German Armed Forces reduced to 150 000?

[Simon Tan]

Helicopters are pretty useful. Certainly many users in the Middle East Wars seem quite keen on them. Syrians, Iraqis, Russians, Americans, Saudis, Emiratis and Turks are all using them heavily for both combat and utility purposes. Of course in the case of Germany nothing is actually particularly necessary since the Americans are there for now.

[Panzermann]

On topic: Seems like a lot of the Bohikans retired...

No BO-105 in service anymore. flyout was last october. Although a relatively cheap proposal had been on the table for overhaul and modest upgrades to keep them 10 to 15 years longer in service. the frames are in surprisingly good condition. The last Huey flew last year as well. And as inflexible as Bundeswehr personnel planning is the pilots are mostly pensioned by now together with the lack of helicopters to crew.

 

---

BBC Radio4's take on current german military matters and policy and how awkward the relation has always been between populace and its army: Germany: Reluctant military giant?

 

pretty much sums up the situation and how it came to be.

 

 

edited to add quote

Edited June 12, 2017 by Panzermann

[Simon Tan]

Then Germany should bankroll other militaries with equipment and money.

[seahawk]

 

On topic: Seems like a lot of the Bohikans retired...

No BO-105 in service anymore. flyout was last october. Although a relatively cheap proposal had been on the table for overhaul and modest upgrades to keep them 10 to 15 years longer in service. the frames are in surprisingly good condition. The last Huey flew last year as well. And as inflexible as Bundeswehr personnel planning is the pilots are mostly pensioned by now together with the lack of helicopters to crew.

 

---

BBC Radio4's take on current german military matters and policy and how awkward the relation has always been between populace and its army: Germany: Reluctant military giant?

 

pretty much sums up the situation and how it came to be.

 

 

edited to add quote

 

 

I meant the crews. Seems most of the experienced Bohikans were not sent to Tiger conversion. A fault that seems to be made the Hueys too. (a big fault there because the SAR role needs a lot of experience and the replacement helicopter might be only used for this role)

[lastdingo]

Helicopters are pretty useful. Certainly many users in the Middle East Wars seem quite keen on them. Syrians, Iraqis, Russians, Americans, Saudis, Emiratis and Turks are all using them heavily for both combat and utility purposes.

 

None of them have a fight against the Russian military as the only not totally unrealistic defence scenario.

[seahawk]

Yet the Tigers are actually fighting at the moment in Africa.

[Dark_Falcon]

Yet the Tigers are actually fighting at the moment in Africa.

 

That's different from fighting an enemy with a strong air-defense force protecting its ground units. The Tiger could only have value in such a role if they were available in sufficient operation numbers, a situation which Germany can't seem to get them to be in. If they are only available in ones and twos, then the most they could do against an attacking Russian force would be to take down a few attacking Russian gunships before being overwhelmed. Thus LD's view that Germany's Tiger helo force is not currently useful for deterrence or the defense of the Fatherland.

 

It's worthy noting also that LD also said "that helicopter", not "helicopters in general". Gunships have their place in battle against peer or near-peer foes, but only if a nation has enough of them to deploy them in reasonable numbers and then replace some of the inevitable losses.

[lastdingo]

Yet the Tigers are actually fighting at the moment in Africa.

Not the German ones, which are very different (they are rather tank destroyers than soft target attackers) from the French ones. The German ones don't have a gun after the BWB tried some fancy recoilless design but ultimately didn't buy any.

German UH Tiger have

• Trigat LR or HOT ATGMs
• Hydra rockets
• Stinger AAMs
• edit: and some 50cal gunpod

 

Yet the Tigers are actually fighting at the moment in Africa.

That's different from fighting an enemy with a strong air-defense force protecting its ground units. The Tiger could only have value in such a role if they were available in sufficient operation numbers, a situation which Germany can't seem to get them to be in. If they are only available in ones and twos, then the most they could do against an attacking Russian force would be to take down a few attacking Russian gunships before being overwhelmed. Thus LD's view that Germany's Tiger helo force is not currently useful for deterrence or the defense of the Fatherland.

 

It's worthy noting also that LD also said "that helicopter", not "helicopters in general". Gunships have their place in battle against peer or near-peer foes, but only if a nation has enough of them to deploy them in reasonable numbers and then replace some of the inevitable losses.

 

 

Actually, I am most concerned about air defences and fighters. Great numbers would not help much in my opinion.

