The personal weapons / machine guns

The Swiss Armed Forces, with their proven militia system, made always a strong effort from the beginning to equip themselves with excellent small arms. In doing so, they had to balance needs of the military with those of the very influential Swiss Riflemen’s Association. This led to the famous long range precision of our army weapons from the 1860s to the present day.
Technically, too, the army always endeavored to be at the forefront of the development of small arms. For example, the Swiss Army switched very early for the time to the small 10,5mm caliber and they were also one of the world’s pioneers in the introduction of repeating rifles with the Vetterligewehr of 1869.
The collection shows a cross-section of the arms of the individual soldier. This applies to handguns and rifles and automatic weapons of all types as well as to bladed weapons.