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How do?

This came up in the Conspiracy Theorist thread (for discussing theorists, not for theorists. If that doesn’t sound arsey?) and it’s such an interesting topic felt the need for a new thread.

In a nutshell, I live in Kent, which during the Second World War was at high risk of German invasion. As such, it has various relics left over. Things like pillboxes along rivers (which now all smell of wee. Least, it’s a 100% hit record for those I’ve visited, and even, just up the road, a proper, proper secret bunker

https://www.blighty-at-war.net/tunbridge-wells-bunker.html

And it reminded me of the other, seemingly daft steps taken to interfere with any given invasion. Things like micro bunkers.

These were well hidden in woodland, and staffed by perhaps 10 men. Not regular Soldiers as such, but local men such as Gamekeepers who really knew the local land. They’d receive training in insurgency type stuff, and tasked with wreaking havoc on supply lines and leadership should the invasion come. Idea was they could do enough damage to slow any advance, allowing more formal forces to dig in and assemble etc. These still dot the land, and rediscovered every now and again. They’re often still in reasonable condition, considering they’ve been abandoned for what, 75 years? Not sure I’d go inside one, but the option is there!

But my favourite? It’s so, so simple in approach. Remove All The Roadsigns.

See, this was of course a good while before Motorways and A Roads were a proper thing. Certainly there’d be few if any dual carriageways. Round my neck of the woods, that means tiny twisty country lanes. Some basically single file, others not so much. In the modern day they’re great fun to drive, and I love exploring them as they often provide useful shortcuts.

But, if they were all you had to move your troops and supplies through? Bit of a nightmare. Even if you know your A-B, they’re sometimes narrow enough that even a humble Van should probably take a different route.

Remove any and all signage? Go on....find your way now, especially if Counter Insurgency have taken out bridges or blocked certain ones.

And as Overread pointed out in the CT thread, they also helped identify Spies. After all, you grew up in your village, worked in your village and probably died there too. So you’d know your way around, as would those you knew. So if a stranger is wandering around asking for directions? Reason to suspect right there and then.

So those are mine. But what are yours?

Well, the Netherlands is pretty small, but our defenses have always revolved around water, with the three big rivers Maas Waal and Rhine forming a natural barrier throughout basically recorded history.
The Roman Empire more or less stopped at them, the part north of the rivers being a protectorate rather than fullblown part of the empire.
During the 80-years' war against Spain again they played a crucial part in holding off the oppressor and IIRC after the war ended and the Netherlands had won its freedom those rivers again became the border, which is why to this day the North and West of the country is predominantly protestant, while the South is mostly Catholic.
Anyhoo, as recently as WW2 the rivers played an important part in the final few months of the war (Operation Market Garden).

I'm no military man, but I believe that even today our main plan of defense is blow the bridges, punch holes in the dykes and see how well enemy tanks can float (spoiler: not very well) and soldiers swim. Then defend the few inroads not flooded like absolute madmen - the Germans in the few days of fighting here at the start of WW2 didn't actually make much if any headway.
They came to call the Afsluitdijk "der Totendam" - the Dam of the Dead - because of how many casualties they suffered trying in vain to break through.

The lack of results (the Netherlands were supposed to have been conquered in a day given our tiny and underequipped military and airforce) after a week of fighting resulted in one of Hitler's infamous rages and the first purposeful blanket bombing of civilians in the war on Rotterdam, which caused us to surrender, as unlike the UK despite the heroic defense thus far there was no way we could actually win against the far superior German Wehrmacht without help.

IEDs. Lots of IEDs. During my time in EOD I learnt everything from basic bare wire loop switches, to laser tripwires, firing circuits made from disposable cameras, light/dark sensor activated devices, aswell as the chemical composition of all types of HME and home made chemical agents.
You can also make very effective non explosive booby traps.

As an aside, we also have those pillboxes along the thames in Oxfordshire.

