Bastion Or Star Forts

I opened Bing today to find that the background is an English Star Fort!
It's Tilbury Fort on the Thames estuary:

Tilbury Fort.jpg

There's lots of information readily available on the interwebby thingy.

I for one will be visiting when I return to the UK. Anyone fancy a mini meet?

Colin :):):)
 
HurricaneSmith said:
...... or the Sound Mirrors on the south coast.

State of the art technology that was overtaken by progress before they were finalised. The inventor was ordered to destroy them but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
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Seen Martello towers and other fortresses like ones in middle of the Solent but,
Sound Mirrors!!!! What’s this all about???
 
Yes, the technology was based on incoming enemy aircraft like the slow flying airships of WW1, or biplanes. The sound of them coming would be picked up by a curved wall (sound mirror) reflecting the sound to a microphone that in turn took it down to a guy wearing headphones below. That would in turn give us time to prepare guns on the ground and send up defensive aircraft.

It worked, but............

Trouble was, the naughty enemy significantly raised the speed of their incoming aircraft, so that by the time the guy with the headphones heard them, they were already on top of him.
 
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Carrerasax said:
Where are there examples?
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Sorry, not ignoring you but I've been out all day. Many thanks to GeoffL for his elegant and clever reply.

You may wonder why the mirrors seem to be so different, and it was because Dr William Sansome Tucker's work was so experimental he was trying to find the most cost effective and successful solution.

People laugh at them now, but if you Google Tucker's name you'll see that he was quite a genius.
 
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