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Blockhouse

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blockhouse

[′bläk‚hau̇s]
(engineering)
A reinforced concrete structure, often built underground or half-underground, and sometimes dome-shaped, to provide protection against blast, heat, or explosion during rocket launchings or related activities, and usually housing electronic equipment used in launching the rocket.
The activity that goes on in such a structure.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

blockhouse

blockhouse
1. A fortified structure used to furnish protection against enemy attack in frontier areas, usually at a location of strategic importance; often square or polygonal in plan; typically constructed of hewn timbers having dovetailed notches at the corners to provide strong rigid joints; commonly, an overhanging upper story; often masonry walls on the ground story with log construction above, or entirely of log construction; frequently, a pyramidal roof; usually a few small windows with heavy shutters; loophole openings through the walls permit the firing of guns over a wide range of angles.
2. A reinforced concrete structure that provides shelter against the hazards of heat, blast, or nuclear radiation.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Blockhouse

 

a defensive structure adapted for all-around machine gun, and sometimes artillery, fire. A blockhouse may be made of wood, stone, concrete, or steel, sometimes with armor, and has living quarters for a garrison. Blockhouses were widely used in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902 and in World Wars I and II, especially to cover railroad bridges, for defense of cities, in forested swamp areas, on mountain passes, and in systems of permanent fortification.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
In WWI West Blockhouse Battery was designated a Counter Bombardment Battery although it never saw action.
Blockhouse - Someday is out on itunes/Google Play/Amazon plus other digital outlets through the Converge label: 1st June 2017 (four different flavours)
The blockhouse rises inside and above the height of the palisade.
When an advance was checked by intense machine–gun fire from concrete blockhouses and by snipers, William, 25, of Motherwell, dashed forward with two men to rush the largest blockhouse.
An hour south of the EAC office in the village of Blockhouse, the most recent root-cellar grantee, South Shore Social Ventures Co-op, is converting an abandoned school into a model of sustainable building, energy, food and community.
The shooting was hot, but the temperature was much hotter and the only thing that saved me was regularly scheduled trips to the air-conditioned blockhouse and plenty of Gatorade.
The capture of a Spanish-held blockhouse was achieved by rifles, machine guns, balloons and artillery.
And a grey brown brick building, a blockhouse secured and unwindowed, stands on the southeast corner.
CEA's Raphael Gobin, in charge of the injector design, manufacture and experiments, announced that--after the successful generation of a first plasma in the ion source a few days before--the first beam was measured in the specific blockhouse built for this occasion.
"It's a fine line to walk, which makes it a difficult challenge," notes Mike Heintzelman, factory representative for Blockhouse Contract Furniture.
The Puniali levies, still on the hill above Nilt, built themselves a dominating and spacious blockhouse from which fire could be brought down on the sangars across the ravine.
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