Sheriffmuir Atlantic Wall

Sheriffmuir D-Day training ground, complete with Atlantic Wall, and a few german bunkers. I took about 100 photos, but they are all massive so here's just some of the more interesting ones, as they take too long to upload and i can't be bothered reducing their size.

Sadly access to the bunkers is really restricted, a lot of soil has ended up inside them, and they are all flooded



I managed to get my hand into the top of an entrance and get this picture, if you lighten it, you can actually see a murder hole at the end of the entrance.


One concrete structure that you can actually get into is the most noticeable from the main road. Although it's not really obvious what it was/is.


Here it is from a distance, and it becomes more obvious as to what it is.


Most of the stuff has shell holes through it, and there is a lot of metal bars and stuff protruding from the concrete. Something that is quite cool is that some holes go through like 2 feet of concrete, with all the metal being bent and and twisted. It seems like they just tested weapons on this place.

I have more pics, but i can't be bothered uploading, but if you ask I'm sure i could find the energy.

Hey, these are really interesting. Come on now, up-load some more -YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Thanks for posting your snaps

Hmm...if you insist. Might take a while..

No probs -got all week.....

More pics






All pics before the following were taken with the wrong setting on my camera, hence the darkness.






Anti-tank ditch...

Nice pics, Dieter.
The Atlantic Wall was built by 7th Durham Light Infantry in 1943 for D-Day training. A number of others were built inland, such as Hankley Common in Surrey and Castlemartin in Wales. All these survive, but Sheriffmuir is the most complete-http://website.lineone.net/~rural.life/atlanticwall/
The area was part of Whitestone ranges and was used for infantry training in WW1, and existing trench systems were lengthened and included in the new works. There are still WW1 practice trenches over the far end of the range at the A9 Perth road, and on the eastern (I think) flank of Black Hill (which lies at the rear of the wall) there are still Victorian rifle butts and shellholes from WW1.
The wall was built using a tramway which still runs immediately to the rear of the wall, and did you notice that the wall actually becomes thinner at the rear as you work along it? The anti-tank ditch is immediately in front of it, barbed wire was strung along top and various methods were used to try and blow a hole through it. A battery of 25 pounder field guns were sited at nearby Blackford to provide artillery fire, but there are actually concrete-lined gunpits on the side of the road opposite the wall. That part of the moor had dummy landing craft constructed, and if you wander over to the ruined farmhouse you can still see tracks left by armoured vehicles.
All structures on the range were life-sized copies of standard German fortifications. That shot-up bunker you showed was a blockhouse with two rooms. To the rear of it is a slit trench which leads to another structure, and from there winds up Black Hill, where you can still see two weapons pits. When I first visited in 1992, that bunker still had a live shell lodged above the doorway!
The one with the two Tobruk watches (sentry posts) in the roof has two rooms inside separated by a bunk room; the interior walls have recesses where the genuine article would have had gas filtration equipment. It lies at the end of a backfilled trench; the mound at the other end of it is a wooden bunker which has never been excavated.
The bunker with the courtyard backfilled with barbed wire is thought to be a copy of a First Aid station used by the Germans on the Western Front in WW1; there is another bunker nearby, but that's completely flooded.
There is an extensive trench system covering the site from north to south, and several bunkers/concrete-lined gunpits which can only be found with difficulty.
Whitestone ranges went out of use in the late 40s, and were home to a rifle club which included Dunblane massacre psycho Thomas Hamilton. The club voluntarily disbanded after the school shootings.
A further Atlantic Wall was built near Crieff by #246 Field Coy, RE, but being built of canvas and wood hasn't survived.

Wow.. thanks. I'm gonna have to make another trip to find all this other stuff you've mentioned. I'm so glad I took this week off. Thanks again.

Excellent pics DS -and some good history info TH -thanks

That's a fantastic site, Dieter...I don't think I've seen this one before...and interesting history, the_historian.
Excellent stuff.
Btw, a bit of info...Irfanview is the quickest and easiest way to crop and resize photos that I've found...and it's free to download too. You can use it to fine-tune crop exactly where you need it...no guestimating...and when resizing for DP I just use 550 size everytime so that it's quick and easy to upload/download. Link below. Apologies if you already know about it but hope it helps if not.

www.irfanview.com

EDIT: Forgot to mention that with Irfanview, it's also the easiest programme I've used to tilt your pics so that off-balance subjects look straight again.

Thanks, i'll look into that.

faststone.org for batch resizing and renaming and framing and watermarking etc.

And Picasa for simple one-click editing.

Right !! Stop it girls before it turns into a sketch from Fawlty Towers !!!!
This is an excellent thread(never knew anything about this before !!) Thanks for the posting Dieter Schmidt and the extensive gen Mr or Mrs Historian !!!!

fluffy5518 said:

Thanks for the posting Dieter Schmidt and the extensive gen Mr or Mrs Historian !!!!

Click to expand...

Mr!

Atlantik Wall goodness, thank you for sharing.

I've removed a load of posts, please be nice to each other.

I am genuinely sorry, obviously my humor and others differ, I will take it into consideration next time. Nice pics by the way.

Shadow

Urban Shadow said:

I am genuinely sorry, obviously my humor and others differ, I will take it into consideration next time. Nice pics by the way.

Shadow

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Ditto. Obviously the emoticons don't always help to get the message across.

Well in that case I better not say anything either!

Very interesting find, and nice pics

Nice find there DS, and very interesting history to go with it too, great work.

foz101 said:

faststone.org for batch resizing and renaming and framing and watermarking etc.

And Picasa for simple one-click editing.

Click to expand...

And I would have to agree with foz here, I use Faststone photo resizer and its great for batch resizing, along with watermarking.

Just so you all know, when I said "I don't think that's funny", that was a joke.

He said something about Germans not having a sense of humour...

I think it was Henning Wehn that said it.

Dieter_Schmidt said:

Just so you all know, when I said "I don't think that's funny", that was a joke.

He said something about Germans not having a sense of humour...

I think it was Henning Wehn that said it.

Click to expand...

Yeah, well, Herr Krela didn't see the funny side of it either.