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47-542: Isopu Tower was the last watchtower to be built in Malta, apart from the tour-reduits of the 18th century. It is one of four surviving towers on Gozo, with the others being Xlendi Tower , Dwejra Tower and Mġarr ix-Xini Tower . The earlier Garzes and Marsalforn towers were destroyed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Isopu Tower was built by the Order of Saint John in 1667 during the reign of Grandmaster Nicolas Cotoner at

94-456: A derivative role in international law and diplomacy, wherein a country's three-mile limit of "coastal waters" is recognized as under the nation or state's laws. One of the first recorded uses of coastal artillery was in 1381—during the war between Ferdinand I of Portugal and Henry II of Castile —when the troops of the King of Portugal used cannons to defend Lisbon against an attack from

141-611: A nation can be withdrawn if the main battle has been lost, or beforehand if defeat is considered inevitable. Typically a region is chosen with a geography favouring defence, such as a mountainous area or a peninsula, in order to function as a final hold-out to preserve national independence for the duration of the conflict. Coastal artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications . In modern times, coastal artillery has generally been replaced with anti-ship missiles , such as

188-516: A number of fortifications to bombard French positions and repel a possible counterattack. Most of the fortifications were batteries, but at least two redoubts, Windmill Redoubt and Żabbar Redoubt , were also built. In 1799, British forces also built San Rocco Redoubt and San Lucian Redoubt in Malta. No redoubts from the French blockade survive today. In the late 19th century, the British built

235-495: A number of redoubts in Malta , as part of an effort to improve the coastal fortifications of the islands. They were built in the middle of bays to prevent enemy forces from disembarking and outflanking the coastal batteries . The design of the redoubts was influenced by ones built in the French colonies. In all, eleven pentagonal redoubts and a few semi-circular or rectangular ones were built. Most redoubts have been demolished over

282-726: A redoubt near Fomm ir-Riħ as part of the Victoria Lines . The American Revolution defenses at West Point , New York included several redoubts, forts, and the Great Chain with links weighing more than 100 pounds each that Continental Army military engineers stretched across the Hudson River. The purpose behind the West Point defensive system was to prevent the British Army and Royal Navy from gaining control of

329-490: A state of disrepair. Parts of it had weathered while most of the interior had already collapsed. The tower was restored by Din l-Art Ħelwa and the Nadur Local Council between 2003 and 2006. The restoration work was carried out by hand by Leli Saliba and his son. The spiral staircase was completely rebuilt from scratch, as were the roof and most of the interior. Only one of the original arches had survived, and it

376-520: A string of reinforced concrete pillboxes and bunkers along the beaches, or sometimes slightly inland, to house machine guns , antitank guns , and artillery ranging in size up to the large 40.6 cm naval guns . The intent was to destroy Allied landing craft before they could unload. During the Normandy Landings in 1944, shore bombardment was given a high importance, using ships from battleships to destroyers and landing craft. For example,

423-402: Is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks , although some are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldiers outside the main defensive line and can be a permanent structure or a hastily constructed temporary fortification. The word means "a place of retreat". Redoubts were a component of

470-530: The Endicott Board recommended an extensive program of new U.S. harbor defenses , featuring new rifled artillery and minefield defenses; most of the board's recommendations were implemented. Construction on these was initially slow, as new weapons and systems were developed from scratch, but was greatly hastened following the Spanish–American War of 1898. Shortly thereafter, in 1907, Congress split

517-666: The Siege of Port Arthur , Japanese forces had captured the vantage point on 203 Meter Hill overlooking Port Arthur harbor. After relocating heavy 11-inch (280 mm) howitzers with 500 pound (~220 kg) armor-piercing shells to the summit of the Hill, the Japanese bombarded the Russian fleet in the harbor, systematically sinking the Russian ships within range. The Japanese were attacking

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564-405: The 19th century China also built hundreds of coastal fortresses in an attempt to counter Western naval threats. Coastal artillery fortifications generally followed the development of land fortifications; sometimes separate land defence forts were built to protect coastal forts. Through the middle 19th century, coastal forts could be bastion forts , star forts , polygonal forts , or sea forts ,

611-687: The Army (as in English-speaking countries ). In English-speaking countries, certain coastal artillery positions were sometimes referred to as 'Land Batteries', distinguishing this form of artillery battery from for example floating batteries . In the United Kingdom, in the later 19th and earlier 20th Centuries, the land batteries of the coastal artillery were the responsibility of the Royal Garrison Artillery . In

