I was in many of them, one of the most impressive was "the 5-star hotel" with a hall so big that you could calibrate tank-cannons and in another "bunker/fortress" you could "throw" out f-18 fighter-jets.
To hijack your comment: all of these type of bunkers mentioned in the article are decommissioned as they don't match the modern military doctrine. The majority of these bunkers are artillery and anti-tank bunkers built during the cold war (some during WWII) to play a decisive role in large tank battles.
The article confuses this, as there were some plans in actually deconstructing them which however turned out to be too expensive. So virtually all of these bunkers were indeed decommissioned and most also declassified in the last 10 years (some turned into a museum e.g. a WWII bunker https://www.crestawald.ch/). Others, such as the Castello mentioned by /u/nix23 are used as temporary barracks for troops, but don't have an actual defensive function any more.
Before viewing the picture, I was thinking they had hidden a whole base in a fake Four Seasons building in Zurich or something like that. After all the other camouflage, I wouldn't have put it past them.
That reminds me of the two anti-tanks fortresses disguised as houses as part of the Toblerone line [1]. Those two were the only ones visible from the road by people (i.e. tourists), so they made them a bit less scary.
The Tim Traveller did a wonderful video on those a few months ago [2].
I travelled around Switzerland by car many years ago. I noticed there were military trucks driving around all the time, but I never saw a military base. I also noticed there were many iron entrance doors in the side of the mountains on the roads with no apparent purpose. Then one day, I saw one of these doors opened with 2 guards standing out front as a military truck drove into it. Finally, I figured out these must be tunnel entrances to the Swiss military bases.
Also an interesting fact: The Swiss packed all bridges connecting Switzerland to Germany with tons of explosives until just recently. The wooden bridge [0] connecting Bad Säckingen with Stein contained hundreds of kilo of TNT until 2015.
West Germany did much the same with all roads and train tracks crossing into East Germany and Czechoslovakia. There were pre-made holes in the roads to blast craters into them. Bridges and tunnels were prepared similarly. It was also rumored that the explosive charges were mounted in place all the time, but I don't believe that part anymore.
You have explosive nearly on every main bridge and "autobahn" sometimes in the street sometimes on the walls of mountains, to slow down tanks/troop transports.
Fun detail: Those can just be detonated with a "encoded" metal-plate.
I was wondering, how useful are ancient castles in modern battles? Armchair generals all over the planet kept prattling about them being useless because modern weaponry is awesome and all...
Then I went to look properly:
1. Kerak de Chevaliers, yes, that one crusader castle, was occupied during the Syrian war, and gave a hard time to the enemy outside, the castle worked exactly as intended, even with modern weapons.
2. Ditto to a bunch of other castles in some past wars.
3. A fortified monastery gave enemies a hard time in WW2 in Italy, I forgot its name now.
4. Not exactly "ancient castle", but a "star fort" in France was captured in the opening days of Battle of Verdun, in part because the french leadership believed castles to be outdated and didn't garrisoned it properly... the result was that the attempts to retake the fort resulted in 100.000 casualties on the French side before they succeeded.
5. Also in Verdun there was a smaller fort, the commander of that fort was old and the military ordered him to retire for medical reasons, he refused and basically "kept" the fort as his own, with a small garrison, the old guy and his small garrison fought fiercely against the invading Germans and caused 3000 casualties to the Germans before they lost.
>Considering what a rough time the US (and Russia) has had in Afghanistan, I suspect they'd still be fairly effective.
That was the whole plan in WW2, take the army back to the mountains leave the city's and flatland to the enemy, then start Guerilla warfare and protect the big Mountain Fortresses.
Even though you can nuke (allmost) anything, fortified bunkers are still (the most) effective fortification.
There is lots of massive stone protecting them after all, you have to blast through. Which can be done, but is still a massive effort.
Unless you really know (and guard) all the exits and control the surface, how could modern tech render them useless?
For primitive caves(targeting Taliban), I believe there was a weapon developed where shockwave (and gas?) would kill anyone inside, but if you have multiple blast doors and air filtration inside, you still have to cut or blast your way inside.
And fighting in an enemy underground network is not something any soldier would look forward to.
So I guess the modern way to take the swiss bunkers out, would be
a) really scout them out
b) target critical infrastructure (bunker breaking bombs)
If you want to defeat the Swiss, and keep in mind what kind of enemy would want to do that, just start carpet bombing where the actual people live.
That and they only have about 25 aircraft that could realistically do any good air defense work.
The idea that the US would struggle against Switzerland is predicated on them not doing that, because they would've had to found a reason to invade in the first place.
