Brief history of the Swiss Army Navy

Small patrol boats were deployed on the Swiss lakes from 1941 to cover the access to the “alpine reduit”. These boats were relatively heavily armed and were quite fast at 38 km per hour. In 1980 they were replaced by 11 more modern patrol boats 80. One each of the 1941 and 1980 patrol boats are on display fully equipped.

Pontoons made of wood for bridge building were used by “pontooners” as early as the 1870s, who founded the traditional sport of pontooning. The Swiss Army still has pontoon troops assigned to the engineer corps.