Motorboat company

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Patrol boat P-80, with boat trailer, can be quickly moved on the road network

The motorboat company is a unit of the Swiss Army that reports to the engineering troops . The company operates patrol boats on the Swiss border lakes.

history

prehistory

Retreat of the people of Zurich across the lake in the Old Zurich War after the meeting at Pfäffikon in 1440 in the Swiss Chronicle

Due to the rivers and lakes, Switzerland has a relatively long shoreline for a landlocked country , also because Lake Constance and Lake Geneva are among the largest inland waters in Central Europe .

The waterways were mainly used for troop transports, sieges and water-land actions: the Romans used entire fleets of ships to protect these borders, as they did during the naval battle on Lake Constance . In the Old Zurich War , Schwyzer and Zürcher fought several battles and the naval battle near Männedorf for control of Lake Zurich . From 1536 to 1793, Bern had a fleet of gunboats on Lake Geneva.

Neighboring states used warships several times on the Swiss lakes: the struggle for sovereignty over Lake Lugano and Lake Como led to naval wars in the 10th and 11th centuries, and battles took place on Lake Como in the Müsserkriegen (1525–1532). During the Thirty Years' War there were various deployments of Swedish units on Lake Constance during the naval war on Lake Constance from 1632 to 1648 . The city of Zurich had beavers and otters built in 1690, and the warship Neptun was added in 1693 . A fleet of warships was operated for a long time. The ships lay in an arsenal at the "ship's head", with protective buildings even for the large ships. In 1793 the warship Stadt Zürich was launched and served in the following years until it was scuttled at Rapperswil . French pioneers were able to lift the ship and Zurich was forced to carry out the repair work. In January 1798 some of the French troops landed by ship in Nyon and Lausanne . In March 1804, during the Bock War (“Willischer Aufstand”), three city-owned warships (“Stadt Zürich” etc.) sailed from Zürich against the “rebels” near Horgen . In 1810 one last military exercise was carried out with the ship «Stadt Zürich» and shortly afterwards it was canceled.

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War, the Swiss army had no warships . Only after the use of seaplanes ( Heinkel He 59 ) by the German Wehrmacht in the invasions of Norway and the Netherlands in 1940 did the Swiss army command begin to equip private boats with machine guns that had been requisitioned on various lakes.

From 1941 the first ad hoc combat boat, sea transport and sea liaison detachments were introduced in the central area ( Reduit ). In 1942/1943 a military fleet was created that was used on the border and Reduit lakes. With the retreat into the Reduit, a number of inland lakes at the Reduit borders strategically became actual “border waters” (Reduit lakes).

Patrol boat type 41 "Spiez"

The military fleet consisted of two generations of ten with tank rifles (initially Solothurn S18 / 100 , later 24 mm tank rifle 41 ) and machine gun armed patrol boats type 41 of Werner Risch Schiffbau from Zurich and of 50 requisitioned private ships :

«Coastal battery» of the Obere Nas sea barrier with boathouse

The two motorboat detachments on Lake Lucerne were an essential part of the defense system of the Nas lake barrier . The motorboat detachments worked closely with the sea detachments of the pontoon troops, whose main tasks were bank defense and sea transport. For sea transports, the entire civil flotilla with steamships, ferries, nautical and motor boats was included in the transport disposition.

post war period

In 1947, the thirteen motorboat detachments were brought together in the newly founded Motorboat Company 1 (13 trains on nine lakes). The company's target number was 13 officers, 37 non-commissioned officers and 280 soldiers. It was a pull-out unit with militiamen from French, Ticino and German-speaking Swiss who were mobilized with their boat trains on eleven different mobilization sites. The equipment consisted of 55 motor boats, nine to eleven of which were patrol boats, and the armament and personal weapons consisted of 22 machine guns and 55 light machine guns (22 of which were mounted).

During the Cold War , the Swiss “naval forces” remained in place, were expanded, re-equipped and reached a peak. With Army 61 , the motorboat troops were divided into three companies (Lake Constance: Mot Boot Kp III / 47, Lake Maggiore and Lake Lugano: Cp motoscafi V / 49, Lake Geneva: Mot Boot Kp V / 50,), which the corresponding border brigades (engineering departments) were subject. Administratively they were subordinate to the genius and fortress troops. In 1980 they were equipped with ten newly developed P-80 patrol boats (length: 10.94 m, width: 3.28 m). The P-80 was made unsinkable with foam and is protected against total loss when it is full. In addition, a large number of requisition boats were used.

In 1970, the Department for Transport Troops (ATT) set up five specialized motor cargo ship detachments (Mot Lasts Det). They were assigned to the territorial zones and had to ensure the military supply and return transports of the army on five lakes (Geneva, Neuchâtel / Biel, Thun / Brienz, Vierwaldstätter and Zurich) if the road network was disturbed. The private motor barges (Nauen, Ledischiffe ) were called up as requisition ships as required. The "naval forces" of the Swiss Army thus consisted of three complementary troops: the engineering troops with the pontooners, the motor boat companies and the motor cargo ship detachments. In 1994 the Mot Lats Det were disbanded with the last ships on Lake Lucerne. Since 1995 the boat shooters have had their own recruit training in the national languages.

With the Army Reform 95 , the three motorboat companies (Mot Boot Kp 15 Lake Geneva, Mot Boot Kp 43 Bodensee, Mot Boot Kp 96 Lago Maggiore and Lake Lugano) were commissioned to support the territorial divisions and the border guard, to carry out maritime surveillance and ship controls as well as reconnaissance (radar surveillance and news gathering).