While such stories and the pictures posted here are rather interesting, as a Swiss, I also find it at the same time quite depressing. The Swiss army is a bottomless barrel when it comes to funding; always requiring & demanding money, while preparing for scenarios that were maybe somewhat plausible during the height of the cold war but are nowadays obviously antiquated, plain for anyone to see who doesn't wear the nostalgia-tinged glasses.
It provides cool pictures such as the ones posted here and some nice stories, but apart from that - the billions currently going to the army could be used so much better.
They weren't lost, this politician just talked some nonsense
"die Logistikbasis der Armee hätte ihn darüber informieren können, denn trotz ihren Informatik-Problemen hat sie den Bestand an M-113 und M-109 säuberlich registriert, wie mehrere Stellen im Verteidigungsdepartement betonen.
Might be a very stupid question, but when you saw "lost", do you mean they were destroyed somehow, or do you literally mean lost as in "couldn't find them"?
Oh these are cool. When I was a teen, I stayed in one during a trek in the Alps; and then again (in another one) a few years later when I was a youth camp counselor myself. I was cooking dinner in the kitchen of the one we were staying at, and the supervisor came in, and casually told us "see that trap door you're standing on? If this bunker would actually be used during war, that's where any dead bodies would be stored in." Made for great "scary stories" around the campfire.
I've heard those trap doors referred to as leichenluke
Many of my older neighbors said pre-1990, these bunkers were used in a drill and everyone realized how cramped things were; I believe they've been retrofit for far less occupants now.
These are very cool. Especially the ones that appear to be natural features.
Unfortunately, my first though upon seeing military installations camouflaged as cabins, barns, homes - that gives an invading enemy a good excuse to target civilian structures...
I had the same thought, I even assumed there would be some international wartime law against it. But turns out it's apparently ok according to this study I found from US Naval College
> Conventional IHL (international humanitarian law), then, indicates that at least one form of disguising a military object as a civilian object—camouflage—is a permissible ruse of war, not a prohibited act of perfidy.
Curious. Let's say the Swiss military has been studying other conflicts and strategizing accordingly, but has not actually experienced any warfare in 200 years. Does the lack of actual experience in warfare put a force at a disadvantage to the forces that had experienced actual warfare?
To use a sports analogy, while game-time experience is valuable, it’s practice that wins games. Much of America’s military advantage is rooted in extensive, ongoing, and realistic training and exercises. Any country can train and practice, but to do so at operational scales and in a way that accurately portrays your adversary’s capabilities requires lots of money and accurate intelligence.
Yes, that is why Chinese military for example has a lot of catching up to do to us, cause whatever your idea is about the efficiency of the military, they have been constantly involved in many conflicts after the Second World War
Huh, I’m reading Ministry for the Future (cli-fi) and just stopped last night as people were arriving at a camouflaged Swiss military bunker. Very cool to see images of real-life ones today.
It's made with ventilation thru hidden inlets (often hundreds of meters away), the outlets are over pressure protected, when a explosion outside goes off those then close, so the inhabitants have no eardrum rapture, in the case of nuclear/chemical/bio attack you attach big filters to the inlets. In some Bunkers the circulation is so bad, that after 2 week sleeping on your mattress mold starts to grow in it (bunkerhusten (bunkercough) is common after 1-3 weeks because of that mold), natural fortresses/bunkers drip water quite allot from the ceiling, but sleeping and living "rooms" are normally plastered or with concrete walls.
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
Edit: BTW that the entrance of the 5-Star:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Me...
The plate is for making fun of new recruits because it's the opposite of a "5-Star" and for sure not a "Hotel"
[+] [-] folli|5 years ago|reply
The article confuses this, as there were some plans in actually deconstructing them which however turned out to be too expensive. So virtually all of these bunkers were indeed decommissioned and most also declassified in the last 10 years (some turned into a museum e.g. a WWII bunker https://www.crestawald.ch/). Others, such as the Castello mentioned by /u/nix23 are used as temporary barracks for troops, but don't have an actual defensive function any more.
[+] [-] xg15|5 years ago|reply
Before viewing the picture, I was thinking they had hidden a whole base in a fake Four Seasons building in Zurich or something like that. After all the other camouflage, I wouldn't have put it past them.
[+] [-] gourlaysama|5 years ago|reply
The Tim Traveller did a wonderful video on those a few months ago [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toblerone_line
[2][video]: https://youtu.be/tPL9-L2gwzo
[+] [-] joshuaheard|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Gotthard...
From here you can see three really small parts of a Bunker/Fortress (a supermassive one, probably the biggest in switzerland) ~quite clear.
[+] [-] lukeqsee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lqet|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holzbr%C3%BCcke_Bad_S%C3%A4cki...
[+] [-] gmueckl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
Fun detail: Those can just be detonated with a "encoded" metal-plate.
