Ever wondered what a Swiss range looks like?

ghostie said:
Treat people like citizens rather than just taxpayers... wow, what a concept!
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don't say that too loud around Liberals, you'll be the only guy in the country who gets a jail sentence and actually goes to jail :runaway:
 
A friend of mine traveled through there and also said some ranges even give you a handy computer print out of your shooting results.

How civilized. :)
 
A friend of mine went to school in Switzerland.

One day he was on the train and the guy across from him had dozed off. When they got to his stop he woke up and ran out of the train but forgot to take his rifle.




(My friend yelled to him and he came back for it.)
 
SandRoad said:
A friend of mine went to school in Switzerland.

One day he was on the train and the guy across from him had dozed off. When they got to his stop he woke up and ran out of the train but forgot to take his rifle.




(My friend yelled to him and he came back for it.)
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It's probably not a huge deal to lose a rifle. Everyone's basically forced to have a rifle, so I doubt there'd be many thefts of firearms there.
 
I remember being in a train station in Switerland during the 80, seeing young soldiers heading home on leave, or the like, in full battle kit, with their rifles slung on there shoulders.... no big deal... this is one of the reasons the Swiss have not been to war for over 200 years
 
cancer said:
It's probably not a huge deal to lose a rifle. Everyone's basically forced to have a rifle, so I doubt there'd be many thefts of firearms there.
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not a big deal? Are you serious? Losing your rifle gets you into REAL trouble over here.

@Snowhunter: almost, but not quite. The three oldest cantons of Switzerland are german-speaking, the french and italian parts were later annected.

The battles you mentioned were fought at Morgarten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgarten
and later at Sempach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sempach
 
snowhunter said:
The Swiss have managed to stay of most european wars for over 900 years, exatly because they are prepared to shoot and fight, if they have to, and their war mongering neighbors, including the Allied forces of WW2, know that to well, and are therefore unwilling to pay the price for invading Switzerland, and simply for that reason leave Switzerland alone :)
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erm, not quite. Being a poor country back then Switzerland supplied whole Europe with mercenaries. We rarely were at war (last time was 1847 the civil war between catholic and protestant cantons), but till 1848 thousand of swiss soldiers served in european Armies. French kings had several regiments with Swiss Soldiers.

The last mercenaries serve as guard for the pope http://www.schweizergarde.org/

They're the only legal mercenaries, even for people with dual-citizenship it's difficult to join (legally) a foreign army.
 
Kampfhamster said:
They're the only legal mercenaries, even for people with dual-citizenship it's difficult to join (legally) a foreign army.
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I'm sure you'll get some responses on this. Are you saying it is difficult for Swiss citizens or Swiss dual citizens to join a foreign army? I don't know if that is true or not, but I do know that non-citizens have been serving in various of the world's militaries for as long as there have been citizens and militaries.

There are something like 47,000 non-citizens currently serving in the U.S. military, mostly from Latin America. The practice is common in a number of other countries as well.
 
well, it's a complicated topic, but I'll try to explain what the people from our ministry of defense told me.

Of course it's possible to join a foreign army if one owns the passport of this country. But there'll be questions when one gets back to Switzerland after serving in a foreign army.

For example I once requested information if it would be legal for me to join the Canadian Army (I have dual-citizenship, too). At this point I was still living in Switzerland (moved to Canada a few months later)

The responsible person from the defence ministry answered that it would be legal, IF I move to Canada permanently and join the Armed Forces when I'm already living there. BUT: it isn't legal for a swiss citizenship to move to another country in order to join the armed forces of this country. There are a few more things to consider, though.

After all, if I had actually joined the Canadian Army I'd have gotten into trouble anyway since I was still a member of the Swiss Army (officially on leave and not attached to a militia unit, though)

Hope you understand what I'm trying to say. As I said before, it's quite a complicated topic and under any circumstances it isn't quite clear what would happen if one actually gets caught by the swiss authorities serving in a foreign army. Rumour has it that a few former members of the french foreign legion now work as instructors after having to choose between serving jailtime or signing up as instructors.

