Pretty cool video on the past and current Bunker systems.
They're like Dwarves digging through the mountain.

Really cool. I had no idea. Thanks for posting.

Bizarre, fascinating. I never knew.
There was a modest house for sale in our neighborhood with a big, multi room, curving, underground bomb shelter and a hidden external exit. I thought it would be a perfect gun vault and man cave.
Thanks for the video.

I was aware of the Swiss bunker system, but not how extensive they were, that many were now privately owned, or that there was a renewed interest in them.

The video title says there are 374,142 bunkers in Switzerland, but later narration says 10,000. I wonder why the discrepancy? Maybe how a "bunker" is defined...or perhaps one number is only for military bunkers, while the other includes private bunkers?

I'd like to see the entire video, but probably won't spring for a Patreon membership.

Thanks for posting this interesting video with some nifty history and current events relevancy in it.

the difference probably comes from the distinction between civilian bunkers in private buildings and military installations.

and yes, the apartment building that I live in does have a bunker in the basement.

How did they remove all the rock debris? Wouldn't that debris reveal the locations for the bunkers? Would love to see a video on the technology and how they used it to dig these tunnels and bunkers? What an amazing national effort to protect their country.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
How did they remove all the rock debris? Wouldn't that debris reveal the locations for the bunkers?

Didn't you see The Great Escape? They disposed of removed rock via a very intricate pants pocket system. It's pretty clearly shown in the movie.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
How did they remove all the rock debris? Wouldn't that debris reveal the locations for the bunkers? Would love to see a video on the technology and how they used it to dig these tunnels and bunkers? What an amazing national effort to protect their country.

I was thinking about that.
Aggregate for concrete and road systems is my guess, just haul it away and use it elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
How did they remove all the rock debris? Wouldn't that debris reveal the locations for the bunkers?

Didn't you see The Great Escape? They disposed of removed rock via a very intricate pants pocket system. It's pretty clearly shown in the movie.

You right! Shawshank too!

The guys who owns Atlas Survival Shelters (located in Sulphur Spring Texas, and his YouTube channel) recently did some really interesting videos by traveling to Switzerland and some other countries nearby to see them, and I think he is opening up a business somewhere near that area in Europe to sell shelters.

IIRC it was the law in Switzerland that all homes and businesses were required to have a shelter. IIRC that law has been done away with. FWIW.

This guy makes a metric crap-ton of videos, there ae many to watch on this particular SWiss/European topic, you can click on his channel name and go down the rabbit hole. There are small home shelters, apartment and business shelters, government shelters, and more. It's interesting.

For example, and there are quite a few other videos:

Excellent post! I would love to see these things myself.

A very interesting video- the Swiss obviously have a serious collective survival mindset.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
A very interesting video- the Swiss obviously have a serious collective survival mindset.

we kind of have to. If we didn't we'd have become part of the german Reich or Austria a very long time ago.

Thanks for the videos. Very interesting!

What was the bunker wrench used for? My guess is something on the door but I did not see exactly what.

^^^
I believe they are used to take apart hinges/latches in the event the door mechanism becomes jammed to facilitate opening. If you don’t have a second egress option, a shelter could become a tomb if you can’t unstick the door.

The Swiss are the most aggressively neutral country on earth. Everyone does military service, everyone is a reservist. Every tunnel thru the mountains is mined and can be sealed in seconds. No surprise that they used their environment to prepare for the worst.

Screw with the Swiss at your peril. They simply want to be left alone to their own devices.

RMD

Thank you for posting this.
I knew the Swiss had an extensive bunker system across the country but I did not know it was that extensive.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
What was the bunker wrench used for? My guess is something on the door but I did not see exactly what.

I think it's to close the door tightly (gastight).

I'll go downstairs to have a look at the mechanism. It's the same everywhere.

Good morning,
I had the chance to visit several Swiss military bunkers. Although they‘re obsolete in many aspects now, I couldn‘t help but admire the ingenuity of their layout.

As one of the interesting examples, the Artilleriewerk Faulensee comes to my mind.
It is a system of well camouflaged bunkers for a battery of four 10,5cm (~ 4“) howitzers, located within an village in the canton of Bern. The bunkers for the guns are disguised as small barns, fitting in their village surroundings. There were preplanned fire areas along the Aare river valley, which could be hit by the guns anytime and anywhere on demand.
The gun crews within the bunkers had to wear oxygen masks during fire missions to avoid the toxic gunsmoke gases. It is no longer in use (taken out of commission in 1993) and is a museum now.

I found the attention to detail in the planning and layout of the bunkers most impressive. The Swiss went to great lengths in camouflaging the bunkers. Sometimes they may look like ordinary chalets (including flowers in front of fake windows), and sometimes the gun openings had covers made to look like the surrounding rocks. There were also trees planted in front of bunkers, that had to be detonated in the last possible moment to open fields of fire or observation.

Another such mountain bunker, which had accommodations to take in combat infantry, even included a gruesome detail: it had a „Leichenabwurfschacht“ (dead body disposal shaft).
To spare the soldiers from sharing the confined space of that mountain bunker with decomposing corpses of deceased wounded under combat conditions, the dead would have to be disposed off temporarily (to be retrieved and buried later)…

Due to Swiss policy there are seats available in bunkers and shelters for every single Swiss citizen (in Germany only for less than 5% of the population!).
During some of my visits (I am honored to be invited to some shooting competitions regularly) I spent my stay in such bunkers called „Zivilschutzanlagen“.


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