"Typical Walled Town" Topic

As I look at a number of maps relating to the 18th Century central Europe I see numerous towns and villages that are marked or have drawings of a wall surrounding them.

Now that I am working on my terrain I wonder what these walls look like. It is not out of the question that these walls could be representative of Star or Bastion forts walls of the ere, but I have more than a smidgen or a doubt that is the case. Google searches brings me to places like Briançon France, which in reading about them makes them out as different.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone can point me towards either images or books of what a typical walled town looks like in Central Europe (Northern German in particular).

I don't know if it's typical, but one of the most well-known walled towns in Europe is Rothenburg: link

As Jeff posted and from what I recall from my two tours in Germany, many of the towns had walls going back to medieval times. Only the most significant or important had their defenses upgraded with Vauban style fortifications.

Jim

Thanks for the find "Jeff Ewing"!

Be aware that walls at that period were not defensive.

A few might have medieval walls still in good condition, but generally locals had used the stones to build other things. That they are on a map does not mean they were intact.

Paris had walls up to the revolution, but they were for tax purposes mostly. Walls marked the legal limit to the town in cases in Germany, where towns relied on ancient charters.

Of course any wall has some defensive value, but towns built star fortifications if they wanted real defense.

I would go with Rothenburg-style walls. I can think of a load more towns in Germany that still have some remnants of their medieval walls standing. Our twin town in Hesse has.
I agree that for defensive purposes they were already well past their best in the period you are asking about. Only slightly out of period, Memmingen still had pretty much intact walls when Napoleon turned up, but they surrendered as soon as a battery was set up on high ground outside the town.

Build a model with poorly maintained medieval walls. Build a vauban fort that your medieval model will sit inside of. As was mentioned, an important town would have a vauban fort and many towns would have medieval walls in various states of repair.

While medieval or other stone walls certainly wouldn't stand up to artillery bombardment, they probably still offered good defense against infantry and cavalry attack. See, e.g., the churchyard at Leuthen, which is an 8' stone wall.

The German for town walls is Stadtmauer (sing.). Maybe you try google search with a town in your mind combined with the German term. May lead to some images.
I take it, you mean rather small towns, often walled. Not the major cities.
See my take of such a minor place in one of my games. Its supposed to represent Volkmarsen in Lower Hesse, close to Warburg on the Diemel River SYW period.
Link:
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The walls and towers should be rather typical. Mine are missing the typical stone built sugarloaf shaped roofs to protect the stairways. My gate elements are a bit funny, though.

Walls of the smaller towns weren't all that high. Approx 5 meters, plus minus. Toweres not much higher. I believe the so called "chemin de ronde" along the walls more often poorly maintained, for lack of use (wood constructed). During the 18th C. still complete surrounding walls, though. As a general rule, these small walled towns had 2 gates only. Gates were closed during the night for police matter. Characteristic would have been the gates and the towers. Round or square.
What do you mean with "North German"? In Lower dead flat Germany, walls would be mostly of red brick. Everywhere else not.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Christian

I agree with Christian and would add here some pictures of city walls of northern Germany:

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Don't always look at the Disneyland towns of Rothenburg, Heidelberg and Neuschwanstein…….
If you need some examples from the middle of Germany, don't be shy, ask me.