought against them: but they may be made tenable for a while even under artillery fire if they are surrounded by a trench and parapet.
Blockhouses are especially useful for small posts protecting such points as railway bridges, which the enemy may attempt to destroy by cavalry raids. The essential feature is a bullet-proof loopholed wall, arranged for all-round fire, with enough interior space for the garrison to sleep in. The roof may be simply weatherproof. Some arrangement for storing water must be provided. Circular blockhouses were very popular in South Africa. They were made of sheets of corrugated iron fastened 6 in. apart on a wooden framework, the space between the sheets being filled with small stones. The loopholes were made of sheet-iron frames inserted in the walls. Fig. 97 shows a section of one of these blockhouses.
| By permission of the Controller H.M. Stationery Office. |
| Fig. 97.—Blockhouse, South Africa, 1900-1902. |