Jon, my posting of that image was a bit of horsing around on my part--it's Fort Monroe, Virginia, the current headquarters of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. The old fort was designed by a French engineer officer, Simon Bernard, who had earlier been Napoleon's aide-de-camp. The Army will soon vacate the installation and the old fort will be taken over by the National Park Service.
The building of fortifications is indeed a combat engineer mission, but the decision on whether or not to build them and site selection are made by maneuver commanders. What these outposts do as a minimum is provide a relatively safe place for soldiers to sleep in when they're not out patrolling as well as provide a location for command and control and the storage of supplies and equipment. In the real world most of the construction is often done by the unit that will be occupying the position, so it would make sense if fundamentals like good fields of fire and observation were taken into account before positions are dug. That's why I think a few hours of instruction on the basic principles of field fortification would be a good idea in schools for junior officers.
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