The historical form of Switzerland forms and the subsequent origins of the military, army and military industry
Switzerland, a country of French, German and Italian citizens who did not want to be French, German and Italian, was in the middle of the three european powers, one of the few "permanently neutral countries" in the world, and the first country in the world to use the "confederation system".
Unlike others who are "forced to be neutral or backed by the ocean", Switzerland is mainly formed by three major ethnic groups, but directly borders several traditional European powers dominated by these three ethnic groups.
However, within the centuries-old State, Switzerland has done nothing, much less naturalized and divided, largely because switzerland is a unique "independent armed neutrality rather than a conventional neutral state.".
As a "kingdom on the Alps", Switzerland is "mountainous and unminine, difficult to attack and useless", but "Wude" is full of surprise.
Since the 13th century, Switzerland has begun to rebel against the Gods, and has developed from the Tri-Confederation to the Thirteen-State Confederation.
The "Swiss mercenaries" are even more unique, and the name of loyal and powerful armies resounds throughout Europe. Moreover, the confederation system allowed Switzerland to have no political concerns and could "send troops" unscrupulously, so it was the most popular army in the era of employment.
The pinnacle was during the Thirty Years' War, when the four countries of O'Faaciho simultaneously commanded Swiss soldiers and comically fought a war between the Swiss.
Because of this "strength", Switzerland gained independence after the Thirty Years' War, and because of the attached "chicken rib" attribute, Switzerland became a buffer zone for the three great powers after the "Vienna Conference" and was recognized as permanent neutrality, since then, the positioning of modern Switzerland has been basically established.
In this issue, the main exploration of its martial arts part, the Swiss who broke away from the era of employment also performed well militarily, and without excellent geographical conditions, they needed "more powerful force" to defend the "neutrality in the cracks between the great powers".
The formation of modern Switzerland and the unification and beginning of the Development of the Swiss Army and the Early Military Industry
Thus, after entering the 19th century, although there were nominal neutral guarantees, Switzerland instead paid more attention to military development, which eventually created the modern "only two outliers in Europe to avoid world wars".
As historians have said of him:
"Switzerland is more like a hedgehog, with its spines on its back and people have no desire for it."
From 1815 onwards, the Swiss army began to formally shift to standing, and at the same time introduced the "famous reserve system", similar to the territorial conscription of the cantonal army was abolished, each canton needed to provide 2% and 4.5% of the population to form regular and reserve, which achieved Switzerland's "huge army of 110,000 people".
According to the finalization of the Constitution of 1848, this configuration was uniformly designated as the "Swiss Defence Force", which was followed by "the two expansions of the Popularization of France and the First and Second World Wars" to reach the actual military strength of 700,000 and 900,000 respectively, which eventually developed into the well-known "national military service system" in Switzerland.
In the current era, for example, this is relative to the millions of terrorist forces, and even the militia in Switzerland has set regulations for storing standard rifles at home.
This military strength, combined with Switzerland's "fortress defense" and geographical superiority, dissuaded all invasion plans in World War I and II, "becoming the only country to maintain peace in the world war." ”
However, "only the number, quality and geographical advantages are not enough, and the supporting of sufficiently advanced and sufficient weapons is the key to the expansion of the army", and Switzerland has handled this very well.
At the same time as the start of the Swiss army, Switzerland focused on the development of the military industry, and because of the overall pattern of neutrality and peace, this development was easier than that of the European countries, so Switzerland soon had many military industries, especially the development of light weapons.
Dismantling and introducing the history of rifle development in the Swiss single-shot and multiple-shot era
Among them, one of the earliest infantry guns born in Switzerland was called the "T-M1842 Musket".
This weapon, born of the unified design of the old state army, was the most common "thunder and mercury strike structure" at that time, which was not special in design, and was a common design choice in countries except Prussia due to patent evasion caused by the proliferation of technology.
However, due to late entry, Switzerland did not have the problem of the wrong route as in Austria, but chose the "combination of winged brass cap combination chiseled firing lock" at the beginning, which avoided many unnecessary developments for them.
There were two major design improvements to the firearm, the "T-M1859 and T-M1867 rifles", which were two versions after the addition of the two technologies of "rifling and Milbank-Amsler rear loading mechanism".
But these are all later words, and the main value of this series is mainly to bring Switzerland into an "era of unified weapons", which makes it no longer necessary for Switzerland to have the problem of gun type confusion.