They look a bit like that:
https://img.luzernerzeitung.ch/2018/4/14/5f68fda6-34ec-4375-...
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|5 years ago|reply
Considering what a rough time the US (and Russia) has had in Afghanistan, I suspect they'd still be fairly effective.
[+] [-] speeder|5 years ago|reply
I was wondering, how useful are ancient castles in modern battles? Armchair generals all over the planet kept prattling about them being useless because modern weaponry is awesome and all...
Then I went to look properly:
1. Kerak de Chevaliers, yes, that one crusader castle, was occupied during the Syrian war, and gave a hard time to the enemy outside, the castle worked exactly as intended, even with modern weapons.
2. Ditto to a bunch of other castles in some past wars.
3. A fortified monastery gave enemies a hard time in WW2 in Italy, I forgot its name now.
4. Not exactly "ancient castle", but a "star fort" in France was captured in the opening days of Battle of Verdun, in part because the french leadership believed castles to be outdated and didn't garrisoned it properly... the result was that the attempts to retake the fort resulted in 100.000 casualties on the French side before they succeeded.
5. Also in Verdun there was a smaller fort, the commander of that fort was old and the military ordered him to retire for medical reasons, he refused and basically "kept" the fort as his own, with a small garrison, the old guy and his small garrison fought fiercely against the invading Germans and caused 3000 casualties to the Germans before they lost.
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
That was the whole plan in WW2, take the army back to the mountains leave the city's and flatland to the enemy, then start Guerilla warfare and protect the big Mountain Fortresses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Redoubt_(Switzerland)
[+] [-] hutzlibu|5 years ago|reply
There is lots of massive stone protecting them after all, you have to blast through. Which can be done, but is still a massive effort.
Unless you really know (and guard) all the exits and control the surface, how could modern tech render them useless?
For primitive caves(targeting Taliban), I believe there was a weapon developed where shockwave (and gas?) would kill anyone inside, but if you have multiple blast doors and air filtration inside, you still have to cut or blast your way inside.
And fighting in an enemy underground network is not something any soldier would look forward to.
So I guess the modern way to take the swiss bunkers out, would be
a) really scout them out
b) target critical infrastructure (bunker breaking bombs)
c) destroy all the exits
or
d) infiltration with commando troops
or
e) blow up the whole mountain
[+] [-] mhh__|5 years ago|reply
That and they only have about 25 aircraft that could realistically do any good air defense work.
The idea that the US would struggle against Switzerland is predicated on them not doing that, because they would've had to found a reason to invade in the first place.
[+] [-] jack_riminton|5 years ago|reply
Would make a great backdrop to a Wes Anderson film
[+] [-] TobTobXX|5 years ago|reply
https://www.nzz.ch/maurers_schimmelnde_panzer-1.8120259
[+] [-] Shacklz|5 years ago|reply
It provides cool pictures such as the ones posted here and some nice stories, but apart from that - the billions currently going to the army could be used so much better.
[+] [-] red0point|5 years ago|reply
"die Logistikbasis der Armee hätte ihn darüber informieren können, denn trotz ihren Informatik-Problemen hat sie den Bestand an M-113 und M-109 säuberlich registriert, wie mehrere Stellen im Verteidigungsdepartement betonen.
[+] [-] GordonS|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netsharc|5 years ago|reply
And that 2 weapons bunkers have exploded, 1 annihilating a village. Well, half of it exploded, and the other half is a ticking time bomb: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/mitholz--life-in-the-shadow-of-...
[+] [-] skitter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roel_v|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JayPeaEm|5 years ago|reply
Many of my older neighbors said pre-1990, these bunkers were used in a drill and everyone realized how cramped things were; I believe they've been retrofit for far less occupants now.
[+] [-] WalterGR|5 years ago|reply
But are those real goats or decoy goats?
[+] [-] Apofis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btrautsc|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, my first though upon seeing military installations camouflaged as cabins, barns, homes - that gives an invading enemy a good excuse to target civilian structures...
[+] [-] gnyman|5 years ago|reply
> Conventional IHL (international humanitarian law), then, indicates that at least one form of disguising a military object as a civilian object—camouflage—is a permissible ruse of war, not a prohibited act of perfidy.
Page 521 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42550238.pdf
[+] [-] iamacyborg|5 years ago|reply
http://www.bldgblog.com/2012/06/
[+] [-] mementomori|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geoff_sanders|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tW4r|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matteuan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhh__|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filoeleven|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickelcitymario|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffrallen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsjq|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the-dude|5 years ago|reply
Are they usually dressed with curtains? Any nice patterns? I am particular fond of flowers.
[+] [-] graderjs|5 years ago|reply