The
Hurka Artillery Fort consists of five mighty bastions, which are connected by an extended (total length 1.75 km) system of tunnels and caverns deep inside the hill. These are two sophisticated designed infantry blocks, one artillery casemate, one artillery block with projected retractable gun turret and the entrance block.
The plan of the Artillery Casemate K-Bg-S 11
The Artillery Casemate
K-Bg-S 11 (code name "Na svahu") represents the biggest combat installation ever built within the project of the Czechoslovakian territorial fortifications (length 48 m, width 15.3 mt total height of the block 12 m). In general the artillery fortifications were constructed as one-sided casemates for one gun battery, considered to protect the fortified defense line by indirect flank fire. Furthermore the forefield of the line and the concentration areas of the opponent belonged to potential targets. In this case the fortifications Bouda (Baudenkoppe) and Adam (Adamsberg/Adam's hill) in the west were considered to be the main targets of this artillery casemate. Its fire control should be supportedby forward artillery observers.
Because of the extreme dimensions concreting of these installations took place in two parts. The dilation gap separated the so-called artillery part (combat compartment for three guns with ammo dumps M 3 and the stairwell and elevator shaft) from the infantry part (protection wing with combat compartment for a light machine gun). In the basement there are the combat compartments with the weapons, access to the two armored cupolas and the upper stations of the two ammunition lifts. In the cellar there are three airtight cartridge chambers under the guns, a filter chamber, the operation center, the readiness room and social facilities. The artillery fortification always had an additional exit.
The subterranean facilities of the fortification are connected with the installation by a stairwell and elevator shaft (285 stairs). About 50 m below the surface there is the storage M 2, consisting of three rooms. The two biggest rooms were scheduled to contain the ammunition, the third room was supposed to be the main operation center with fire control, radio and telephone connections, and the room of the commandant. A tunnel connects the storage M 2 with the other installations of the fortification.
In 1938 the main armament of the installation was missing as it was still in production.. During the Sudeten Crisis the casemate was armed with three mountain guns model 15, 75 mm, as an alternative. The guns were positioned on wooden turntables under a provisional cover, which stood in the protection trench of the installation. The trench was filled up for this reason.
During the German occupation the installation became target of repeated shelling tests - the first tests already took place in autumn 1938. A number of weapons with different calibers up to 210 mm (at that time the heaviest gun of the German army) were brought into action. The artillery block K-S11 was the first object outside the Third Reich on which the prototypes of the subcaliber concrete shell Röchling were tested. It was one of the German secret weapons in development, but it was never used in this form during World War II.
Before the tests the German army uncovered the installation from the clash layer and the spread earth bank at the enemy side, so that its walls were totally free and exposed to the shelling. The first Röchling shelling took place in October 1939, and the tests continued in 1940. The tested shells consisted of four different calibers with correspondingly different length and weight. They were fired in flat trajectory fire at distances of 66.3 m and 100 m. The Röchling shells proved a penetration capability from 134 to 330 cm. Some penetrations of the 350 cm thick wall can be seen near the dilation gap of the block K-Bg-S11. The shells being in the walls have being preserved well until today. They are historical extremely valuable remains of the development of a kind of fundamentally new ammunition.
An additional serious damage of the installation followed in the 1950s when the two armored cupolas were tom out by a scrap dealer.
12,006 shells 10 cm; 90,000 rounds machine gun; 200 hand grenades; 320 signal rockets and flares
Armament: 3 casemate howitzers 10 cm, model 38,4 light machine guns, model 26,4 hand grenade ejection tubes
Armored elements: 2 infantry cupolas
Crew: 87 soldiers