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How the Pentagon Got Its Shape
Pcol writes "The Washington Post is running a story on the design process for the Pentagon building and why it ended up with its unusual shape. In July 1941 with World War II looming, a small group of army officers met to consider a secret plan to provide a permanent home for War Department headquarters containing 4 million square feet of office space and housing 40,000 people. The building that Brig. Gen. Brehon Burke Somervell, head of the Army's Construction Division, wanted to build was too large to fit within the confines of Washington DC and would have to be located across the Potomac River in Arlington. "We want 500,000 square feet ready in six months, and the whole thing ready in a year," the general said adding that he wanted a design on his desk by Monday morning. The easiest solution, a tall building, was out because of pre-war restrictions on steel usage and the desire not to ruin Washington's skyline. The tract selected had a asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions so the building was designed to conform to the tract of land. Then with objections that the new building would block views from Arlington National Cemetery, the location was moved almost one-half mile south. The building would no longer be constructed on the five-sided Arlington Farm site yet the team continued with plans for a pentagon at the new location. In the rush to complete the project, there was simply no time to change the design."
Actually, that was from a headline from the first post-9/11 issue of the Onion.
More correctly, it was a headline they thought went a little too far, and was not actually used. If memory serves it was something like "America Stronger Than Ever, Say Quadragon Officials."
~Philly
Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember the Vietnam war, but I do. The US was never officially at war against North Vietnam, they spent ten years helping South Vietnam fight the Viet Cong insurgents. They dropped a few million tons of bombs in North Vietnam, for sure, just like they did on the Viet Cong supply routes in Laos and Cambodia, but they never attempted to invade North Vietnam.
If the US had wanted to win the Vietnam war they should have invaded North Vietnam. Land there in an amphibious attack and war would have been won in a matter of weeks. Likewise, if they want to win the Iraq war now, they should invade Syria and Iran. If the US Army had stopped at the German border after liberating France from Nazism they would have lost WWII.
Ever since Truman refused the MacArthur request to attack China during the Korea war, the US has had this doctrine of limited wars, fighting proxy armies as if the power behind them did not exist. A very expensive way to obtain limited results.
I thought everyone knew this, but I guess not...
A pentagon is a very traditional shape for fortifications. Reason is very simple. If you have a pentagon shaped fort then each side of the fort can provide supporting fire to its two adjacent sides.
A sides on a square fort cannot provide supporting fire at all. Sides on a hexagonal fort can but with a hexagonal fort you can only get 50% of the defenders firing against an attack on a side. With a pentagonal fort you can get 60%. This basic fact makes a pentagon the most effective shape for a fortification, assuming no terrain features to change the situation.
It would be an amazing coincidence if The Pentagon was pentagonal for any reason but this.
The Romans needed 200 years of constant warfare to pacify Hispania, in spite of using the genocidal means the parent describes. The Roman republic was characterized by an incredible degree of persistence in military matters. This was how they won their wars, not by superior military leadership/organization/technology.
usually swastikas are called "right-facing" or "left-facing", what a person means by clockwise or counterclockwise can vary. But if one is talking about the bend, then Buddhist is bent counter-clockwise, or to the left.
the Nazi swastika is "right-facing", with the arms of cross bent clockwise or to the right. The Hindu swastika is also usually right-facing, although you can sometimes see right and left facing mirror image swastikas in Hindu art. The Jain in India also use that right-facing bend usually.