Well...kiss my azz! Not one scope on any of those rifles! They know how to use irons which is a damn near friggin lost art in America today!!

Most know how to use iron sights, but simply prefer not to

That's the price we pay for having an empire less freedom and way to many non-productive people.

They all shoot and they make a very useful knife too.

They so have a population a fraction of what ours is.

If you were surrounded by the type of neighbors the Swiss have, you'd teach your kids to shoot too.

Yep, and that's why I will vote against any Dimocrap.

We would be in much better shape as a nation if our favorite sports used bullets rather than balls.

I want to move there...

No low information citizens over there.

Yep, they have virtually no underclass. I believe they have the best quality of life in the world. Good for them!!!!!!!!

Bullets and balls are necessary - but the balls should NOT be inflatable!

Mark

"nobody" invades them, because 'everyone' has a vested interest in a civilized country with an immpecable reputation in banking remaning stable, thus hedging their bets if they lose. Had the Germans wanted to, they could have taken it in 1940 without batting an eye. And as far as personal freedom when it comes to gun ownership, we're still light years away. Love their watches though..

This isn't true. Access by vehicle is by bridges, all of which are ready for destruction at a moments notice by the Swiss. After that, any army entering Switzerland would be pinned down under constant gunfire. Could the Nazis at the height of their military power have eventually taken Switzerland? Sure. It would have cost them the loss of several hundred thousand of their best troops, however, something they couldn't afford to lose.

You're wrong.

I would imagine the Swiss reply heavily on imports for their food ect...The Germans could have simply blockaded them for a few months and they would have folded pretty easy after that..

Operation Tannenbaum was the contingency. Sure it would have probably been a tough fight but no match for the Whermacht. Plus the Germans realized why bother when they were allowed to run trains full of war materiel through Switzerland and into Italy throughout the whole war. That and the fact their plate was pretty full fighting a war on two fronts after 1941. And I state it again, check out the Swiss version of private gun ownership.

No, it's you who have it completely wrong.

It wasn't brave and true citizen-riflemen who protected Switzerland from the Germans; it was the International Bankers.

Now you did it...

All these years, and he still doesn't recognize their power.

I wonder what would have happened if Germany had carried out a hostile invasion of Switzerland?

I don't mean whether the Swiss would have put up and effective resistance or not, but the wider implications on the war? Given that Switzerland was the worlds banks, would it have brought in more countries trying to get their money back? Or just the opposite?

I've never heard a compelling reason why German would have had anything to gain by invading Switzerland during the war. They were getting along pretty well, doing good business.

Now, after the war, assuming a German victory, with a couple of decades of peace behind them, and the Germans virtually surrounding them, the Swiss might have had good reason to be concerned about "friendly" takeovers of their banking industry.

Pete: There's lots of literature out there on the subject. Hitler hated the Swiss but in a rare moment of lucidity, realized there was nothing to gain by an invasion. The Swiss were taking care of them under the table and the Germans took care of them by placing billions in currency, gold etc in their banks. It was a great conduit for espionage dispersion into other countries (so was Sweden) etc. But to the OP, had the Germans wanted, they could have crushed the Swiss.

Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to do a study on invading Switzerland. The Wehrmacht said they could do it but there would not be much of an army left. So Hitler ordered the SS to do a study and they said pretty much the same thing. Now why Hitler listen to the Wehrmacht and SS on this when he rarely listen to anyone is anybody's guess. Perhaps he got the word for the international banking cartel who knows. One things for certain Switzerland is a very small mountainous country and small mountainous countries are a tough nut to crack even with today's technology. Switzerland is about half the size of Ireland or a little bigger than Vermont. The Nazis could have and would have taken the other plains of Switzerland fairly easy but the mountains would have been a whole different kettle of fish.

Dude, your FOS (then again that's SOP). Operation Tannenbaum originally had 21 Divisions as a requirement but it was later revised to ten or eleven.

Back in the '80's a gent I knew was in Switzerland during national qualifications, which is a nationwide event on the scope of the Super Bowl. He attended at one of the local ranges and he said there were old guys there hitting man sized targets at 1,200 meters with open sighted K31's. He said guys with StGw 57's with match sights were scoring bullseyes at 1,000 meters on a fairly regular basis. (IIRC the bull at 1,000 meters is a 1 meter circle).

He came back saying there's a damn good reason no one wants to invade them. Every damn one of them is a high power match rifle shooter; you just don't want to go there.

