Piece of concrete Belgian coast

[Barovic]

Hi all,

saw this piece of concrete some years ago at a WN on the Belgian coast.
Any ideas what it is/used for? Or maybe just postwar?

Thanks for replies,

Barovic

[pierrot]

Hello Barovic,

Those concrete ring blocks are very common on the south part of KVA3 (Oostduinkerke- Koksijde-De Panne) and are found in several Stp and WN.
Today, some of them can still be found in the WN Waldersee, Stp Panther and WN Wrangel.
The Belgian Engineers Corps that made an inventory in 1946 of all German fortifications left on the Belgian coast reported many times those strange constructions in this area and described them as:
Semi buried concrete rings position for individual rifleman.
So I don't think there are post-war.

Greetings

Pierrot

[Barovic]

Hi Pierrot,

Glad to have an answer. Thanks.
I thought they could be used as a fireing position, but had some doubts; their size is pretty small.
Strange things indeed.

Barovic

[der bunkermann]

here in holland thousands of these ''deckungslocher'' were built.
they consisted of three concrete rings, and offerd shelter for one man.
often you can find empty k98 shells in them.
nice to see the ''belgian'' variant!

edit:
it looks like there are wooden stakes in some of the holes?
as if they are connected with ''duvels''?

gr, tim

[JTG]

A type of pre-fabricated `foxhole', perhaps?

The british used something similar for airfield defense, IIRC.

John

[Barovic]

Hi Tim,

no stakes in the holes, only the far right one is filled (cement?);
guess the holes were used to 'lock' the rings on top of each other.

Barovic