What is Barbed Wire?
Barbed wire is what these words mean - it is a wire with barbs that do not allow you to just contact it without feeling pain and without getting minor injuries. It was for this that barbed wire was invented at one time, and it is precisely these properties of it that allow it to be used to this day in various fields of human activity. In some cases, barbed wire continues to be successfully used to this day, without losing its position, and in some cases it has almost completely given way to its modern counterpart - Egoza razor wire.
Barbed Wire Construction
The design of barbed wire is very simple - one or two steel wires used as a base are wound with steel wire spikes at certain intervals. For the manufacture of barbed wire, steel wire with or without zinc coating is used, galvanized barbed wire lasts longer. Barbed wire spikes are made by winding short lengths of wire around the base; the sharpness of the spikes is made by cutting the wire at an acute angle. For the manufacture of barbed wire, special automatic machines are currently used.
History of Barbed Wire
A chain of historical events that took place in Europe and the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century led to the appearance of barbed wire. The development of animal husbandry and the establishment of mass production of metal products led to the fact that around the world they began to search for a cheap and effective means by which it would be possible to control the movement of livestock and keep them in pens. Prior to the invention of barbed wire, pens were predominantly made of wood, but wood was not an effective deterrent for livestock, and there was not enough of it everywhere. The development of animal husbandry in the United States served as a critical point - animals were raised there in an area where there was practically no wood in nature. This led to the fact that it was in the United States that the most practical options for the design of barbed wire were proposed. https://egoza.com/catalog/barbed-wire The barbed wire we see now is a descendant of the barbed wire invented by Joseph Glidden. He may not have been the most brilliant inventor, but a good engineer and entrepreneur. It was he who was granted a patent for barbed wire, and in a few years Glidden organized the mass production of his invention and made a fortune in the manufacture of barbed wire.
Use of Barbed Wire
Although barbed wire was invented as a means of keeping cattle in pens, its use was not limited to this. It was noted by someone that barbed wire was effective in deterring more than livestock, and as early as the beginning of the twentieth century barbed wire was used to fence off the first concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War. And with the outbreak of the First World War, barbed wire began to be used very widely - it covered kilometers of territories along the front line on both sides, turning the war into a trench war. The places of detention of prisoners did not stand aside - the usual barbed wire was also used for these purposes. In addition, barbed wire has become a symbol of the totalitarian system - it was used both in concentration camps in Germany and in their complete copies intended to contain dissidents in the Soviet Union and other totalitarian countries. All the borders of such countries were closed with the same barbed wire, forming a large concentration camp from each country, which could not be arbitrarily left.
Modern Replacement for Barbed Wire
Progress does not stand still, and modern Egoza razor wire came to replace Joseph Glidden's barbed wire, but it did not replace the old barbed wire everywhere. Thus, barbed wire of the old design is still successfully used in agriculture for the manufacture of hedges, corrals and other fences that do not allow domestic animals to leave farms, and wild ones to enter fields and farms. Ordinary barbed wire continues to be installed on fences to protect against intruders in places where the use of Egoza razor wire is prohibited or not necessary. And in situations where it is necessary to ensure high efficiency of perimeter protection, only modern Egoza razor wire is used, with the exception of the use of ordinary barbed wire as a tension wire when mounting a concertina wire or a razor wire spiral.