If Switzerland is attacked, it is literally rigged to blow up. | Hacker News Reader

If Switzerland is attacked, it is literally rigged to blow up.

schneier.com

37 pointswdaareg18 comments

Here's another interesting bit: Up until now it is still required by law that apartment buildings are built with a nuclear proof bunker underneath, including air filters. There are in fact more bunker places than people in Switzerland, i.e. >8M. These bunkers are mostly used as wine cellars and storage rooms now. Also, most of the soldiers take their rifle home and store it, even pass it to their sons. This thing is basically a sniper rifle nowadays, precise for 1300f without scope, 2000f with scope.

But, see, the biggest effect this has is not in scaring off foreign powers (which hasn't been relevant since WW2), but on the people's mentality within the country. The government is seen as the people's employee. The guns at home, the banking secrecy and the direct democracy are in many ways instantiations of this thinking. Politicians wouldn't even think about trying to pass laws that are unpopular. With the tools given, a resistance movement would be very difficult to fight against - it's like a Sword of Damocles hanging over the country that has become so natural, no-one even thinks about it. On the other hand this situation has never materialized since the republic was founded 170 odd years ago, even though there are multiple minority ethnicities - the people's political power with the Referendum is enough to keep everyone content. Majority decisions are true majority decisions.

This country is like a lab, showing that a democracy can be stable, prosperous and peaceful for a long time - if only other nations would recognize the lessons that could be learned from this.

A few quibbles based on what I've followed on guns and the military:

Once the SIG SG 510 AKA Sturmgewehr 57 ("assault rifle" in English, but it's really a battle rifle, and at 12.5 pounds edging close to a machine rifle) was adopted in 1957, upon retirement from the reserves, instead of buying your bolt action rifle at a nominal cost, you'd turn yours in and could in return buy one converted to semi-auto.

The new rifle, the SIG SG 550 AKA Sturmgewehr 90 introduced in 1990 is a true assault rifle, but if a [citation needed] bit in Wikipedia is correct, less than 700,000 were produced and "production for the military has now ceased." I've read elsewhere that a quality civilian version of this rifle costs around $3,000, although the cost in bulk buys would be lower (I personally own the closest one can get to this rifle in the US without going to extremes like switching the barrel for a longer one (I deal with the ballistic failures of 5.56x45mm NATO by using illegal for the military hollow point copper bullets from Barnes)).

(In all cases these are reported to be very accurate rifles with issue ammo, drilling a target at 300 meters has always been an important requirement. Switzerland has in general been pioneering here, e.g. adopting non-corrosive primers in 1911, and lead free ones in 1990.)

Somewhat over 600K sounds lower than the able bodied young-45 years of age cohort, and especially if military production has ceased it's pretty clear the system is changing.

I'd also add that there's lots of evidence many in the Swiss establishment were concerned about an invasion by the Soviets post-WWII (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Total-Resistance-H-Von-Dach/dp/0873640... which is highly recommended), and as a child of the Cold War myself, over in the US, I don't think that concern was unwarranted.

If the law is still requiring nuclear hardened bunkers, that's extremely wise, for we can be sure some day nuclear weapons will be used in anger again.

Final note: Switzerland is instructive in the durability of true federal system, that with the breakdown of ours in the US with steadily increasing centralization of power in our central government, provides some useful object lessons.

The army size is currently 185k including reservists and does indeed not include all able bodied men anymore - many choose to serve 360 days in civil service instead, as do I (however I've done my first ~150 days in the military before switching over). Most stay active in the army for about 8 years (150 days academy for regular soldiers, after that at 6 x 3 weeks repetition courses). In the 24 years since introduction of Sturmgewehr 90 I would expect 150k / 8 * 24 = 450k rifles. Pretty close, makes sense that they've seized production for now.

Now, about the classification: I'm curious about this. Would you say, a rifle with only 20 rounds and the size / preciseness of the StGW 90 is an assault rifle? I think it's not so useful for that role - in fact the close combat troops use shortened versions.

It follows the technical definition of "assault rifle". The category was defined by the Nazi StG 44: reduced power cartridge (compared to "full power" battle rifle cartridges like the 7.5 Swiss used previously, our .30-06 -> 7.62 NATO, Russia's 7.62x54 rimmed cartridge, etc.) and selective fire, full auto capable. It adopted innovations since then, like straight line recoil (also adopted by the Stwg 57) and 3 round burst mode for more controlled supressive fire.

