Welded wire mesh container HESCO barrier made in China

The HESCO bastion is a modern gabion primarily used for flood control and military fortifications. It is made of a collapsible wire mesh container and heavy duty fabric liner, and used as a temporary to semi-permanent levee or blast wall against explosions or small-arms. It has seen considerable use in Iraq andAfghanistan. It was developed in the late 1980s by a British company of the same name.

The HESCO barriers come in a variety of sizes. Most of the barriers can also be stacked, and they are shipped collapsed in compact sets. Example dimensions of typical configurations are 1.4m × 1.1m × 9.8m to 2.1m × 1.5m × 30m.

A new system of HESCO Bastion Concertainer developed specially for military use is deployed from a container, which is dragged along the line of ground where the barrier is to be formed, unfolding up to several hundred metres of barrier ready for filling within minutes.