Talk:Casemate

File:Dubrovnik-muralles.jpg

Isn't this a picture of a caponier? Alansplodge (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not an expert, but the only difference (at a glance) between caponier and casemate seems to be that casemates had offensive origins while caponiers had defensive origins. Brutal Deluxe (talk) 19:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the key point of a casemate is that it is a RECESSED emplacement, yes? Why is that not more prominent in the description?--Neepster (talk) 01:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Fort Monroe, VA

I think it would be a valuable addition to the article to mention the casemate walls of Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA, maybe even a photograph. Perhaps it is the only example in the US. Jefferson Davis was kept as a prisoner in one of the casemates. During WWI it was one side of the gun emplacements guarding the entrance to the Hampton Roads harbor. The casemate rooms now house a museum of the fort's history. Caeruleancentaur (talk) 18:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Armored vehicles?

Other than here in wikipedia, I've never heard the term used in relation to armored vehicles. Not once. I note that the section on AFVs in this article is entirely unsourced.

DMorpheus2 (talk) 19:08, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Dab page link

@DMorpheus2: I unlinked Samokhodnaya ustanovka because it's a disambiguation page, and linking to dab pages in the text of articles is considered to be an error. The problem with this one is that it really shouldn't be a dab page; dab pages are supposed to be navigation aids only. Samokhodnaya ustanovka really should be an article, discussing the whole topic of the development and history of the Soviet self-propelled guns. It would be a kindness and an improvement to the encyclopedia if you or someone else could make it into an article—even if only a stub. — Gorthian (talk) 18:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Gotcha, thanks for that. DMorpheus2 (talk) 19:02, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

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Ancient casemates

Archaeologists talk about casemates of structures from at least as far back as around 1000 C.E. which obviously have nothing to do with gun emplacements. It would be helpful if the article did not focus so strongly on recent structures and explained the usage in regard to ancient structures and gave some examples.Bill (talk) 03:42, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Billposer, hi. I know and have worked a bit on the article in this sense w/o noticing your post here. Please tell me, have you ever met the term "casemate" in this sense

1. relating to sites outside the Near East,
2. as "casemate" rather than "casemate wall", and
3. for anything else than Iron Age city walls, with examples stretching on till the Roman period (see Masada)?
   

Because I haven't, and I did look a bit for such extensions of the term & area of use. If you have, then the article must be amended, with sources. Thanks!

On the same topic: if "casemate wall" is indeed the only term used in antiquity, then it should have its own section, separate from "Land fortification" as it is now, as it relates to a different concept: not a closed fortification, but just a type, or layout of IA city walls, with rare examples from later periods, including Masada, which is not a city, but in the IA would have counted as such by size.

Encyclopædia Britannica has only one official hit on "casemate wall", at [Syro-Palestinian-art by Seton Lloyd:

"Walls are of the casemate type (parallel walls with a space between) with internal chambers[...]. In the 9th century BCE the invention of a more effective battering ram necessitated replacement of casemate walls by more solid structures."

So again, Israelites and Iron Age cities. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction (2003) widens it to fortresses:

"casemate wall -- A city or fortress enclosure consisting of an outer and an inner masonry wall braced by transverse masonry partitions, which divide the interstitial space into a series of chambers for fill or storage." (here)

Cheers, Arminden (talk) 14:20, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I see Alansplodge has dealt with much of it last year - thanks Alan! Arminden (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

What about a separate page for the topic? Arminden (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Excellent etymology section

Kudos to @Alansplodge and other contributors to the etymology section of this article. I love learning etymologies. I have to admit after reading the very first sentence suggesting 'casemate' might derive from the Italian 'casamatta' or Spanish 'casamata' (literally translating as 'kill house' and perhaps meaning 'abbatoir'), I thought 'of course that's the etymology, that makes perfect sense'. Then I read the suggestion of 'matta' meaning 'wicker house' (or small hut) - and 'matta' in the sense of false, and they are also plausible. The final suggestion of it deriving from 'chasmata' referring to gaps or apertures is also plausibly fascinating.

Sometimes the most interesting etymologies are those where there is no widely agreed single version and indeed there are several very different and plausible alternatives.

One thing I did pick up on while looking at the various translations of 'casamata' and 'casamatta' is that the Italian 'matta' also translates to 'crazy'. 'Casa matta' in the sense of 'a crazy house' seems like a further very plausible etymology for 'casemate' - a casemate under attack would be physically 'crazy' and no doubt affect mental health of the soldiers within in extremely negative ways (i.e. induce mental 'craziness'). This strikes me as a

I'm actually not very convinced by the etymology based on 'matta' meaning 'false'. I see that in Japanese (especially in Sumo Wrestling), 'matta' means a 'false start to a wrestling bout'. I don't see any suggestion of 'matta' or 'mata' meaning 'false' in Italian, Spanish, Greek or Latin. And it feels very unlikely that the etymology of a term found in western European languages would be influenced by a Japanese word/root.

I notice that the OED also suggests casemate deriving from 'casement' meaning 'hinged window' or just 'window'. Flusapochterasumesch (talk) 17:08, 6 June 2024 (UTC)