kokovi

Without conscription or some kind of total force concept like in the US, it will stay a joke. How many Jäger and Sicherungsbataillone were part of the structure at the end of the Cold War? 100? 150? If you really want enough units for rear area security, that are the numbers you need to discuss. The current planning is a meaningless joke.

1978 Bundeswehr has probably about 80% readiness of major equipment, 30 days warstocks and starts mobilization on a Friday morning to begin the ground offensive on Sunday morning. 2024 Bundeswehr has about 40% availability of major systems, no available basic ammunition loadouts and no working alarm and mobilization system. It realizes that something is wrong Saturday at lunchtime and frantically tries to get troops back to barracks but has no alarm and mobilization system left. A few hours later the attack starts. A hail of Pershing and Lance ballistic missiles hits the few fighter airfields, air defence barracks and the unhardened major command staffs. 500 F-104s and G.91s race across the border to destroy the remaining 2024 Luftwaffe on the ground and hit the few remaining depots hard. Somehow, a few EF2000 manage to start and to inflict some losses, but as they only have a bit of ammunition for the guns and a pair of Iris-T each, their effect is limited before they get overwhelmed by sheer mass. 1978 1st Airborne Division takes major bridges and key road and railway junctions by surprise. When the ground offensive begins the next morning, 2024 Bundeswehr can muster about 10% combat strength. Luftwaffe was not able to repair the destroyed runways because the required units were disbanded years ago. It also has no missiles and bombs available, as the civil servants running the depots could not be contacted to open the bunkers on the weekend. The few Heer battalions and companies that managed to deploy get obliterated by the 1978 artillery or just overrun by the ca. 3200 tanks and 4000 IFVs/APCs of the 11 armored and mechanized divisions of the 1978 Feldheer. The half dozen frigates and corvettes at sea get overwhelmed by a saturation attack with Exocets and Kormoran 1s from dozens of FACs and F-104s. Two F125 try to sail but get sunk by waiting submarines. The rest of the navy gets caught still in port. Organized resistance ceases on Tuesday. A few remaining isolated remnants of KSK, Kampfschwimmer and Fallschirmjäger get mopped up during the following two weeks. Helmut Schmidt happily accepts Olaf Scholz‘ capitulation on Wednesday. Quantity, preparedness and readiness are really qualities of their own. I believe you really underestimate how many capabilities the Bundeswehr has lost, disbanded and forgotten since the end of the Cold War.

THAT Bundeswehr would probably wipe the floor with today‘s Bundeswehr.

That means buying not only the warheads but subs and missiles from France, too. Only national technology would probably be comms channels.

Never going to work multinational with nukes. Just remember when AWACS was deployed out of area for the first time, one of the governing parties (FDP?) went to the constitutional court in Germany. If you want to have more nukes in Europe without the US, you have to build a multinational procurement organization based on the existing French technology and then operate it nationally, like Germany doubling the French effort and Poland and Italy also buying a few. Politically probably not feasible but that could at least work. Multinational chain of command, targeting and release? Never ever. NATO release is practically US release with also US targeting and some multinational consulting before in peace time.

Germany could have kept more equipment by an order of magnitude while still complying with the CFE treaty.

When the posting of similar video clips started, the battlefield always looked like somewhat open landscape. So despite all the small tactical successes Hamas has shown so far, the fight has progressed into the cities which indicates that Hamas is losing. It reminds me of „Endsieg“ propaganda told of small tactical victories during the strategic retreat from the gates of Moscow to the Reichstag.

This is clearly fake, as I was told this could not be done several pages before, when I mentioned the idea of flooding the tunnels.

That reads like a comprehensive and somehow smart programme. There are aspects included which I doubt your current right-wing government will implement.

Sounds reasonable. Also, if IDF had such kind of access to Hamas communication, why could 7 October happen in the first place? Makes no sense for me.

I have audited shipyards in Asia and I am convinced that Japan and Korea combined could easily win a production race for hulls against the rest of the world incl. China, if they really wanted to. The size and productivity of those facilities is in a league of its own.

If I remember correctly, this is not exactly right. It is the other way round. They are not required to use means proportionate to the advantage, but are forbidden to cause collateral damage which is completely unproportionate to the military advantage. Which is much more lenient toward Israel.

The soil profiles I could find online for Gaza show sand for the first ten meters and massive clay layers in greater depths. So water will destabilize tunnels closer to the surface and be retained in deeper tunnels. So why should it not work?

That is only relevant as long as Israel believes in a low possibility to rescue some of the hostages. If that is no longer the case, they can simply flood the tunnels with water. Simple physics will make this work. You only need enough pump capacity to get this done in a limited amount of time.

Looks like they feel very safe on the entry routes from rocket, mortar and artillery fire, as they were closely grouped together during marching.