The size is a tricky question. Don't know about the interior ballistics of your Gw Pat 90 bullet, although Wikipedia says it's properly "designed for terminal ballistic instability".

This is very important, because as discovered by Martin Fackler in the '80s, 5.56x45mm Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) ammo as fielded by the US is terrible at producing field disabling wounds unless, when it tumbles (as all bullets do when changing media from air to whatever), it ideally does so at a high enough velocity for it to break at the cannelure (the crimp in the jacket that helps hold everything together), and ideally the back portion then fragments. Otherwise it does little more than poke a pencil hole through a human, with a flip to exiting rear ended (which by itself, per Fackler's research, tends to do little damage, as does the high velocity shock waves), and of course this assumes bone isn't significantly hit etc.

In practice, we, the US, have seen it isn't a very effective cartridge, and that's not a surprise given how it was forced on the US Army (an action which wasn't, BTW, inherently incorrect, for that part of the Army was very corrupt).

The rule of thumb is that for every inch you chop off the barrel, you lose 50 yards/46 meters of effectiveness. So those who care about this, like the US Marines, still use 20 inch barrels, the M16 vs. the M4 carbine at 14.5 inches.

And strangely enough, so follows the SG 55x models, per Wikipedia:

  SG 550: 528 mm (20.8 in)
  SG 551: 363 mm (14.3 in)
  SG 552 Commando: 226 mm (8.9 in)
  SG 553: 227 mm (8.9 in)

And you're correct, if you're doing pure assault stuff, short range action, chopping the barrel to 551 or 552/3 length can get the job done. But as we've found in e.g. Afghanistan, 551/M4 length is disastrous if you have to "reach out and touch someone".

And thanks for all the "on the ground" information you've provided about the current situation over there.

"terminal ballistic instability" - interesting. All we were told is that these bullets can do so much damage, that even hitting a foot at close range can easily kill someone, so we had to be extra careful when handling the weapon. Most of the soldiers who don't have an explicit infantry role mostly train at long range target shooting (400m). Also, each year soldiers need to go do their 'mandatory shooting' - 10 rounds at 300m with some required precision. So I think you're right about long distance precision being the most important requirement for Swiss army rifles - probably makes sense assuming a purely defensive stance.

The way I see an ideal Swiss army would be a concentration on locally organized Guerilla forces anyway - heavy tanks and artillery could be completely canceled and the airforce could be reduced to a pure air police. In a hypothetical war against a big nation, air superiority would be lost in probably less than a day, which immediately renders stationary forces and tanks useless - but the biggest asset we would have is precisely those bunkers and 500k rifles in the hands of people that are well enough trained at distance shooting. All that would be needed is a difficult-to-suppress way of communication. For that matter I'd issue a new kind of radio device to all households and include it in a new law. Let these radios create an encrypted ad-hoc network with frequency hopping and lots of random noise on unused channels. Make the software and hardware Open Source and cheap, such that a) they can be improved by the community and b) can be used by oppressed people in other parts of the world. Then we could wish any future agressive foreign government much fun at financing a long drawn out oppressive war against a mountainous country with 8M bunkers, 4M radios and 0.5M rifles - with all useful bridges and tunnels gone ;-).

Oh, yes, this class of cartridge can be deadly, it's a question of statistically how reliable is its "stopping power"; killing is a secondary consideration after stopping someone from trying to kill you!

I'm impressed that there's lots of > 300m training, 400m effective range is achievable with this class of rounds, but the bullet drop after 300m is serious. But you wouldn't want an enemy to get complacent if they were > 300m from your people.

Not sure about your ideal; the heavy forces have a deterrent effect, they ensure reducing them in an all out war would be expensive. As I recall, the German General Staff figured taking Switzerland during WWII would break 85 divisions, a cost they simply couldn't afford. Which came at a cost to the Swiss, you mobilized your army, shut down your stock market, etc., the defensive "threat" was credible, deterrence was achieved. (I haven't read it yet, but this is supposed to be the current best book in English on the topic, written by a very solid and trustworthy author: http://www.amazon.com/Target-Switzerland-Swiss-Armed-Neutral... ).

It's also worth noting the accepted costs of the Swiss strategic system, then, during the Cold War, and presumably during a future attack by a major nation (which, as it became more likely, you might presume would include Switzerland bulking up its heavy forces in response).

