Swiss miitary rotary wing ambition musings
 

I thought I was imagining things when I picked up this latest edition of Helico Revue magazine at Innsbruck Flughafen last week. But there's an article on attack helicopter marketplace but didn't pay much attention until retread the title saying about the Swiss doing a study / considering adding dedicated AH capability to their Air Force (?)

Wonder how serious they're considering it let alone the budget re, scrapping Patrouiile de Suisse

Can anyone shed any light on this please?

Cheers

Why on earth would they? What conceivable threat does Switzerland face that would justify the expense and complexity of adding attack helicopters to their inventory? Ditto for Austria...

We did................!!!

Surely they are a very cost effective way of defending a country like Switzerland. It's neutrality policy has never amounted to one of disarmament. One flight of helicopters potentially does the job of scores of armoured vehicles at a fraction of the cost.

I would agree up to the point of saying it comes at a fraction of the cost. Those things ain't cheap, there's a helleva logistical and operational tail following it as well.

Agreed, although that's also true of armoured vehicles

And AH can go 360 where as the Armoured vehicles
are to an extent limited in where they can travel.

I don't know, this looks like fantastic tank terrain to me.

http://braveskimom.com/wp-content/up...s_1247485i.jpg

Slung under a Chinook or in the back of a C17 :O

500
Tactics would dictate that they can't go everywhere. Guess they could go anywhere but would do so at their own peril.

Armoured can't go anywhere.

The other thing to look at is, what if the other side has AH
and you don't, your Amour isn't going to last long having
to combat AH and enemy armoured vehicles.

Given we're talking about the Swiss and a defensive battle from well established positions, the AH on the aggressor side wont enjoy the tactical advantage a dynamic, moving battlefield provides.

Agreed.

And by using the land that they would know so well
to funnel the enemy into Choke Points - I am sure that
many natural one's exist - it all goes in favour of the
defender.

The Swiss have plenty of armour:

Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV)

• Leopard 87 - Leopard 2A4 main battle tank (200 in service)
• M113 armored personnel carrier (600 in service)
• APC 2000 – variant of CV9030 infantry fighting vehicle (200 in service)
• APC 93 – variant of Piranha II 8×8 wheeled APC (500 in service)
• Reconnaissance vehicles 93, 93/97 – variants of Eagle I-II armoured patrol vehicle (300 in service)
• M109 self-propelled howitzer (200 in service)
• Piranha TOW – anti-tank variant of the Piranha I 6×6 (100 in service)

Source: Swiss Armed Forces: Land forces weapon systems (p. 12)

Heavy Lift ambitions
 

Now according to the article below, theres umming and arrghing of pursuing heavy lift capability.within the Swiss circles. I heard rumors last year there was fishing around, but did not look at it seriously.

https://www.watson.ch/!606766127?fbc...X8HX-tjGkYbBaQ