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An F-58 Hunter operating out of road base during an exercise. In the event of hostilities, the Flugwaffe can disperse to twelve Kavernen in the mountains and a hundred or more prepared road bases using the nation's roadway network to the fullest advantage.
How Switzerland Defends its Neutrality
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Switzerland Aims To Defend Its Neutrality
Just a little larger than half the size of Tasmania, Switzerland has built up an impressive air force with which to defend its neutrality.
Impressive not so much in the exotica of aeronautical hardware or in numbers of state-of-the-art aircraft in inventory but more so in the simplicity in which such a small, land-locked nation, surrounded by traditional foes, maintains an effective neutrality policy tested by two major wars with what to many air arms would be classified as outdated and obsolete aircraft. In Switzerland, when you buy a combat aircraft you intend from the very beginning to operate that aircraft in front-line service for a minimum of twenty years. That this defence force, comprising a land army and an air arm, can engender so much respect is even more a compliment to its effectiveness when it is learnt that the vast bulk of the force is comprised of civilians operating on a part-time basis!
Switzerland’s air force, better known as the Flugwaffe, is by any standard a force to be reckoned with. Operating as a defensive force, the Flugwaffe utilises experience, dedication and local knowledge of the battlefield to combat the ever present numerical superiority of the vast Warpac forces beyond its borders. While it is generally felt that in a real war, the Warpac forces would bypass both neutral Austria and Switzerland, the Swiss defence force does not rule out the use of neutral airspace to transit high-altitude supersonic strike aircraft heading for France and the Low Countries. In fact, an aircraft cruising at Mach 2 can transit Switzerland in around three minutes which gives some idea of how complex the task of defending such a small country can be.
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