I think your road sign removal idea, while not terrible, wouldnt really be worth the time and effort for an enemy that, if they don't have GPS, should at least have maps...

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
IEDs. Lots of IEDs. During my time in EOD I learnt everything from basic bare wire loop switches, to laser tripwires, firing circuits made from disposable cameras, light/dark sensor activated devices, aswell as the chemical composition of all types of HME and home made chemical agents.
You can also make very effective non explosive booby traps.

As an aside, we also have those pillboxes along the thames in Oxfordshire.

I think your road sign removal idea, while not terrible, wouldnt really be worth the time and effort for an enemy that, if they don't have GPS, should at least have maps...

I was meaning historical ones. My bad!

Ah gotcha! Well it stands I guess. The vietcong were booby trap masters, and booby traps and sabotage have been used since the dawn of warfare, and you're only limited by your imagination!

Some of my favourites are using lock firearm mechanisms on train tracks to detonate charges, which were used quite extensively during wars in the 18th and 19th centuries. If you have an interest in historical IEDs and booby traps, you should check out the 'standing well back' blog.

https://www.standingwellback.com/

Depending on invasion I think there's broadly two layers to it.

1) Early prevention of spies and smaller tactical insertions

2) Countering invasion itself.


Eg the signs and directions removal is clearly aimed at both, but has best effect against the first since its helping to confuse spies and other insurgents. A larger invasion force is more likely to know at least where they came from and where they are heading toward.

OF course when an invasion starts you can start to do other things such as putting up fake signs to confuse them as to where they are. Another is to damage your own infrastructure. Blowing up bridges; removing sections of railway track etc.... can all slow an invading force or even bring them to a halt. If you blow the bridge that might mean their armoured support and troop carriers have to take a much longer and more dangerous path; forcing them to slow down or split their forces and let infantry ford the river.

The Soviets also gave a great display of denying the enemy fortunes from conquest. Burn fields; destroy factories; remove food and supplies and people. Large invasion forces require supply and they often gain a significant portion from land they conquer. If you deny them resources from your land then the attacking force is reliant on their own supplies and supplychain; making any raiding of their supply chain even more damaging.


Bombs, as noted above, are also an ideal way to disrupt, harm, confuse and cause damage to the enemy directly and affect their moral. Traps and such are effective and can allow you to do damage without risking lives as directly.




Go back further in time and spiking the roadways might well prevent foot and horse travel across safe pathways. Meanwhile maps become more unreliable and communication over long distances harder and more reliant on runners

I used to live along a section of the GHQ "Green" stop line, was great fun exploring all the fortifications.

Ahh yes, the remark that sparked a fire. Sorry grotsnik for making you open another thread


Well, i am from switzerland, it'd be difficult to NOT find defensive structures, from the concrete Toblerone in my own quasi front garden, to the bunker under my house in case of air raids i have probably seen everytype of bunker and armory and magazin in my career as fodder for the army.

The hole removal off signs is actually somewhat effective if the enemy still has maps, if you have the terrain for it. And believe me, some passes and valleys are extremely difficult to discern with no prior knowledge, also getting lost means a lot of walking around again and in terrain like ours that can TAKE long.

I think the humble caltrop is a nice example of a simple defensive measure that's been used from ye olde Roman times to modern day.

It had a bit of an "offense is the best defense" vibe but do any of you remember the German Wiesel Tankette?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiesel_AWC

One might notice that it used an Audi engine. And I once or twice heard rumors (and really just hearsay, I never actually read about that) that those little pockettanks where designed in a way to be able to be produced on a standard production line of the German car manufacturers, only needing few adjustments to said lines. You know, those manufacturers that pump out some tens of millions of cars per year. While one Wiesel is obviously no match for a modern MBT, the idea of being able to produce enough tankettes to put theoretically every soldier in a speedy metal box with machine gun and TOW within months sounds quite awesome.

