29 Facts About Barbed wire

Barbed wire, known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands.

Barbed wire fencing requires only fence posts, wire, and fixing devices such as staples.

Barbed wire was the first wire technology capable of restraining cattle.

When Barbed wire fences became widely available in the United States in the late 19th century, it became more affordable to fence much larger areas than before, and intensive animal husbandry was made practical on a much larger scale.

An example of the costs of fencing with lumber immediately prior to the invention of barbed wire can be found with the first farmers in the Fresno, California, area, who spent nearly $4,000 to have wood for fencing delivered and erected to protect 2,500 acres of wheat crop from free-ranging livestock in 1872.

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Fencing consisting of flat and thin Barbed wire was first proposed in France, by Leonce Eugene Grassin-Baledans in 1860.

Barbed wire's design consisted of bristling points, creating a fence that was painful to cross.

Meanwhile, Haish, who had already secured several patents for barbed wire design, applied for a patent on his third type of wire, the S barb, and accused Glidden of interference, deferring Glidden's approval for his patented wire, nicknamed "The Winner, " until November 24,1874.

Demonstrations by Gates in San Antonio in 1876 showed that the Barbed wire could keep cattle contained, and sales then increased dramatically.

Barbed wire's wire was the "humane" version that did not harm cattle.

The original Barbed wire was sharp-teethed and contributed to western range wars.

Barbed wire was important in protecting range rights in the Western US Although some ranchers put notices in newspapers claiming land areas, and joined stockgrowers associations to help enforce their claims, livestock continued to cross range boundaries.

Fences of smooth Barbed wire did not hold stock well, and hedges were difficult to grow and maintain.

Barbed wire emerged as a major source of conflict with the so-called "Big Die Up" incident in the 1880s.

Barbed wire is cited by historians as the invention that tamed the West.

Barbed wire provided an inexpensive method to control the movement of cattle.

Barbed wire moved to St Louis and founded the Southern Wire Company, which became the largest manufacturer of unlicensed or "bootleg" barbed wire.

Galvanized Barbed wire is classified into three categories; Classes I, II, and III.

Barbed wire fences remain the standard fencing technology for enclosing cattle in most regions of the United States, but not all countries.

Soft Barbed wire is much easier to work but is less durable and only suitable for short spans such as repairs and gates, where it is less likely to tangle.

In high soil-fertility areas where dairy cattle are used in great numbers, 5- or 7-Barbed wire fences are common as the main boundary and internal dividing fences.

Barbed wire was used for the first time by Portuguese troops defending from African tribes during the Combat of Magul in 1895.

Barbed wire entanglements were placed in front of trenches to prevent direct charges on men below, increasingly leading to greater use of more advanced weapons such as high-powered machine guns and grenades.

Barbed wire could be exposed to heavy bombardments because it could be easily replaced, and its structure included so much open space that machine guns rarely destroyed enough of it to defeat its purpose.

However, barbed wire was defeated by the tank in 1916, as shown by the Allied breakthrough at Amiens through German lines on August 8,1918.

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In 1899 barbed wire was extensively used in the Boer War, where it played a strategic role bringing spaces under control, at military outposts as well as to hold the captured Boer population in concentration camps.

Infirmaries in extermination camps like Auschwitz where prisoners were gassed or experimented on were often separated from other areas by electrified Barbed wire and were often braided with branches to prevent outsiders from knowing what was concealed behind their walls.

Barbed wire began to be widely used as an implement of war during World War I Wire was placed either to impede or halt the passage of soldiers, or to channel them into narrow defiles in which small arms, particularly machine guns, and indirect fire could be used with greater effect as they attempted to pass.

Artillery bombardments on the Western Front became increasingly aimed at cutting the barbed wire that was a major component of trench warfare, particularly once new "wire-cutting" fuzes were introduced midway through the war.