Artillery plant forest fire
Map with all coordinates: 
The artillery plant Waldbrand (Army designation A 1880) of the Swiss Army is located in the area of the municipalities of Beatenberg and Sigriswil on the right bank of Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland . The facility consists of the two plants Waldbrand and Artillery Plant Legi (A 1880-L) in the rock face of the Niederhorn above the village of Merligen . The plant belonged to the operational area of the 3rd Division and from 1947 to the Reduit Brigade 21 . The facility was built in 1941–44 and decommissioned in 1998; the AW Legi was dismantled in 2005.
history
The impetus for the construction of the plant was given by the new army position in the Reduit ordered by General Guisan (Operation Orders No. 11, 12, 13). The 3rd Division (Bern Division) was withdrawn from the Limmat position and moved from the Fricktal to the new operational area on both sides of Lake Thun.
By order of March 1941, the 3rd Division formed the division artillery groups (Div Art Gr) I on the right and II on the left bank of Lake Thun. The forest fire facility was assigned to Heavy Motorized Cannon Division 4.
During the Cold War , the facility was operated by fortress department 14 (later received number 24) and finally by units of fortress artillery department 15.
The fortress was disarmed with Army 95 and decommissioned at the end of 1998.
construction
The work was a troop work. It was not planned and implemented by the office for fortifications (BBB), but by the genius office of the troops deployed there (3rd division). Forest fire was designed as a cavern facility for mobile artillery. So that the mobile guns could circulate with their heavy towing vehicles, an access tunnel with a large profile had to be planned. Construction began in March 1941 and in June 1942 access tunnels, ammunition caverns and four of eight notches had been excavated. In August 1942, after the first lever mounts, which had been tested in the Hentschenried test stand , had been delivered and ammunition had been stored, the factory could have provided fire support during the war. The actual readiness for fire took place in February 1944.
The expansion of the command wing, dining room and bedroom were started in August 1947. In 1948 all eight 10.5 cm cannons 35 L42 were installed on the existing lever mounts.
In the 1960s, the facility was modernized to its current level. In 1986/87 ventilation and AC protection installations were retrofitted.
Armament and infrastructure of the fortress
The main entrance is below the street from Beatenberg towards Sigriswil. The gun chambers can be reached from the main gallery, which hugs the rock face in an arch. Five 10.5 cm 1935 L 42 cannons on lever mounts are installed in the front part and three in the rear part of the system. In between are the accommodations and the infrastructure part. Between the infrastructure and the rear guns is the access tunnel to the Legi plant, which is around 90 meters higher.
- Eight gun batteries each (Waldbrand and Legi) with their own observer in an elevated position
- six ammunition or charge magazines
- Gun stands with fresh air blower instead of collective gas masks
- Main gallery 400 m
- three six-cylinder diesel engines (Saurer) for emergency power
- small kitchen for both plants (three tilting kettles and one tilting frying pan)
- five drinking water reservoirs for 500,000 liters of drinking water (100,000 liters in 1942, a daily reservoir halfway up the Legi plant generated the necessary pressure in the pipes)
- nine officers 'rooms and non-commissioned officers' wing (51 beds)
- two team rooms (66 and 34 beds)
- Crew wing (main bedroom 111 beds, total 450 men, 1942 = 266 men)
- Medical wing (8 officers 'beds and 14 soldiers' beds)
- Operating theater, bathtub, tea kitchen
Legi Artillery Plant
The Artillery Works (AW) Legi (army designation A1880-L) was supplied from the Waldbrand works 90 meters below it (shared kitchen). The command of the AW Legi was in the AW forest fire. The transport was carried out either with the wounded transport tram for two people or over 517 steps. For heavy material (ammunition, etc.), a funicular was built from Grönstrasse after the two tunnels in the direction of Sigriswil (half of the tracks were underground).
The armament comprised eight 15 cm field howitzers 16 L14 on lever mounts. It was operated by the 24th Heavy Field Howitzer Regiment. The fire was coordinated centrally from the Heinrich command post .
The infrastructure consisted of four ammunition magazines, an emergency exit, accommodation for 96 soldiers and 12 NCOs, a fire control center, a ventilation room, a material magazine and a water reservoir with 10,000 liters. The plant was disarmed in the late 1980s and dismantled by the end of 2005.
today
In 2007, the private buyer, Fortress Museum Waldbrand AG, received a permit for the conversion of the artillery plant in Waldbrand as a fortress and military museum.
In the large original rooms, in addition to the original fortress infrastructure, army material (army vehicles, weapons collection) related to the fortress is shown. There are fixed tour dates according to the fortress museum website and group tours by appointment. On the western edge of Beatenberg (field name Waldbrand) an inconspicuous forest path leads down from the Dorfstrasse directly in front of the entrance to the artillery fortress Waldbrand ⊙ . Car park coordinate: 624 191/171 389.
literature
- Hans-Rudolf Schoch: The artillery plant forest fire as well as Legi and Schmockenfluh . Volume no. 5 of the series "The 3rd Division in the Reduit". Frutigen 2014.
Web links
- Oberland Fortress: A1880 Artillery Plant Forest Fire
- Oberland Fortress: A1880L Artillery Plant Legi BE
- Jungfrau Zeitung of August 4th, 2008: Large run on weir systems. Successful first Oberland Fortress Day: Fischbalmen infantry plant, forest fire artillery plant
- Jungfrau Zeitung of August 3, 2009: Last shots with blind ammunition in 1978. In the forest fire artillery plant, the reduit lasted until 1995 .
- Jungfrau Zeitung from May 6th 2011: A village in the rock. Out and about in the forest fire artillery plant in Beatenberg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Waldbrand Fortress Museum: History of the complex ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Funiculars: 3658.02 Sigriswil Grönstrasse - Artillery Works Legi
- ↑ Fortress Oberland: A1880L Artillery Works Legi
- ^ HS publications: publishing house for publications on Swiss fortifications, bunkers and fortresses, Frutigen
Coordinates: 46 ° 41 '39.8 " N , 7 ° 45' 4.9" E ; CH1903: six hundred twenty-three thousand nine hundred and twenty-one / 171510