But again: it was only a rumour and I think if there was truth in it one would have heard more about it

Being Switzerland. Immediate win, noone even think about invading you !

 godardc wrote:
Being Switzerland. Immediate win, noone even think about invading you !

Meh, not as easy, also it's less the terrain (which i admit honestly atrocius) it's more the population that tends to get extremely rabic and aggitated when you tell them what to do, cough napoleon learned that one the hard way, (at the blunt end of a stick in case of some of his soldiers )

In terms of pewpewdakka?

Discovered The Deer Gun & Liberator Pistols via YouTube.

Kinda counter invasion, as they were intended to rapidly and cheaply arm partisans - originally in German occupied Europe (though that never panned out)

Concept was they were super simple firearms that pretty much anyone that could figure out ‘this end go bang’ could safely use.

Next to no use in an open battle, but theoretically solid for opportunity kills. From there, the wielder can loot better weapons from their victim.

Liberator as noted never really saw use. But the Deer Gun? Murkier. And also from a different era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89falWO-NU

Cheap, easily mass produced. Just dangerous enough for the job.

Arm a village or two, and you could inflict fairly decent casualties on enemy troops billeting (shoot them in their sleep, or as happened with various Resistance Groups, the young ladies appealed to certain instincts, then bumped off the invader)

Doesn’t matter they’re not robust, either. Just needed to be good enough for say, half a dozen shots.

Removing roadsigns is probably less useful in the modern age of GPS. Unless you also combine it with taking down the satellites, which would really eff with any modern military.

A bit of an outlier in that it's more down to nature than anything else... Russia. A country with the right weather, that they just had to wait for the winter for the Germans to lose the advantage they had gained.

I know people would say that the Germans had disadvantages in lack of cold weather kit, and poor tactical decisions, but I think even without those, they would never have conquered Russia. Its too massive, and with such a scale of manpower and resources.

Historically, Turkey had one of the weirdest defensive ploys. Honey.

"Indeed, in 67 B.C. Roman soldiers invaded the Black Sea region under General Pompey’s command, and those loyal to the reigning King Mithridates secretly lined the Romans’ path with enticing chunks of mad honeycomb. The unwitting army ate these with gusto, as the story goes. Driven into an intoxicated stupor by the hallucinogenic honey, many of the flailing soldiers became easy prey, and were slain."

https://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/strange-history-hallucinogenic-mad-honey/

I've come across the story before in another medium. Be warned, if you click the link, it is a foodie website from a dude who wants to eat this poisonous honey, so tons of description of the honey, and little of its possible historical defensive use.

Poison food and water is a time honoured method of dealing with the enemy. Apparently one of my relatives was the only person in a group of soldiers to survive after they broke into some food stores during WW1 and found what looked like safe food stocks seemingly abandoned. Turned out the food was contaminated which was why it had been left in the store and boarded up. The others died and he just survived.


So yep poison the food/water and you can deal a lot of damage very fast. Even if you don't kill anyone, sickness can debilitate an invading forces moral and ability to fight.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Historically, Turkey had one of the weirdest defensive ploys. Honey.

"Indeed, in 67 B.C. Roman soldiers invaded the Black Sea region under General Pompey’s command, and those loyal to the reigning King Mithridates secretly lined the Romans’ path with enticing chunks of mad honeycomb. The unwitting army ate these with gusto, as the story goes. Driven into an intoxicated stupor by the hallucinogenic honey, many of the flailing soldiers became easy prey, and were slain."

https://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/strange-history-hallucinogenic-mad-honey/

I've come across the story before in another medium. Be warned, if you click the link, it is a foodie website from a dude who wants to eat this poisonous honey, so tons of description of the honey, and little of its possible historical defensive use.

Eat it? I want to ferment it! Finally.....The Infernal Hydromel! (That’s one for Alestorm fans)


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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
A bit of an outlier in that it's more down to nature than anything else... Russia. A country with the right weather, that they just had to wait for the winter for the Germans to lose the advantage they had gained.

