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 entrance blockhouse K-Bg-S 10
The infantry block
K-Bg-S 10 (code name "U boží muky") represents a very robust and strongly equipped combat installation. It is a two- sided block with two protection wings, two armored cupolas and a machine gun turret. Along its longitudinal axis the block is vertically structured so that its frontal part is about 50 cm lower than the two combat compartments. Most of the scheduled weapons were already operationally ready in 1938, but the prototype of the machine gun turret was still in a production hall of the Witkowitz ironworks. After its completion the infantry block would have had the following armament: Two mixed weapons in the two combat compartments, two twin-machine guns (in the right combat compartment and in the turret), and a total of four light machine guns in two auxiliary embrasures and in two armored cupolas.
Besides combat compartments and entrances to the armored combat compartments (turret and the two armored cupolas) there are some ammunition dumps in the block, furthermore a food storage, operation center, telephone connections, readiness room, filter room and sanitary facilities. There is an emergency exit in the left “diamond trench" (protection trench). The elevator- and stairwell shaft (166 stairs, 31 m deep) provides the connection with the tunnels of the fortification.
During the German occupation this installation also served as target of shelling tests. Here also some tests of prototypes of the Rochling subcaliber concrete shells took place -one of the developed secret weapons which was never used in World War II. One of the historical peculiarities is the fact that at these tests the German artillery men additionally used a captured French railway gun caliber 240 mm. probably this was the heaviest artillery piece brought to action in the shelling tests on Czechoslovakian fortifications. The traces of the shelling concentrate on the right side of the block. The traces of demolition tests with shaped charges can still be seen on the front side.
The destruction of the installation continued here also after World War II. At the end of the 1950s a scrap dealer blew out the two armored cupolas.
Armament: 2 heavy machine guns, model 37, combined with anti-tank guns 4,7 cm, model 36,2 heavy twin machine guns, model 37,4 light machine guns model 26,2 hand grenade ejection tubes
Armored elements: 1 rotating machine gun turret, 2 infantry cupolas
Crew: 37 soldiers
Required ammunition: 7,232 anti-tank gun shells; 1,034,400 rounds machine gun; 375 hand grenades; 320 signal rockets and flares