658-586: The Canadians at Juno beach had fire support many times greater than they had had for the Dieppe Raid in 1942. The old battleships HMS Ramillies and Warspite with the monitor HMS Roberts were used to suppress shore batteries east of the Orne ; cruisers targeted shore batteries at Ver-sur-Mer and Moulineaux ; while eleven destroyers provided local fire support. The (equally old) battleship Texas

705-554: The Castilian naval fleet. The use of coastal artillery expanded during the Age of Discoveries , in the 16th century; when a colonial power took over an overseas territory, one of their first tasks was to build a coastal fortress, both to deter rival naval powers and to subjugate the natives. The Martello tower is an excellent example of a widely used coastal fort that mounted defensive artillery, in this case, muzzle-loading cannon. During

752-573: The German battery. Allied efforts to take the port of Toulon in August 1944 ran into "Big Willie", a battery consisting of two prewar French turrets, equipped with the guns taken from the French battleship Provence , each mounting a pair of 340 mm naval guns . The range and power of these guns was such that the Allies dedicated a battleship or heavy cruiser to shelling the fort every day, with

799-453: The Hudson and splitting New England off from the mid-Atlantic and southern states. The chain blocked the river, the forts were positioned to fire on ships attempting to approach the chain, and outlying redoubts were well placed to defend land routes into West Point. Examples where redoubts played a crucial role in military history: A national redoubt is an area to which the remnant forces of

846-550: The Japanese had for the coastal artillery at Singapore. However, the lack of HE shells rendered Singapore vulnerable to a land based attack from Malaya via the Johore straits. In December 1941, during the Battle of Wake Island , US Marine defense battalions fired at the Japanese invasion fleet with six 5-inch (127 mm) guns , sinking the Japanese destroyer Hayate by scoring direct hits on her magazines, and scoring eleven hits on

893-575: The Order and the Gozo Università, and the personal arms of Cotoner and the Governor of Gozo. By 1785 the tower was not permanently manned, but in 1792 it was rearmed with four 6-pounder iron guns. It was the only small coastal watchtower which actually tried to resist the French invasion of 1798 when it fired its guns on the approaching French fleet. By the early 21st century, the tower was in

940-556: The Ukrainian R-360 Neptune . From the Middle Ages until World War II , coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of cannons were highly important to military affairs and generally represented the areas of highest technology and capital cost among materiel . The advent of 20th-century technologies, especially military aviation , naval aviation , jet aircraft , and guided missiles , reduced

987-596: The United States, coastal artillery was established in 1794 as a branch of the Army and a series of construction programs of coastal defenses began: the "First System" in 1794, the "Second System" in 1804, and the "Third System" or "Permanent System" in 1816. Masonry forts were determined to be obsolete following the American Civil War, and a postwar program of earthwork defenses was poorly funded. In 1885

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1034-418: The battleship Nevada eventually silencing the guns on August 23, 1944. After World War II the advent of jet aircraft and guided missiles reduced the role of coastal artillery in defending a country against air and sea attacks while also rendering fixed artillery emplacements vulnerable to enemy strikes. The Scandinavian countries, with their long coastlines and relatively weak navies, continued in

1081-512: The city and the Russian ships were trapped in the harbor due to mines, making this one of the few cases of coastal guns being employed in an offensive action. On December 5, 1904, the battleship Poltava was destroyed, followed by the battleship Retvizan on December 7, 1904, the battleships Pobeda and Peresvet and the cruisers Pallada and Bayan on December 9, 1904. The battleship Sevastopol , although hit 5 times by 11-inch (280 mm) shells, managed to move out of range of

1128-514: The cruiser Takasago to a mine outside the harbor. During the Battle of Drøbak Sound in April 1940, the German navy lost the new heavy cruiser Blücher , one of their most modern ships, to a combination of fire from various coastal artillery emplacements, including two obsolete German-made Krupp 280 mm (11 in) guns and equally obsolete Whitehead torpedoes . The Blücher had entered

1175-596: The development and installation of modern coastal artillery systems, usually hidden in well-camouflaged armored turrets (for example Swedish 12 cm automatic turret gun ). In these countries the coastal artillery was part of the naval forces and used naval targeting systems. Both mobile and stationary (e.g. 100 56 TK ) systems were used. In countries where coastal artillery has not been disbanded, these forces have acquired amphibious or anti-ship missile capabilities. In constricted waters, mobile coastal artillery armed with surface-to-surface missiles still can be used to deny

