Open verdedigingswerk, Waaldijk 29

English translation

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Description

Cluster 73.

NEW HOLLAND WATERLINE

Introduction

REMAINDER TANK BARRIER as part of access defence in the northern Waal dyke east of the Fort at Vuren. The erection of obstacles to impede or delay the advance of enemy troops has a long history. Important artificial obstacles have long included, among other things, ditches, waterlines, felled trees and disabled bridges. With the emergence of mechanical (such as the steam railway) and motorised (armoured vehicles and tanks) means of transport, even heavier materials have been employed, including steel and (reinforced) concrete barriers. One of the systems applied from the middle of the 1930s consisted of diagonally upright and pointed, steel (H-section) beams, which not only greatly impeded the passage of such vehicles but could also inflict severe damage on them. Such obstacles could be assembled from one (Type I) or two rows (Type II) of section beams. After removing the covers and installing the diagonally anchored steel H-section beams (so-called 'asperges') in slots in the concrete block, the progress of vehicles, including tanks and armoured vehicles, could be impeded. Tank obstacles were usually built up from interconnected systems of barriers, in which besides water (particularly anti-tank ditches) concrete and steel structures (the actual tank barriers) also slowed progress. Another well-known obstacle was the tetrahedron - a moveable triangular concrete block (also sometimes a steel structure), which could be applied in groups at control posts and bridges. At the eve of the Second World War, the Dutch army made use in the New Holland Waterline of, among other things, anti-tank ditches and concrete blocks with steel section beams. The number of tank barriers constructed in the New Holland Waterline is not known; around the year 2000 approximately 10 were still recognisable, of which 1 was complete. In the following years several (additional) were discovered, which in part can be added to this number. Within the complex of the Fort at Vuren a remainder of a Type II tank barrier has been preserved near the bend in the Waal dyke east of the fort. Additionally there are several reinforced concrete tetrahedra in the road verge. The barrier was somewhat restored around 2009.

Description

REMAINDER TANK BARRIER, approximately 150 metres east of the Fort at Vuren, which was installed in the road surface on the Waal dyke between the inundation zone of the polders in front and the northern outer bank of the Waal which was little or not at all accessible to heavy traffic. The barrier dates from shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. The barrier consists of a (sloping with the embankment) (reinforced) cast concrete block in which two rows of rectangular, cast-iron covers occur over the full width of the road. Because of dyke works and subsequent asphalting of the road surface, a section is now not visible. A number of somewhat scattered tetrahedra in the road verge east of the fort clearly indicate the presence of the barrier.

Valuation

The REMAINDER TANK BARRIER east of the Fort at Vuren is of general interest because of:

* Cultural-historical values as part of the New Holland Waterline as designed by C.R.T. Kraijenhoff and initially constructed from 1815 by him, Jan Blanken and major-engineer Willem Offerhaus and subsequently strengthened and improved by others over approximately 125 years.

* Architectural-historical values, in particular as an expression of military-strategic engineering, which was based on: a. the system of inundation and access defence (19th and 20th centuries), b. the race with increasingly powerful offensive weapons (19th and 20th centuries), c. the system of 'living' field fortification in depth (20th century).

This concerns a component from the period 1935-1940 which is an example of a remainder of a reinforced concrete, cast-iron and steel barrier specially constructed for defence against assault vehicles and / or tanks, which formed part of a linear obstacle further consisting of an inundation zone, in combination with several reinforced concrete tetrahedra.

* Ensemble value and situational values as part of the New Holland Waterline. Also because of the functional and physical coherence with the other components of the complex.

* The component has become rare and is reasonably representative because the barrier has remained recognisable in its physical context.

* The component is reasonably well preserved because both the concrete mass and part of the structure and of the application possibilities in situ, and some associated tetrahedra are still observable and recognisable in the immediate vicinity.