Don't forget Spain...lots of espionage operated out of Spain. Spain provided friendly ports for the Germans. And from Spain the Nazi's sent spies first to South America (Argentina and Brazil), then on up the continent. Germans had a lot more allies than we were taught in school. Just very few were "official" above board allies, remaining "technically neutral".

DITTOS to that Kevin.

Real good against a combined arms Blitzkreig. BFD, they would have been toast with impressive target scores..

Agreed. No matter how good your riflemen are, even if they're the best in the world; they will fall against a combined arms attack. Remember, Artillery has accounted for the highest battlefield casualties for at least the past 300 years.

They have the ability to be very effective insurgents, that's pretty much it. The insurgency could have been REALLY ugly for the Germans; but we'll never know.

Regular army and combined arms pretty much always wins though.

Still, If I were the Germans; I just wouln't go there. They had very little to gain that they weren't already getting, and it would have been a big sap on resources. On the other side, it would have been the height of their looting; the Swiss have a lot of nice stuff and huge collections of art. It's for the looting that I'm positive that after the war the Germans would have done it. They were just greedy on top of being evil.

If you read my posts, they didn't need to and Germans stashed a lot of their loot in there to begin with. The Greeks and Yugos (and by that I included all the ethnic groups populating what we used to call Yugoslavia) were all tough fighters, mountains etc and yes the Germans had a time with the insurgents, but when the Whermacht rolled, it was over fast. Incidentally, you DO know Germans make up the largest portion of the American population don't you? Ubermenschen!

It's useless Jorge. We've been down this road before and some are convinced Switzerland is da schit when it comes to all things military.

According to these knuckleheads, the Germans pissed their pants at the mere mention of the mighty Swiss.

Had Germany attacked, they would have taken the country, there is no debating that.

The only thing that saved the Swiss was their banking system, which Germany made good use of and the fact they were not a viable threat to the fatherland.

But some swiss dude hitting the 10 ring on a target proves that they could have been victorious in a war with Germany during WWII.

laffin

The little guy needn't be able to win. He only needs to raise the cost above the benefit.

Yep.

You guys have obviously never studied the geography of Switzerland. The Swiss were willing to surrender the plains of Switzerland to the Germans and turn the mountains into a fortress. Once in the mountains the planes, tanks, and artillery would have been worthless and the fight would have turned into a slug fest between mountain infantry in which case the Swiss would have had the edge.

There's a reason smart countries never get into a slug fest with well armed small mountain countries.

Nobody ever said that. What has been said is like with Russia the Germans would have met their Waterloo even if the Germans had won a war with Switzerland the Germans would ultimately lost in the long run.

That right there says it all. Every book on the subject says the something the Swiss could not win the war against Germany but the cost to Germany would have been so high the benefit would not have been worth the cost.

I didn't know that...but I'm at least 1/2 Kraut...my maternal family name is Gonnerman.

No it doesn't...Politicians will often overlook such things. Case in point, Germany invading Russia; DUMB!! (now this is from memory, so sue me if I'm not 100%)...Hitler invaded with something like 86 divisions, expecting to face around 160 Russian divisions. About 3.5 weeks into the campaign, Von Manstein wrote to high command and stated that he had identified 320 divisions already. Hitler was impatient, impertinent, ignorant, and arrogant; just what you want in an enemy leader.

I will say many of his political moves leading up to the war were quite brilliant (in an evil sort of way). He did have his finger on the pulse of Europe politically. But militarily he was a rank amateur at best. Germany could have won WW II sooo easy. Don't invade Russia, DO invade the UK and Germany wins.

Certainly would have made things difficult, but a fixed battle even under the best of circumstances is not a good idea. If you're stuck in the mountains, and the only retreat available to you is over top those mountains, your number is up; only question remaining is when.

�Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity,� George S. Patton, Jr.

I've been thinking about the ramifications to this line of thinking and it seems to negate our whole 2nd Amendment reasoning - an armed populace is anathema to domestic or even foreign enemies.

Admiral Yamamoto is supposed to have said that invading the US of A would be foolhardy because there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass. When he said it our Army and Air Corps were 3rd rate at best and immediately after Pearl Harbor we had no real sea power in the Pacific except for a few carriers. And those rifles behind the grass would likely be lever action 30-30's with just a very sparse smattering of iron sighted bolt actions - not a lot of long range scoped rifles in the 40's. Today we have tons of AR's in private hands and tons more scoped rifles.