However, the results of this concept were not fully realized, mainly due to another problem, that is, after the "military command was transferred to the central government", the gun type equipped with the system of supplying weapons by the cantons themselves, which affected the Swiss regional finances, and there was a problem of "the logistics of the army's weapons and the uneven quality of the weapons".
Soon after, Switzerland saw the emergence of the second generation of infantry guns purchased through the Central Unified Army, the Feldstreet-1851 musket. ”
This weapon is actually the same as the above gun type design concept, the same as the firing musket, but the role is different, mainly because of the ban on state supply weapons, so the common quality and logistical confusion problems have been solved.
In addition, the design of the gun itself has a new advantage, that is, "the reduction of the ammunition caliber", and the lateral advantage it brings, "the size and weight reduction of the firearm." ”
This "ES-M1851 musket", is the earliest small-caliber gun type in Europe, when it just entered the era of "full dispersion", "banning some of the obsolete pursuit of range through ammunition to adapt to the platoon battle" became feasible, Switzerland keenly explored this transformation, so it made the corresponding ammunition and gun size, weight reduction, which provided the new M1851 with "higher portability and ease of use" and other advantages.
However, this advantage is not large, and any country can complete the same behavior in just one or two years.
As a result, the musket did not last long, but soon became the new "ES-M1851/67 rifle" by converting it to the "Milbank Amsler rear-loading mechanism", like the Type 1842 infantry gun.
This new variant of the new variant, the T-M42/67 rifle, was commissioned primarily alongside the T-M42/67 rifle variant, but because the core design of the two was the same, it was often confused with the M1863 infantry rifle, which was the earliest addition to the rifling design that soon became the standard, and was often referred to as the "Amlser 1867 Series Rear Rifle" in later generations.
But they are different, but in the core after-installation mechanism design the same use of the same "same kind of after-the-installation mechanism system".
They are all made of Milbank Amsler backsuit, which originated from a designer in Switzerland, belonging to the traditional old-fashioned afterwear, which is an urgent pursuit of prussia's exposure of bolt-pull rifle technology in the Austro-Prussian War, similar to the "British Snyder, Austrian Wendel and French Snuff Bottle" and other national gun models, this weapon is similar to the British Snyder rear design, but not exactly the same.
Although the Amsler type is the same as the "clamshell structure", it adopts a more convenient forward opening, and is designed with a safety lock similar to a snap, so it can ensure that the air is closed and not disengaged, so it is better in "gun safety and shooting performance".
It is worth mentioning that the Swiss afterwear design of this period also has the improvement of the Peabody backsuit by the horseshoe, which combined with Alexander. Henry's rifling, which made up the "Horseshoe of England. Henry Rifle", a weapon that has been in service in Britain for nearly two decades, and there are also some in the country that cooperate with Amsler to carry out the installation.
However, no matter how good this weapon was placed a few years ago, this old structure was outdated compared to the newly born bolt pull-up style in Prussia.
They had advantages over the latter, as well as better efficiency, gas-holding and other properties, as well as the potential for improvements that were generally considered to be better, and were replaced a few short years later, replaced by one of Switzerland's most well-known rifles, the "Vitelli series." ”
This Vitelli series, designed by Vitelli in Neuhausen, Switzerland, was considered the most advanced rifle in Europe when it was introduced, and was used by two European powers, Switzerland and Italy, and was equipped for up to thirty years, which to some extent affected the subsequent development of rifles in both countries.
However, its significance does not stop there, as the director of SIG, after designing the Vitelli rifle, the SIG, a company engaged in the railway industry at that time, was drawn to the field of rifles, which led to the later famous "SIG series of weapons (but at that time it was mainly based on WF bern)".
Returning to the gun itself, this gun model can play so much meaning and be reused, and its own design is quite excellent.
"Wittley was the first in Europe to introduce Winchston 1866 tube magazine technology, so this Vitelli had an ultra-high capacity of 11 rounds", which was the best firearm performance in Europe at that time compared to the European level of the same era.
This has triggered a wave of "tubular magazine rifles" in Europe, similar to Germany and other countries have developed new rifles with tubular magazines.
However, due to the advent of the Manlicher magazine a few years later, as well as the discovery of hidden dangers and damage caused by the end-to-end of the bullet, these plans were soon dismantled, and Germany replaced the old model with the "committee rifle", and Italy changed the pipe type to a normal pull-bolt structure, and then developed on its own.
