Neutral country, own arsenal

Neutral Switzerland learned long ago that in a crisis it might not be able to buy arms abroad, so from 1863 it built its own state workshops: ammunition plants at Thun and Altdorf, a weapons factory in Bern, the Federal Construction Works at Thun and, from 1943, the Federal Aircraft Factory at Emmen. After the Cold War, budgets shrank, and a 1997 law allowed these departments to become companies. RUAG, short for Rüstungsunternehmen Aktiengesellschaft, formally began work on 1 January 1999. At the start, the Swiss armed forces bought 86 per cent of its output.

Hornets, Dorniers and Airbus fuselages

RUAG diversified hard. At Emmen it maintains the Swiss Air Force’s F-5s and F/A-18s, and 32 of the 34 Swiss Hornets were built by RUAG. Its aerostructures arm became a major Airbus supplier, delivering more than 9,000 A320-family fuselage sections by 2020. In 2003 it bought the type certificate of the Dornier 228 and launched the 228 NG, certified in 2010, with airframes from HAL in India and final assembly at Oberpfaffenhofen. In 2008–09 it bought Saab Space and Oerlikon Space to create Europe’s largest independent space supplier.

Hacked, split and sold

Then came the hack. A cyber-attack running since 2014 became public in 2016 and reached into federal government systems. In 2018 the Federal Council decided to separate RUAG’s Swiss defence work from its international business. RUAG AG now serves the Swiss armed forces; RUAG International sold the Dornier 228 and its MRO business to General Atomics Europe in 2020, its ammunition arm to Beretta in 2022, and its aerostructures in 2023–24, keeping the space business, Beyond Gravity.

المصانع

• إيمن · Emmen military airfield, Lucerne — Military aircraft maintenance and F/A-18 assembly
• أوبربفافنهوفن · Oberpfaffenhofen, Bavaria, Germany — Dornier 228 NG final assembly and A320 fuselage sections