\edit: forgot something: I understand that it is possible to serve in another country INSTEAD of serving in Switzerland, but you can't (well, with exceptions as usual) serve in the Swiss Army after having served in another country.
 
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kampfhamster, what I am trying to say is that no country have invaded Swizerland, possibly because of the often combat experienced swiss militia men who had served and gained experienced in foreign wars as volunteers, is among others, itself is a deterent enough to leave Switzerland alone ?
 
ghostie said:
I'm sure you'll get some responses on this. Are you saying it is difficult for Swiss citizens or Swiss dual citizens to join a foreign army? I don't know if that is true or not, but I do know that non-citizens have been serving in various of the world's militaries for as long as there have been citizens and militaries.

There are something like 47,000 non-citizens currently serving in the U.S. military, mostly from Latin America. The practice is common in a number of other countries as well.
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Also the Gurka's serving with the british army.
 
Sgt Striker said:
I remember being in a train station in Switerland during the 80, seeing young soldiers heading home on leave, or the like, in full battle kit, with their rifles slung on there shoulders.... no big deal... this is one of the reasons the Swiss have not been to war for over 200 years
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That and the fact that most folks who go to war bank in Switzerland just in case they loose....
 
Gibbs505, there were 35000 Canadian volunteers for the American war in Vietnam. Several tousand of them died there.
 
snowhunter said:
Gibbs505, there were 35000 Canadian volunteers for the American war in Vietnam. Several tousand of them died there.
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In the mid 1960's there were some rural high school teachers that suggested the option of joining the U.S. armed forces after graduation - so that guys could get their education paid for by the U.S. G.I. bill or get started in a trade. The myth was that you could choose your posting and position.

Most of the guys who saw this photo and a similar NBC clip on television did NOT want to get involved
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0410/faas.html
 
Kampfhamster said:
....After all, if I had actually joined the Canadian Army I'd have gotten into trouble anyway since I was still a member of the Swiss Army (officially on leave and not attached to a militia unit, though)....
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I believe it is the rule that one should notify the army he is in (active or reserve) if he will permanently leave the country. That being said, if you plan on going back to Switzerland, even for a visit, use a Canadian passport. That way they can't touch you.;)
 
rollingrock said:
Nice...but a little too nice for the range to be computerized. What for?
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1)So you can process thousands of people in a short time on a 300m range and not waste time having to relay/squad shooters and markers to show the targets. When you go to shoot, you shoot, no marking, no waiting for people to walk 300 meters back and forth.
2) No arguments about scores, points and postion are shown on screen and you get a print out of your total score.
3) No spotting scope short of the Hubble will show all the holes on the target all day long. Even the 7.5/.30caliber holes are hard enough to see with 80-100mm objective lens, never mind the 5.56mm holes on a black background.
4) Targets do not need to be patched.

Here is a link to pictures I took when I went to the Vancouver Swiss club.
300m:
http://news.webshots.com/album/26598919NgoIFgyZxN?vhost=news
50m smallbore & pistol:
http://news.webshots.com/album/31796503QNWKSBgDLw?vhost=news


Imagine going to a bowling alley with no automatic resetting machines, computers and screens. The bowlers would have to also replace the pins by hand and return the balls back up the lane, and do their own manual scoring.
That's a good comparison between our normal ranges and their 300m ranges.
 
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10x said:
In the mid 1960's there were some rural high school teachers that suggested the option of joining the U.S. armed forces after graduation - so that guys could get their education paid for by the U.S. G.I. bill or get started in a trade. The myth was that you could choose your posting and position.

Most of the guys who saw this photo and a similar NBC clip on television did NOT want to get involved
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0410/faas.html
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Sop reading all that through, shows that the right guy was shot.
 
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