Czech hedgehog

However, in some forms of warfare, Czech hedgehogs proved to be less effective.

Czech hedgehogs were especially effective in urban combat, where a single hedgehog could block an entire street.

For the area denial weapon, see Czech hedgehog.

Alternatively, three stakes might be roped together into a defence resembling the Czech hedgehog - a sort of giant caltrop.

The Czech hedgehog's name refers to its origin in what is now the Czech Republic.

- When defending, mines and Czech hedgehogs must be placed in strategic positions in the time window allocated before the enemy attack.

In a few places gaps were purposefully left with lowered gate poles in front of them and anti-vehicle Czech hedgehog barricades behind.

The Czech hedgehog was widely used during World War II by the Soviet Union in anti-tank defence.

Czech hedgehogs were part of the defences of the Atlantic Wall and are visible in many images of the Normandy invasion.

However, at Omaha the Germans had prepared the beaches with land mines, Czech hedgehogs and Belgian Gates in anticipation of the invasion.

The commonest types were Czech hedgehogs (Panzersperre) or cheval de frise (Stahligel or "steel hedgehogs").

In some locations, Czech hedgehog barricades, known in German as Panzersperre or Stahligel ("steel hedgehogs"), were used to prevent vehicles being used to cross the border.

Passive fortification-ditches and obstacles such as dragon's teeth, Czech hedgehogs and Toblerones-were used as anti-tank (the modern 'cavalry') measures during World War II.

Another caltrop-like World War II defence is the massive, steel, freestanding Czech hedgehogs that were designed as anti-tank obstacles and were also used to damage warships and landing craft.

Initially this was done using steel salvaged from the thousands of obstacles, such as Czech hedgehogs, that the Germans had placed on the French beaches during the construction of the Atlantic Wall.

The track chain, running practically along the whole track length provided for increased cross-country capabilities on swampy terrain, soft soils and area full of cut trees, Czech hedgehogs, antitank obstacles and the like.

One suggestion is that the "waist" facilitated them being tied together loosely in threes to form a kind of caltrop or Czech hedgehog that could be placed on the rampart (agger) of the vallum.

Czech hedgehogs thus became a symbol of "defence at all cost" in the Soviet Union; hence the memorial to Moscow defenders, built alongside M-10 in 1966, is composed of three giant Czech hedgehogs.