Barracks
Barracks are a type of
military housing. It is typically very plain and all of the buildings in the housing unit are often uniform structures. The term can also be used to describe the building(s) in which convicts are housed.
NCOs and enlisted personnel will frequently be housed in barracks for service or training. Lower level NCOs will be housed in larger numbers where as higher ranking NCOs or officers will be housed in fewer numbers. "Garrison town" is a common expression for any town that has a military barracks.
While in basic training and sometimes follow-on training, military members live in barracks. The
U.S. Marine Corps and
U.S. Air Force (except band members and officer trainees) have gender-separate basic training units. This differs from the
U.S. Army,
U.S. Coast Guard and
U.S. Navy, where male and female recruits train and share the barracks during the basic, but are separated during personal time and lights out. However, all the branches of service integrate male and female members following boot camp and first assignment.
The modern-day trend in the U.S. military is to house only the lowest-ranking bachelor enlisted in barracks unless required for reasons of military necessity. Unmarried NCOs and the highest ranking junior enlisted are generally expected to find off-base accommodations. Those that do reside in barracks are now generally housed in individual rooms conforming to modern
U.S. Department of Defense guidelines. The Marine Corps is often the exception to this practice.
Unlike the other services, barracks in the U.S. Air Force are officially referred to as "dormitories."
History of Barracks
There are a number of remains of
Roman army barracks in frontier forts such as Houseteads and
Vindolanda. From these and from contemporary Roman sources we can see that the basics of life in a military camp have remained constant for thousands of years.
Before
1780, these types of dwellings were not widely known in
Britain.
Barracks blockhouses were used to house troops in forts in Upper Canada.
In
WWII, many U. S. Barracks resembled
Native American long house (being semi-circular but made out of metal).
The origin of the word in English is from the Catalan language [
1].
Role in computer games
Buildings called 'Barracks' feature prominently in many war-based computer games. For example, in Sid Meier's
Civilization series, any units created at a city with a Barracks automatically gain 'veteran status', giving them a 50% attack and defense bonus.
'Barracks' are training structures in many
RTS (real-time strategy) games. Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 are two examples of this. Generally, in such games, 'barracks' produce the most basic infantry units until further "upgrades" in technology are researched.