1222-557: The expense of the Università of Gozo. The latter paid for its garrison but artillery was supplied by the Order itself. The tower is square in shape, and the design is similar to the Xlendi and Dwejra towers. The walls are thick with inward slopes. The tower has a high barrel vault with the middle floor resting on rib arches. A spiral staircase provides access to the various floors. The main doorway had four escutcheons with coats of arms of

1269-647: The field artillery and coast artillery into separate branches, creating a separate Coast Artillery Corps (CAC) The CAC was disbanded as a separate branch in 1950. In the first decade of the 20th century, the United States Marine Corps established the Advanced Base Force . The force was used for setting up and defending advanced overseas bases, and its close ties to the Navy allowed it to man coast artillery around these bases. During

1316-529: The fires reached her magazines and doomed her. As a result, the remainder of the invasion fleet reversed, the Norwegian royal family, parliament and cabinet escaped, and the Norwegian gold reserves were safely removed from the city before it fell. Singapore was defended by its famous large-caliber coastal guns, which included one battery of three 15-inch (381 mm) guns and one with two 15-inch (381 mm) guns. Prime Minister Winston Churchill nicknamed

1363-500: The first three types often with detached gun batteries called "water batteries". Coastal defence weapons throughout history were heavy naval guns or weapons based on them, often supplemented by lighter weapons. In the late 19th century separate batteries of coastal artillery replaced forts in some countries; in some areas, these became widely separated geographically through the mid-20th century as weapon ranges increased. The amount of landward defence provided began to vary by country from

1410-621: The garrison as "The Gibraltar of the East" and the "Lion of the Sea". This perhaps compelled the Japanese to launch their invasion of Singapore from the north, via Malaya , in December 1941. It is a commonly repeated misconception that Singapore's large-calibre coastal guns were ineffective against the Japanese because they were designed to face south to defend the harbour against naval attack and could not be turned round to face north. In fact, most of

1457-462: The guns could be turned, and were indeed fired at the invaders. However, the guns were supplied mostly with armour-piercing (AP) shells and few high explosive (HE) shells. AP shells were designed to penetrate the hulls of heavily armoured warships and were mostly ineffective against infantry targets. Military analysts later estimated that if the guns had been well supplied with HE shells the Japanese attackers would have suffered heavy casualties, but

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1504-735: The guns. Stung by the fact that the Russian Pacific Fleet had been sunk by the army and not by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and with a direct order from Tokyo that the Sevastopol was not to be allowed to escape, Admiral Togo sent in wave after wave of destroyers in six separate attacks on the sole remaining Russian battleship. After 3 weeks, the Sevastopol was still afloat, having survived 124 torpedoes fired at her while sinking two Japanese destroyers and damaging six other vessels. The Japanese had meanwhile lost

1551-720: The hill was turned into a redoubt by the Royalists , (the remains of which can be seen today in Fort Royal Hill Park ). During the battle, the Parliamentarians captured the redoubt and turned its guns on Worcester. In so doing they made the defence of the city untenable. That action effectively ended the battle, the last of the English Civil War . From 1715 onwards, the Order of Saint John built

1598-550: The inability to use Manila as a port), the forts allowed interception of radio traffic later decisive at Midway. The Japanese defended the island of Betio in the Tarawa atoll with numerous 203 mm (8-inch) coastal guns. In 1943, these were knocked out early in the battle with a combined USN naval and aerial bombardment. Nazi Germany fortified its conquered territories with the Atlantic Wall . Organization Todt built

1645-409: The invasion would not have been prevented by this means alone. The guns of Singapore achieved their purpose in deterring a Japanese naval attack as the possibility of an expensive capital ship being sunk made it inadvisable for the Japanese to attack Singapore via the sea. The very fact that the Japanese chose to advance down from Thailand through Malaya to take Singapore was a testament for the respect

1692-535: The late 19th century; by 1900 new US forts almost totally neglected these defences. Booms were also usually part of a protected harbor's defences. In the middle 19th century underwater minefields and later controlled mines were often used, or stored in peacetime to be available in wartime. With the rise of the submarine threat at the beginning of the 20th century, anti-submarine nets were used extensively, usually added to boom defences, with major warships often being equipped with them (to allow rapid deployment once