Very bloody minded: give the indefensible lowland big cities to the enemy (where per the book I linked to previously, the citizens practice "Total Resistance" using among other things those decommissioned from military service older rifles), and retreat to the mountainous country and make the enemy pay for every foot they gain, with little more than bullets and rifle grenades if need be. Per the apocryphal quote from the Imperial Japanese Navy admiral who planned the Pearl Harbor attack, "a rifle behind every blade of grass".

Also, after the Vidkun Quisling debacle, a general order that henceforth no surrender order would be legitimate, and to fight to the last man and foot of ground. (Well, meter of ground of course.) Credible deterrence, which I submit to you, your current heavy stuff aids. Certainly aids in deterring any less than all out attempt to "punish" Switzerland for whatever. Right now the latter is "unthinkable" in part because you've got those heavy forces.

Don't get me wrong, I think that heavy mobile forces have been very valid in WW2 - I just think that nowadays they don't make much sense anymore, and the main reason is a) today's intelligence capabilities that make everything big very hard to hide, b) air-to-air capabilities of big nations that are impossible to match for a country like Switzerland and c) the efficiency of air-to-ground bombing. Basically, you can have as many tanks and artillery defenses as you want, as long as you can't keep either air superiority or intelligence superiority, they're useless - and as far as I can tell, in both those areas you can forget holding up against a power like, say, Russia. On the other hand hundreds of thousands, up to 1M, resistance fighters in urban or woods territory with sufficient Demo, RPGs, good rifles and ammunition - it becomes a huge numbers game to fight this. The USA are basically the only nation that has become efficient at dealing with this sort of situation, and even then there's no end in sight in the Afghan conflict for example. That's why I think a guerilla army that has been trained at this, for everyone to see, is a much bigger deterrent than heavy machinery - and it also takes much longer to be outdated.

I am not sure how true this is anymore. As far as I am aware, for example, a lot of the equipment necessary for using tunnels as bunkers in case of war has been abandoned or removed.

At least in Germany, in the past a lot of bridged also were prepared to be blown (especially those to the east). I think this is no longer true for anything that was built after ~1990.

Doesn't matter as long as Switzerland responds to any changes in its strategic posture. E.g. that equipment, plenty of which is a wasting resource, can be replenished if its neighborhood gets threatening again.

Yep, and since the invention of guided missiles that could just as easily destroy the bridges and tunnels the explosives have become redundant, too expensive, and not worth the safety risk.

I'm surprised Ukraine didn't consider this tactic pre-emptively against Russia, considering they handed back their nukes.

Instead of a minefield, place gas pipelines around bridges and chokepoints that could accidentally suffer "maintenance failure" and explode in case of invasion.

I'm probably being too simplistic about this, I suppose it would just give Russia an excuse to crush Ukraine using force.

The idea of Ukraine independent of Russia is new. It's pretty safe to say that the entire infrastructure in that country was built under Moscow's supervision. It was inconceivable to even think about a plan of defense against an invasion from Russia.

In order to implement a defensive stance, a nation needs to be independent in the first place. It takes years even under the economy of a war to implement a defenses like this - more than enough time for a world power like Russia to prevent it.

Russians did this tactics against Napoleon. It is flat country, so they effectively had to burn down half of their country.

That use to be true, but isn't anymore.

I'm pretty sure that most of them have been removed by now and new bridges and tunnels are no longer built with explosives.

Wouldn't it be just as easy these days to just fire a few missiles at the bridges and tunnels if another country is invading? Yes, and it's much safer and much cheaper to maintain.

I remember reading about a tunnel fire that could have set them off and would have been disasterous. http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/archive/Lucerne_yields_up_explos...

http://www.oltnertagblatt.ch/panorama/vermischtes/armee-holt...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Redoubt_(Switzerland)

I don't think this is unique to Switzerland, maybe a little more spectacular due to the landscape. But it fits well with their exclusion mentality.

So destroying Switzerland is as easy as pretending to invade it. You just have to wait until they blow up their country, then land on their government's parliament building and take over.

See my other comment - the parliament building is pretty much meaningless if a foreign power wants to 'take over'. It's not impossible of course, but it would be prohibitively expensive, as in Afghanistan times a factor X. Using the current situation in the Middle East as an example, one should recognize that a simple 'invasion' is far from taking control over a region.

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