Current organization

Swiss flag at sea

The army reform XXI led to a reduction in the number of motorboat companies from 2004 to a single one (Mot Bootkp 10). The motorboat company 10 was used several times in the assistance service for the police, such as in 2002 on the Jura lakes for the Expo.02 , for the G8 summit in Évian-les-Bains in 2003 on Lake Geneva and in 2010 for the Francophonie summit in Montreux .

The motorboat company 10, together with the pontoon battalion 26, is subordinate to the Genie / Rescue training association. It also fulfills tasks for the benefit of the border guard , the police and military security. In military use, the P-80 is equipped with a defensive armament: a 12.7 mm machine gun 64 serves as a front weapon (weapon support on a rotating assembly), a second as a rear weapon (on a rotating column) and seven assault rifles as personal weapons.

The patrol boats of the motorboat company, which patrol inland waters, carry the Swiss flag at sea instead of the usual square national flag, which is also used by Swiss ocean shipping and has an aspect ratio of 2: 3.

The 2016 armaments program included fourteen new patrol boats for 49 million francs. The new boats from the Finnish company Marine Alutech Oy Ab are therefore called Patrol Boat 16 and were handed over to shiptec in Lucerne from 2019 after the final construction. The first training course was completed at the end of October 2019. According to the original plan, all P-80s should be replaced by the road-transportable P-16s by 2021. The patrol boat 16 can transport 15 people, reaches a top speed of 65 km / h thanks to two diesel engines and is equipped with radar, infrared and thermal imaging devices. The boat and crew are armed. Patrol work and rescue of people and property can still be provided. A special lifting platform at the rear makes rescue work easier.

literature

  • Hansjakob Burkhardt: Fortification "Seesperre Nas", infantry and artillery works Ober- and Unter-Nas with sea obstruction at the entrance to the Lake Lucerne entrance gate to the Reduit and the Swiss Navy on Lake Lucerne, deployment of motorboat troops and cargo ship detachments - development and procurement of the P-41 patrol boats and P-80. Fischerdörfli-Verlag, Meggen 2005, ISBN 3-907164-14-8 , new edition: Nidwaldner Museum, Stans 2009.
  • David Bürkli's Zurich calendar: The ship's head at Spitz (Zurich Naval Arsenal)
  • A. Heer: The Navy on Lake Zurich , Zollikon, 1914 ( full text online )
  • Thomas Hulliger, patrol boat P-16 (history and technical data of the patrol boats), in Wave magazine, issue 22, 2017, ISSN 2296-3464 ( online PDF 12.1 MB )
  • B. Knell: War fleets on Lake Zurich , in Oldtimer Times, issue 32, February 1996, publisher: Oldtimer Boot Club Zürich, pages 2 to 5 (online PDF 1.1 MB) ( Memento from August 30, 2019 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Motorboat Company  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerold Ludwig Meyer Von Knonau: The canton of Zurich historically, geographically, statistically , Volume 2, Huber, St. Gallen & Bern, 1846, pages 301, 304-305 ( full text online )
  2. ↑ Anthonius Werdmüller: Memorabilia Tigurina, or oddities of the city and landscape of Zurich , Volume 2, Orell, Geßner, Füßli, Erni & Co., Zurich, 1820, 1846, page 289. ( full text online )
  3. ^ Association of Regional Historical and Weapons Technical Army Museum: "History of the Swiss Navy" ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ On the German side of Lake Constance, the gunshots were confiscated by the German Wehrmacht only a few days before the start of the war and, like five other civilian Lake Constance ships, equipped with anti-aircraft cannons . The other requisitioned passenger ships remained unarmed with civilian crew. The customs border patrol boats were only lightly armed. See Lake Constance Shipping in the Second World War .
  5. ↑ Historical naval archives: In 1940, 84 operational He 59s served as transporters for attack troops and equipment in the combat group zbV 108 for the invasion of Norway. On May 10, 1940, 12 He 59s of the 3rd Combat Group zbV 108 flew into the port of Rotterdam to invade the Netherlands and occupied the port. ( Memento of March 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ History of the patrol boat URI ( Memento from June 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Association IG URI, 1995
  7. ↑ a b c Hansjakob Burkhardt: Fortification "Seesperre Nas", infantry and artillery works Ober- and Unter-Nas with a sea obstacle at the Lake Lucerne entrance gate to the Reduit and Swiss Navy on Lake Lucerne, use of motorboat troops and cargo ship detachments - development and procurement of Patrol boats P-41 and P-80. Meggen 2005, 2nd edition: Nidwaldner Museum, Stans 2009.
  8. ↑ Today's "Inland Navy". LVB Genius & Rescue. In: Explorer. Troop newspaper Aufkl Bat 4. No. 3, 2012, p. 3, digitized version (PDF; 1.6 MB) ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).
  9. ↑ Dealing with flags, standards and fanions. (Flag regulations). Regulations 51.340 d. 2008, digitized version (PDF; 11.4 MB) ( memento from November 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
  10. ↑ Army Message 2016 (Armed Forces Payment Framework 2017-2020, Armaments Program 2016, Real Estate Program VBS 2016) , database of the Federal Assembly
  11. ↑ DDPS : Armaments Program 2016 ( Memento from July 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 6, 2016
  12. ↑ Patrol boat P16 with prototype P41 "Uri" with wooden deck, series boat P41 and current boat P80
  13. ↑ Thomas Hulliger, Patrol Boat P-16 , pages 50-54.