1739-404: The light cruiser Yubari , forcing her to withdraw, and temporarily repulsing Japanese efforts to take the island. The Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays denied Manila harbor to the invading Japanese until Corregidor fell to amphibious assault on 6 May 1942, nearly a month after the fall of Bataan . Beyond tying up besieging Japanese forces (who suffered severe supply shortages due to

1786-467: The military strategies of most European empires during the colonial era, especially in the outer works of Vauban -style fortresses made popular during the 17th century, although the concept of redoubts has existed since medieval times . A redoubt differs from a redan in that the redan is open in the rear, whereas the redoubt was considered an enclosed work. During the English Civil War , redoubts were frequently built to protect older fortifications from

1833-476: The more effective artillery of the period. Often close to ancient fortifications, there were small hills that overlooked the defences, but in previous centuries, they had been too far from the fortifications to be a threat. A small hill close to Worcester was used as an artillery platform by the Parliamentarians when they successfully besieged Worcester in 1646 . In 1651 before the Battle of Worcester

1880-516: The narrow waters of the Oslofjord , carrying 1,000 soldiers and leading a German invasion fleet. The first salvo from the Norwegian defenders, fired from Oscarsborg Fortress about 950 meters distance, disabled the center propeller turbine and set her afire. Fire from the smaller guns (57 mm to 150 mm) swept her decks and disabled her steering, and she received two torpedo hits before

1927-456: The primacy of cannons, battleships, and coastal artillery. It was long held as a rule of thumb that one shore-based gun equaled three naval guns of the same caliber, due to the steadiness of the coastal gun which allowed for significantly higher accuracy than their sea-mounted counterparts. Land-based guns also benefited in most cases from the additional protection of walls or earth mounds. The range of gunpowder -based coastal artillery also has

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1974-591: The run-in to the beach. Similar arrangements existed at other beaches. On June 25, 1944, the American battleship Texas engaged German shore batteries on the Cotentin Peninsula around Cherbourg. Battery Hamburg straddled the ship with a salvo of 240 mm shells, eventually hitting Texas twice; one shell damaging the conning tower and navigation bridge, with the other penetrating below decks but failing to explode. Return fire from Texas knocked out

2021-549: The ship was anchored or moored) through early World War I. In World War I railway artillery emerged and soon became part of coastal artillery in some countries; with railway artillery in coast defence some type of revolving mount had to be provided to allow tracking of fast-moving targets. Coastal artillery could be part of the Navy (as in Scandinavian countries, war-time Germany , and the Soviet Union ), or part of

2068-585: The use of sea lanes. The Type 88 surface-to-ship missile is an example of modern mobile coastal artillery. Poland also retains a coastal missile division armed with the Naval Strike Missile . During the Croatian War of Independence in 1991, coastal artillery operated by Croatian forces played an important role in defending Croatian Adriatic coast from Yugoslav naval and air strikes, especially around Zadar, Šibenik and Split, defeating

2115-566: The years, but a few still survive, such as Briconet Redoubt , Saint George Redoubt and Ximenes Redoubt . Four tour-reduits were also built. These were redoubts built in the form of a tower, with rows of musketry loopholes. Three were around Marsaxlokk Bay, and one was located in Marsalforn , Gozo . The only one still in existence is Vendôme Tower in Marsaxlokk. During the siege of Malta of 1798–1800 , Maltese insurgents built

2162-410: Was used as a model on which to rebuild the roof. The restored tower was reopened on 20 August 2006. Nowadays, the tower is open for visitors on three Sundays in every month, but plans are underway to convert it into a visitor centre as part of a nature trail in the area. The area around the tower has been designated as a special conservation area. Redoubt A redoubt (historically redout )

2209-614: Was used to suppress the battery at Pointe du Hoc , but the guns there had been moved to an inland position, unbeknownst to the Allies. In addition, there were modified landing craft : eight "Landing Craft Gun", each with two 4.7-inch guns; four "Landing Craft Support" with automatic cannon; eight Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) , each with a single salvo of 1,100 5-inch rockets; eight Landing Craft Assault (Hedgerow), each with twenty-four bombs intended to detonate beach mines prematurely. Twenty-four Landing Craft Tank carried Priest self-propelled 105mm howitzers which also fired while they were on

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