Foppa Grande fortress

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Entrance to the fortress (left)
10.5 cm tank turret cannon Foppa Grande
Foppa Grande armored turret cannon without barrel camouflage

The Foppa Grande fortress (army designation A 8370) is a Swiss artillery plant on the south side of the Gotthard Pass in the canton of Ticino . It is located at 1540  m above sea level. M. at the entrance to the Tremola on the old Gotthardstrasse above Motto Bartola. The plant, built in 1940, was released from secrecy in 1997 and dismantled and renovated as the Foppa Grande Historic Site in 2003 .

history

In 1929 Italy had built a road on the San Giacomo Pass , which is only 14 kilometers away (as the crow flies) from the south portal of the Gotthard railway tunnel . The heavy artillery guns of the Italian artillery moved in ominous proximity to the central fortress of Gotthard. A reinforcement of the fortifications Forte Airolo , Fortress Motto Bartola and Fort Hospiz , built between 1886 and 1894 and outdated , was considered urgent.

From 1935 to 1939, the Swiss Army built the San Giacomo blockhouse, the Grandinagia artillery plant, the Manegorio artillery bunker, the Foppa Grande artillery plant and San Carlo . In 1941, the artillery fortress Sasso da Pigna was built, which was equipped with 15 cm cannons.

The relatively small AW Foppa Grande was built very easily as a single tower. Later it was also used as a training fortress for the Airolo arsenal and was continuously expanded and improved. Fortress Company III / 6 fired the two fortress guns for the last time in their repeat course in 1994.

In June 1997 the work was declassified and recognized as a historical work worth preserving. The AW Foppa Grande can only be visited by appointment and in groups.

Mission and military importance

Together with the large artillery works Sasso da Pigna, San Carlo, Gütsch, Bäzberg , Fuchsegg and Grimsel of the Gotthard central fortress , the AW Foppa Grande had the task of blocking and maintaining the Gotthard axis.

After the end of active service , General Henri Guisan wrote in his report to the Federal Assembly in 1946 in connection with the Réduit formation in 1940 :

“ From now on, the three great fortresses (Sargans, Gotthard and St. Maurice) no longer appeared to be just mighty barricades of valleys or strategically important directions. They became the main pillars of the overall plan between which we could erect others; and one of them, the Gotthard, became the citadel, that is, the core of the strongest and longest resistance, and at the same time the central command post for the Alpine crossings over which we had to keep control. "

- Henri Guisan

plant

Initially, the plant only comprised a large cavern for ammunition, operating facilities and accommodation with 21 beds. The advantages of the location were the proximity to the other fortress troops in the Motto Bartola barracks and a high level of operational readiness due to the lower, southern location, which used to be snow-free.

Armament

The artillery was equipped with a modern 10.5 cm armored turret cannon, model 1939 L52 , with which the fortresses St. Gotthard (10 pieces), St. Maurice (2 pieces) and Sargans (10 pieces) in World War II from 1939 to 1944 were populated.

Foppa Grande was able to cover the area all around (360 º) with an effective range of 18 to 22 km with artillery fire. The shots ranged in the Leventina to Faido , on the San Giacomo Pass in the Italian Formazza Valley to Ponte below the Tosa Falls , in the Goms district to Ulrichen , in the Reuss Valley to below Wassen , on the Oberalp Pass to Sedrun and on the Lukmanier Pass to over the top of the pass.

Three 20 mm anti-aircraft guns model 38 W + F on a base mount were used for air defense. There were neither infantry obstacles nor fixed systems for external defense. As a deception, a 10.5 cm dummy tower was created on the rocky hill 50 m west of the tank turret.

During the Cold War there were two fortified mortar 8.1 cm 1956/60 "Foppa 1" (A 8389 Swiss coordinates 688.05 thousand  /  153799 ) to do so. In 1961, the Eidgenössische Waffenfabrik Bern (W + F) developed the 12 cm twin fortress mine launcher 59, with an all-round effective range and a firing distance of around nine kilometers.

Fortress Company

Before the Réduit decision of July 12, 1940, the new fortress Foppa Grande, which was under construction, was put into operation by the fortress artillery company 16 (later fortress company 16 or fortress company I / 17 and fortress company III / 6).

literature

  • Thomas Pfiffner: On a high bastion. Fortress Brigade 23 , in: The San Giacomo.
  • Silvio Keller, Maurice Lovisa: Military monuments in the canton of Ticino , ADAB inventory of military monuments, EMD, Bern 1996.
  • Ziegler Peter: 100 Years of the Gotthard Fortress, 1885–1985, publisher fortress brigade 23, Andermatt 1986.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fortress hiking trail No. 9: Object 03 Artillery Fort Foppa Grande A 8370 , Fortificazioni Ticinesi
  2. ↑ Foppa Grande Artillery Plant
  3. ↑ Simona Martinoli and others: Guida d'arte della Svizzera italiana , (ed. GSK), Edizioni Casagrande, Bellinzona 2007, ISBN 978-88-7713-482-0 , p. 146.
  4. ↑ Thomas Pfiffner: On high bastion. Fortress Brigade 23 , in: The San Giacomo.

Coordinates: 46 ° 32 ′ 5 "  N , 8 ° 34 ′ 58"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-one  /  154353