 

 

pro survivability

• Attack helicopters may survive enemy fighters if they enjoy air superiority and enemy fighters are thus rarely in range. They may simply land and become very hard to detect shortly after warned by the air force / AEW.
• They appear to have enough countermeasures these days to survive the tiniest of SAMs.
• The Russians have not yet (as far as I know) non-line of sight air defences (no lock on after launch missiles like VL MICA) and no NLOS (infrasound) detection devices like Helispot
• Tigers don't use actively emitting mmW radars.
• The fire&forget missiles allow for a short exposure of the platform.
• The mast-mounted sensor allows for a small exposure of the platform.
• Many SAMs would be dodged by seeking concealment/cover after missile approach warner was triggered.

 

contra survivability

• The Russian line of sight battlefield air defences appear to be the best of the world.
• The helicopters would risk getting shot up by autocannons and machineguns everytime they are not fully informed about the situation on the ground and dared to fly where no friendlies are on the ground.
• They are rarely to see enemy tanks at long ranges in Eastern European terrain for a long duration.

 

contra lethality

• The IIR-guided fire & forget missiles lose their lock-on when the enemy breaks line of sight by movement or multispectral smoke/aerosols.
• They are rarely to see enemy tanks at long ranges in Eastern European terrain for a long duration.
• No guns in German Tigers, so they can pick on small & targets much less.

 

My overall opinion is that already few such attack helicopters can provoke costly counterinvestments in air defences (which already happened without the Tigers due to the Apaches & Mangustas in NATO), restrict the freedom of movement of the opposing forces and force the opposing forces to expend a lot of multispectral smoke to screen movements and as soft kill APS. Attack helicopters are hugely lethal unless countered by equipment and tactical behaviour, similar to anti-radar missiles.

Beyond that level (which was given without the Tiger program already) I simply think that the very expensive attack helicopters are cost-inefficient because attack helicopters that face lots of countermeasures won't achieve much any more.

 

Now I understand one may easily disagree with this assessment, and ultimately there was no real test against the Russian countermeasures ever. We know that Apaches were shot up by rather low tech Iraqi air defences when they became too bold and we know that Apaches/Super Cobras can slaughter enemy forces if they enjoy a technology overmatch.

 

My point is really that I'd rather like to see a tank battalion with modern MBTs or an artillery battalion with modern SPGs (and lots of munitions in storage) than a dozen modern AHs in service.

There are very few doubts about the survivability and lethality of SPGs compared to the same characteristics of attack helicopters.

________

 

I deride the German Tiger program in particular because the Heer (German army) lied about it so much.

They knew that a program that was already considered extremely expensive in the late 80's and was focused on Warsaw Pact tank hordes would face cancellation in the 90's and made up the bollocks of Luftmechanisierung (air mechanisation) in which an 1900's sci-fi-style flying army was floating in the air and shooting up enemy forces. The fake doctrine went so far as to include NH90 as transport, command nodes and resupply platforms so the helicopter armada would somehow fly and fight detached from friendly ground forces and even dare to operate hundreds of km forward of friendly ground forces. They dropped this fake and bollocks doctrine once they had the purchases of the helicopters secured. Now we have attack helicopters with teething problems that would be great in an early 1980's battlefield, but air defences improved (in quality) well beyond that.

We should have bought a few dozen Super Cobras in the 80's. That would have been much cheaper.

Edited June 13, 2017 by lastdingo

[Panzermann]

The UHT Tiger has ,50" pods with FN M3M machine guns! It has gun!

 

And they plan to integrate the laser guided 70mm rockets.

 

 

They should just have kept the Hinds that came for free as dowry and modernized those, but those threatened the PAH-2 (as it was known then) of course. IMHO.

 

---

 

 

 

On topic: Seems like a lot of the Bohikans retired...

No BO-105 in service anymore. flyout was last october. Although a relatively cheap proposal had been on the table for overhaul and modest upgrades to keep them 10 to 15 years longer in service. the frames are in surprisingly good condition. The last Huey flew last year as well. And as inflexible as Bundeswehr personnel planning is the pilots are mostly pensioned by now together with the lack of helicopters to crew.

---

BBC Radio4's take on current german military matters and policy and how awkward the relation has always been between populace and its army: Germany: Reluctant military giant?

pretty much sums up the situation and how it came to be.


edited to add quote

 

 

I meant the crews. Seems most of the experienced Bohikans were not sent to Tiger conversion. A fault that seems to be made the Hueys too. (a big fault there because the SAR role needs a lot of experience and the replacement helicopter might be only used for this role)

 

 

I understood that you meant the crews.

