limerickman said:Re Zapper and Switzerland and his wisecracks.
Is it an urban myth about Switzerland defences, if attacked.
The urban myth is that Swiss have very sophisticated defence system in case of attack.
I heard this being told during a conversation many years ago.
I recollect that Switzerland is one of the most hevaily fortified countries on the plant.
Is this true ?
Yes. Almost every mountain is like swiss cheese. Mirage, F-5s and F-18s can take off straight out of one mountain (only one is known to the public). Choppers can start and land there too. The biggest hole i've seen was 60 meters! high and it took 30min by car to get there.
Mortars, heavy artillery, groud-to-air missiles and AA guns are placed in strategic important mountains, almost every mountain. CH has some of the most sophisticated arms for these purposes, I witnessed a test of one of these artillery batteries fire 155mm grenades with a cadence of 80 rounds per minute into a mountain, oh boy, one can do some damage with these.
Tunnels, bridges, important roads, dams, water reservoirs and electrical facilities are packed with explosives. All major roads are prepared for tank obstacles and mines. In narrow valleys they even put explosives into the sides, so when they blow it up, a few million cubicmeters of rock block the valley permanently. We call this 'Réduit suisse', fortress switzerland. Paranoid!
But that's not all, every house built until a few years ago needed a bunker. Now there are central bunkers. Every citizen gets a paper with the location and number of the bed in the bunker. Paranoid again!
Swiss army tactics is guerilla warfare. Blow everything up and leave burned soil behind. Also CH can mobilise 1 mio trained soldiers within 24h. Everybody has a rifle and ammo, specialists even had mines, handgrenades and C4 at home. Imagine that in the US!