I know people would say that the Germans had disadvantages in lack of cold weather kit, and poor tactical decisions, but I think even without those, they would never have conquered Russia. Its too massive, and with such a scale of manpower and resources.

There’s an argument that what is now Scotland had much the same when it came to the Roman Empire.

No, the terrain isn’t as bad as a Russian Winter. But, when combined with the general lack of resources of interest? Probably played a part.

Yeah definitely, probably why they just walled it off and left them to it.

Granny Robinson’s family used to run a pub called the Cramond Inn, which is in the village of Cramond, now part of Edinburgh.

It’s pretty much the most northern they got. Ruins all over the shop, including under the car park.

One day I’ll win the Euromillions and free that pub from the grip of Samuel Smith’s Brewery. Oh yes! Would love to turn it into a proper, proper Gastropub type thing. Damn fine food, good beer, with a Snug type area.

Sorry. Went OT!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramond_Roman_Fort

The humble ditch and or trench. Or basically the entrenching tool/shovel.

There can be done alot with it .

One need only look at Motte & Bailey Castle design good see that.

Dig your trench, pile the detritus up into an elevated position. Simple and effective.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One need only look at Motte & Bailey Castle design good see that.

Dig your trench, pile the detritus up into an elevated position. Simple and effective.

meh, even better when you build Letzi's .
Those are even more annoying for an potential enemy.

On a smaller scale people have been building semi-fortified houses for ages to stop raider types, whether that be bastle houses in Northumbria, fortified towns in Anatolia or tata somba in Dahomey.

Fun fact - one of the UK Kings made it illegal to put crenellations on your buildings to stop his lords fortifying their settlements. It's apparently a law that has remained in effect to modern times (just one of the legion that hasn't be challenged and revoked due to changing times).

Didn't one general in the American civil war march his men 6 times past the enemy scouts to give the illusion his forces were much larger? Modern technology ruins all the fun like that.

The fake planes, inflatable tanks, straw planes, rock tanks etc etc used within WWII were ingenious as well. An invading force would muster based on intelligence to even destroy or avoid these 'forces' and quickly find they are not there.

Even better with the planes as they could fear they are in the air out on an attack mission.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Granny Robinson’s family used to run a pub called the Cramond Inn, which is in the village of Cramond, now part of Edinburgh.

It’s pretty much the most northern they got. Ruins all over the shop, including under the car park.

One day I’ll win the Euromillions and free that pub from the grip of Samuel Smith’s Brewery. Oh yes! Would love to turn it into a proper, proper Gastropub type thing. Damn fine food, good beer, with a Snug type area.

Sorry. Went OT!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramond_Roman_Fort

Whoa, easy on Sams.. thats a proper yorkshire brewery. my Grandad used to deliver for them back in the 60s.


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 Overread wrote:
Fun fact - one of the UK Kings made it illegal to put crenellations on your buildings to stop his lords fortifying their settlements. It's apparently a law that has remained in effect to modern times (just one of the legion that hasn't be challenged and revoked due to changing times).

Really? but there are tons of buildings with crenellations, often just decorative?

I’m sure they do fine beer, but seems they’ve no idea how to run the Inn!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m sure they do fine beer, but seems they’ve no idea how to run the Inn!

Ha fair enough.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Didn't one general in the American civil war march his men 6 times past the enemy scouts to give the illusion his forces were much larger? Modern technology ruins all the fun like that.

The fake planes, inflatable tanks, straw planes, rock tanks etc etc used within WWII were ingenious as well. An invading force would muster based on intelligence to even destroy or avoid these 'forces' and quickly find they are not there.

Even better with the planes as they could fear they are in the air out on an attack mission.

I know the Confederates used fake cannons quite a bit as they had so little artillery, it makes sense to confuse your enemies over where your real forces are I suppose.