 

As the BO-105 left service and according to plan lots and lots of Tigers were already there the Personalamt (personnel department) did plan accordingly, that is new pilots are trained for the Tiger, the old ones fly on the BO-105 until finish and then either they go into staff positions or pension and the private sector. Same with the huey pilots. NH90 was planned to be already delivered and in service in numbers and the huey pilots fly the UH-1D till finish. Remember, the NH90 started delivery in 2009. NOT.

 

The SAR for the Bundeswehr hospitals is to be done with leased civilian helicopters AFAIK. Those may be better for peace time use, but the idea of providing SAR to the general public was originally to train SAR crews for war time. Makes totally sense to use a totally different helicopter for that.

 

 

And don't get me started that there hasn't been a dedicated mountain flyer regiment (or the mountain division in general) for a long time. Lots of expertise lost about flying the Alps. At the same time when Germany was more and more engaged in Afghanistan...

Edited June 13, 2017 by Panzermann

[lastdingo]

There were IIRC something of a dozen or two dozen brand new Mi-24 in service, purchased in the last days of the DDR. I thought in the 90's that they were the obvious choice for CSAR and threat simulation.

German article on the topic
http://augengeradeaus.net/2017/06/militaerische-staerke-der-bundeswehr-weiter-keine-trendwende/

178.304 soldiers last month

(including 20,324 women who I suppose are still especially in the medical sector - I've heard some hysterical comments about women in the Bundeswehr that implied a much greater role)

 

Bundesministerium der Verteidigung: 994
diesem unmittelbar nachgeordnete Dienststellen: 2.015
Streitkräftebasis: 40.662
Zentraler Sanitätsdienst: 19.814
Heer: 60.568
Luftwaffe: 28.271
Marine: 16.173
CIR: 197
Bereich Infrastruktur, Umweltschutz, Dienstleistungen: 964
Bereich Ausrüstung, Informationstechnik, Nutzung: 1.563
Bereich Personal: 7.083, davon 4.276 Studierende an den Bw-Universitäten

 

ministry: 994 (this is planned to be enlarged a lot)

agencies directly subordinated to the ministry: 2,015 (I think BND and the procurement agency are in here, soon also the MAD)

support branch 40,662 (logistical support, outsourced from army, navy and air force in the 90's)

medical branch 19,814 (way too many considering the size of the overall force)

army: 60,568

air force: 28,271

navy: 16,173

CIR: 197 (I don't know what this is, could be the 'cyber' branch that's under construction)

infrastructure, environmental protection, services: 964

equipment, IT: 1,563

personnel affairs: 7,083 including 4,276 students at the military's own two universities (this is part of the 12 year officer career)

 

I suppose this is too much medical affairs and too much navy.

[seahawk]

 

Yet the Tigers are actually fighting at the moment in Africa.

Not the German ones, which are very different (they are rather tank destroyers than soft target attackers) from the French ones. The German ones don't have a gun after the BWB tried some fancy recoilless design but ultimately didn't buy any.

German UH Tiger have

• Trigat LR or HOT ATGMs
• Hydra rockets
• Stinger AAMs

 

 

 

The German ones actually: http://www.flugrevue.de/militaerluftfahrt/kampfflugzeuge-helikopter/erster-tiger-einsatzflug-in-mali/722188

[lastdingo]

They're there, but operational readiness is questionable and I have not yet seen any report about "fighting".

[Chris Werb]

Just heard through the Flurfunk ("corridor radio") that there are 18 (eighteen) full combat ready and deployable pilots for the Tiger attack helicopter at the moment. 123 positions of which only 62 are filled and 18 fully ready.

 

I would be surprised if they have anything approaching 18 serviceable airframes, so there is no problem. Before you think I'm being glib, the Conservatives recently announced that only 38 of our 67 Apaches would be upgraded to E models. They had previously cut the force to 50 and put the other airframes in storage.

[Dark_Falcon]

 

Just heard through the Flurfunk ("corridor radio") that there are 18 (eighteen) full combat ready and deployable pilots for the Tiger attack helicopter at the moment. 123 positions of which only 62 are filled and 18 fully ready.

 

I would be surprised if they have anything approaching 18 serviceable airframes, so there is no problem. Before you think I'm being glib, the Conservatives recently announced that only 38 of our 67 Apaches would be upgraded to E models. They had previously cut the force to 50 and put the other airframes in storage.

 

The way the announcement was worded, it did not preclude a follow-on order to upgrade the other 12 in service AH-64s. So that may still happen.