Given that our terrain is much more vast than Switzerland, you could still break it up piecemeal and take it one piece at a time, and a large portion of our country is beautiful tank terrain (the whole Southwest and the Great Plains) while other places (mountains, swamps) not so much.

But against a dedicated military force, either our own turned against us under some despot or a foreign power - what good is a bunch of rifles, even very accurate ones? At least that's where I'm seeing this line of thought lead.

In many ways the militia resistance part of the 2nd Amendment has failed. I think it was Federalist Paper number 34 where they talked about the 2nd Amendment being required at the insistence of The South, because they were already in fear of a federal army controlled by the North (gee, weren't they right?). And Hamilton laid out that if the entire populous of The South were allowed private ownership of firearms, the North could never raise an army large enough to successfully invade. It sounded really good on paper, but as Jorge so rightfully pointed out; militia against a competent combined arms regular army becomes cannon fodder.

ETA -
These days in an urban guerrilla campaign the weapon of choice is the bomb, not the gun. And I got bad news for the anti-gunners. You can't take away enough things to ever make it impossible to make bombs.

Thanks for that reply.

Hmm, I need to sell some rifles and get a diesel pickup with extra tanks to haul around large sacks of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Got a big, really really big, garden to tend to, don'cha know...

The Swiss make ugly ass rifles that'll shoot.

Probably by typing "ammonium nitrate" on the internet I just set off eighteen alarm bells at the NSA...

Haven't come across a whole lot of Swiss firearms that didn't shoot. They like their marksmanship.

Coolest rifle I ever owned was a Sig StGw 57





Unfortunately I owned mine back in the early '90's when there was little to no 7.5 Swiss ammo, so I couldn't afford to feed it on my meager salary. I did learn that you can substitute a .284 Winchester case, size it, trim it, and it will work. Problem is, the 57 was absolutely abusive to brass and my cases only lasted 2-3 loadings before they split.

Look at the photo. See the white rectangle in the middle of the receiver? That's the "semi-auto" provision. In Switzerland they require the rifles be restricted (or they did) to semi-auto at rifle matches. So that white thing is a little spring steel tab that when sandwiched between the upper receiver and the trigger housing, will prevent the secondary disconnector/sear from deploying, making the rifle semi-auto.

US imported rifles included this tab, but they were obviously missing the FA parts. Other differences, the bolt carrier didn't have the hump for the FA disconnector, and the receiver was made in a way that it wouldn't accept a full auto trigger group without permanent modification to the receiver.

The sights were absolutely beautiful, save for the front. Both were folding to accommodate a scope. The rear stayed put, but the front could be bumped out of place without too much trouble; that was about the only real flaw of the rifle.

The integral bipod was slick, it could slide up or down the barrel jacket to be out near the front sight or near the receiver (not sure why someone would want a bipod that long near the reciever. Unfortunately the bipod didn't lock in the out position, so you had to take care not to bear down on it too much.

There were so many other little goodies on that rifle; I could go on and on.

Slick rifle, wish I had another one; but they go for like 6-8 grand these days.

ETA
Okay one more little snippet. Only the Swiss would design a rifle with controlled round ejection. And the extractor was the ejector also...again, really slick.

That's completely wrong. That's not what it says. It speaks of the states and their armed populations vs a professional army raised by the Federal Government.

I remember when those were dirt cheap at military surplus stores. One such store I recall had rows upon rows of them out on the floor. I was tempted, but never "pulled the trigger."

Hawk, that's pretty much exactly what it says (see below). It was Federalist number 46, not 34 (my bad memory).

" Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. " - Alexander Hamilton; Federalist Paper number 46.

Nope, not the same. The quote you provide doesn't match with what you said, as you made it a North vs South thing in the Federalist, which it was not.

I was setting the background for why Federalist 46 was written. That part wasn't supposed to be a quote of what was in 46.

The delegates from the South and all non-federalists were adamant against a peacetime standing army. The slavery issue was still contentious from the get go, and the South deeply distrusted the North (a distrust that turned out to be spot on). Federalist 46 was to settle fears that a standing federal army (And Hamilton always saw himself at the head of that army) would be turned on it's own. So I was commenting on the background for why Hamilton wrote 46.

So speaketh the Campfire Oracle Drug Addled Rectal Orifice...