Swiss army's 1985 training video teaches ambushes better than most war films

Swiss army's 1985 training video teaches ambushes better than most war films

In 1985, at the height of the Cold War, the Swiss army filmed an instructional video on infantry tactics that is now circulating online and that, according to one participant in the discussion, is more realistic than much of today's war cinema. The footage shows how to set up an ambush, carry out a raid, build field fortifications and coordinate supporting fire with a precision that, decades later, still turns heads. This is not a history documentary: it is military training material, filmed so that a Swiss recruit could understand how to defend terrain that, on paper, no one has invaded since the Napoleonic era.

The discussion this video has sparked —along with the two that trinc it, one from 1972 about channeling enemy units and another about counterattacks— goes far beyond military nostalgia. It touches on the real viability of Swiss defense, the role of a militia army, the cost of weaponry and the uncomfortable question: what is all this preparation for if the country has never had to use it?

What exactly the Swiss training video shows

The footage, filmed in German with instructions repeated for French speakers, details infantry procedures that in 1985 were considered vital for containing a hypothetical Warsaw Pact invasion. The video explains how armored units would be reserved for the central plateau, while heli-borne troops and paratroopers would be deployed in mountainous areas. In other words, Swiss doctrine was not about planting tanks in every valley, but about using the terrain to channel the enemy and strike where it hurts most.

Individual weaponry also comes up. The Stgw 57 assault rifle, the Swiss army's standard weapon for decades, is cited at a price of around 5,000 euros per unit on today's market, according to a comment in the thread. A figure that, for many enthusiasts, explains why Switzerland keeps a small but extraordinarily well-equipped army. The comparison with a high-end mobile phone —1,300 euros— comes from a comment made with a wink, but the objective fact is that Swiss military equipment has never been cheap.

The myth of the citizen soldier: between Athens and Sparta

Switzerland is probably the only European country where military service is still compulsory for all male nationals, and where the reserve remains active for years. That mix of direct democracy and military discipline has led to the country being described as a strange combination of Athens and Sparta. The video reinforces that image: soldiers who are not professionals, but who know in detail how to defend their terrain.

That said, not everyone buys the story. Some argue that a militia army, however well trained, would not withstand much more than a few months against a serious conventional invasion. And some go further: if the country has never been invaded since Napoleon, perhaps it is not because of the effectiveness of its defenses, but because no one has been interested in sending troops into terrain that is, literally, a death trap. Swiss neutrality, in that sense, has been as much a foreign policy as a strategic calculation.

What is all this preparation for if there is never a war?

The question runs through the entire discussion. Switzerland has not taken part in an armed conflict since the Napoleonic invasion, and some see in that fact proof that the army deters enough. Others, however, interpret it as a sign that the country has known how to bend to the interests of the powerful when necessary. The tradition of Swiss mercenaries —the Swiss Guard of the Vatican is the best-known example— shows that the Swiss have known how to sell their military skill when it suited them.

What the video does not resolve is the underlying question: how do you measure the effectiveness of an army that has never fought? Training exercises, however well filmed, are not war. And military history is full of examples of countries with large armies that fell within weeks. Swiss defense, with its bunkers under every building and its impossible terrain, may be a unique case. Or it may be a relic of the Cold War that no one dares to question out loud.

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The 1985 video keeps circulating because it shows something war films rarely capture: war as procedure, not as epic. That is its value. And there the analysis ends, because the question of whether Switzerland would withstand a real invasion remains unanswered. No one has put it to the test.