Military fortifications

Fig. 3 Total number of military fortifications in the northeastern area of Kuwait...

Fig. 5 A military fortification in Kabd area (south west of Kuwait City, 10 October 1992)...

From the military point of view, more than 60% of the Iraqi troops with their heavy equipment and intensive ground fortifications were deployed in the northeastern area. The southern fringes of this area, which constitute the northern outskirts of Kuwait Bay represent one of the most severely damaged areas by military activities. Damage resulted from the construction of thousands of military fortifications and the establishment of other defensive belts including sandy berms and long trenches. 

To assess the damage to the desert surface that resulted from the construction of military fortifications, the area was subdivided into the following sections (Fig. 6) ... 

Based on the aerial extent of damaged surfaces and volume of excavated soils in the five sections, five degrees of damage caused by the military fortifications have been identified (Table 10). 

The military fortifications have had different environmental impacts on the various ecosystems of Knwait. Factors controlling the magnitude of impact are numerous including ... 

Type and density of military fortification (number of each type of military forti-... 

The desert ridges and hills, wadis, and playas are severely impacted by military fortifications. 

The gravelly plains, active sandy sheets, rigid sandy sheets, desert sabkhas, and coastal ridges and sabkhas are moderately impacted by military fortifications. 

The sand dunes and coastal sand accumulation are slightly impacted by military fortifications. 

Table 2 Impact of military fortification on physical properties of the desert soil...

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was begun in 1804 and not completed until 1829 because of construction problems. Benjamin Wright, Joseph Totten, Simone Bernard, and Canvas White were called in to consult on the canal. This brings together the leading civilian canal engineers with the military fortification engineers. 

Large-scale crude oil exploitation began in the late nineteenth century. Internal combustion engines, which make use of the heat and kinetic energy of controlled explosions in a combustion chamber, were developed at approximately the same time. The pioneers in this field were Nikolaus Otto and Gottleib Daimler. These devices were rapidly adapted to military purposes. Small internal-combustion motors were used to drive dynamos to provide electric power to fortifications in Europe and the United States before the outbreak of World War I. Several armies experimented vith automobile transportation before 1914. The growing demand for fossil fuels in the early decades of the twentieth centuiy was exacerbated by the modernizing armies that slowly introduced mechanization into their orders of battle. The traditional companions of the soldier, the horse and mule, were slowly replaced by the armored car and the truck in the early twentieth century. 

Armament is the aggregate of a nation s military strength, which includes all the items used by the Army, Navy and Air Force (ships, aircraft weapons, ammunition, expls, tanks, transportation, etc), as well as the personnel to man them. It also includes all military installations (fortifications, barracks, ammo magazines, etc) and all industries working for war purposes... 

After a brief stay in Montpellier, Coulomb returned to Paris to study at the Ecole du G ie at Mezieres. This was one of the first schools of engineering it specifically focused on military engineering. Coulomb graduated in 1761 with a degree in engineering and the rank of lieutenant in the Corps du Genie. Over the next twenty years, he was posted to a variety of locations where he became involved in the structural design of forts and fortifications, and soil mechanics. 

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