However, Switzerland did not have the mandatory need to pursue leadership like the German-French arms race, and the gun model was a new development product in large quantities. Regardless of the safety of use, the performance is not weaker than the average new generation of gun models too much, and even the single-shot continuous type is still an advantage.
So the Swiss did not rush to develop a new type, but made a slight innovation to the gun, and it was not until the end of the 80s that it was replaced with a new design.
It is worth mentioning that the commercialization of this weapon is very good, because the technology is backward, the price of Vitelli is very low, and the large-capacity design is also suitable for "field defense and multiple strikes", so poor hunters in the United States often buy it for hunting, which makes it the "most popular multi-shot rifle in the United States" at that time.
It was replaced around the 1990s by the Schmidt–Rubin 1889 rifle, a name you may not be often around, but if you look at its subsequent developments it is different, and its sub-family is the most well-known rifle design in Switzerland, the K31 series of rifles.
As a late-breeding gun, the design company "WF-Bern" has absorbed the mature design concepts that have proved effective over the years, and finally produced this "Swiss masterpiece that has lasted for decades in the whole series".
In terms of design, the Rubin series incorporates many mature concepts, including:
New concept designs such as straight-pull bolts, Manlicher-style leaky cassettes, all-copper metal cartridge designs (one of the earliest) and ammunition paper-filled designs.
Combining these, the Rubin series is considered to have the second most efficient use than Lee's, and can outperform "Lee's" in the use of single magazines due to the smoothness of the straight-pull bolt, even without changing the bullet; Coupled with the fact that it has only a capacity of 12 rounds, the first combat effectiveness of this weapon on the battlefield should be the strongest at that time.
In addition, although the design of its unique paper-based ammunition affects the performance of a certain firearm, it also has the ability to clean the chamber, and the life of this firearm will be much longer than that of conventional guns.
However, the design of the Rubin rifle also has some side effects, such as:
In addition to the paper quality of the ammunition affecting the performance, the oversized ammunition capacity also causes the magazine to extend more, which is very important to the ergonomics of the bolt-on rifle without a grip and using different postures.
In addition, the larger size of the gun body design is mostly ineffective, and the impact on the use of firearms is also huge, which also reduces the level of the whole gun.
However, in the follow-up, this Rubin series was developed to the K11 improved version to solve these problems, mainly through the following changes:
Through the reduction of size, the bolt stroke, the overall size and weight are reduced, and the portability and efficiency of the gun are improved;
By adopting a new ammunition configuration, replacing it with a new type of high-efficiency ammunition, the ammunition paper supplement design was eliminated and the ammunition performance rebounded;
By reducing the ammunition capacity back to the conventional six rounds, the problem of soldiers using the carry was solved.
Combined with these, the new type, named K11, was considered to have reached the bottleneck of the time.
This is correct, at that time, the development of demand characteristics eventually derived other categories, such as submachine guns, etc., or from the need to meet, or from the difficulty of practicality, in short, the development of rifles in various countries has entered a long period of stagnation, Switzerland is also the case.
Therefore, after entering the new century, although the Rubin series has been developed and improved several times, it has not changed much until the emergence of the carbine concept.
Since the 1920s, after trench combat, the range of the rifle has been gradually lowered to the second echelon, and the accuracy has been transferred to another small number of sniping, and portability, efficiency and usability have become the highest pursuit characteristics of the new rifle.
Under such conditions, the concept of the main carbine is generally accepted, different from the previous concept of equipping the portable demand group to equip the carbine, the new carbine concept is mainly attached to the main battle army, this concept is continuously implemented in the follow-up, so the main battle weapon continues to shrink from the same height as the person to only the length of the hand, and the subsequent portable group has extended a more extreme folding concept, which is rooted in this.
This concept was first implemented shortly after World War I, when the main battle rifles of various countries were reduced in pursuit of new characteristics, typical of which included the German K98K rifle and the Swiss Rubin K31 improved rifle.
In many sources, the K31 model has been evaluated as a version that has made major improvements, but the actual design adjustments are only reduced in size, and the rest are only rationalizations, and the reason for this misunderstanding is because of the adjustments that brought in a large number of previous modifications.
After the introduction of this gun type, the development of rifles in Switzerland before the end of World War II officially came to an end.
End of this issue – this series is to be continued
Switzerland finished the first part, followed by the French and Swiss rifle articles, thank you for watching!