[Panzermann]

 

 

Just heard through the Flurfunk ("corridor radio") that there are 18 (eighteen) full combat ready and deployable pilots for the Tiger attack helicopter at the moment. 123 positions of which only 62 are filled and 18 fully ready.

I would be surprised if they have anything approaching 18 serviceable airframes, so there is no problem. Before you think I'm being glib, the Conservatives recently announced that only 38 of our 67 Apaches would be upgraded to E models. They had previously cut the force to 50 and put the other airframes in storage.

 

Upgrading? I thought that they would buy new off the american production line, because rebilding the exosting WAH-64 costs too much?

 

The way the announcement was worded, it did not preclude a follow-on order to upgrade the other 12 in service AH-64s. So that may still happen.

 

[Chris Werb]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/boeing-remanufacture-38-apache-helicopters-uk/

 

This is what our Colonial cousins refer to as "weasel words" by our government - off hand I can only think of one example of our order for something exceeding the initial one significantly - the C-17. That was driven by operational requirements and delays with the A400. The WAH-64D is not currently deployed on operations. I would not be surprised if "in storage" means "being stripped of useable parts". Apaches of any flavour are fabulously expensive to own and operate, so I would not be surprised if they were to come in for more than their fair share of cuts.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Forgive me if im misremembering, but wasnt the argument that we didnt need so many MBT's come down to the idea we had 67 Apaches?

 

Is there ANYONE in Whitehall noticing whats happening in Eastern Europe, or are they still channelling their inner Chamberlain?

[lastdingo]

Apaches are no substitute for MBTs when one's facing Russian battlefield air defences anyway.

 

And I don't think the UK is really thinking of its army as one for Eastern Europe.

In the event of conflict in the Baltic the UK would in my opinion

- see its contribution to the composite tripwire battalions be annihilated or withdrawing

- call up army reserve, but not deploy it

- send its paras, commandos and Royal Marines to Norway where they are welcome, and rather safe

- deploy the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade to Poland, it might fight in Kaliningrad Oblast, in NE Poland or (unlikely) in Lithuania

- deploy the bridge engineers in Germany to the Vistula in Poland, which might be critical

- deploy two armoured infantry brigades to Poland, securing Warsaw and waiting for the bulk of NATO forces to arrive

-----------

- send the RN surface fleet out to join a minimum of two USN CVNs in the North Atlantic (out of respect for Russian air power around Murmansk)

- send the SSNs to the area of Murmansk

- send all SSBNs on patrol

-----------

- deploy some Typhoons to Germany for air combat only

- keep many Typhoons and all Sentries at home for home air defence

- send Tornado GR4 to Germany as ALCM slingers only till the bulk of NATO's air power arrived

 

Overall, it would be a contribution of some forces to the hot spot, but likely many forces would be in rather safe places, even at home.

The land and air forces aren't really good for much more, an aggressive employment of land forces weeks after a conflict began would be rather pointless because the Baltics would be occupied by then anyway and whatever HQ is in charge of the theatre would no doubt build up overwhelming strength and try an air campaign first before launching a ground offensive up to Tallinn.

 

--------------------------------

 

I think as of now the German response would look very similar (save for the nuclear-powered subs, of course).

[Gregory]

And MBTs are not a substitute for fighter planes when facing Russian artillery. You must've noticed that tanks have suffered significant casualties when faced with artillery bombardment. It's always rock-paper-scissors - each weapon system has vulnerabilities which must be minimized by it's owners and exploited by opponents.

[lastdingo]

And MBTs are not a substitute for fighter planes when facing Russian artillery. You must've noticed that tanks have suffered significant casualties when faced with artillery bombardment. It's always rock-paper-scissors - each weapon system has vulnerabilities which must be minimized by it's owners and exploited by opponents.

 

The problem is that Apaches are the paper to the Russian battlefield air defences' scissor and there isn't enough ESM and arty to bring a rock into this.

 

The Russians have those battlefield air defences anyway because of our strike fighters and because of path dependency.

Western tanks have pretty good chances to avoid artillery fires by staying either mobile or hidden and pretty good chances to avoid Russian airpower -rotary and fixed wing- because of Typhoon/Rafale/F-22 + Meteor/MICA/AMRAAM reaching far enough into the Russian battlefield air defence umbrella.

 

It was obvious that the way to go for defence was post-Cold War fighters + SPGs + MBTs + infantry in good quantity, all qualified for Baltic year-round operations.

 

The confidence in attack helicopters stems from early 70's experiments that did not simulate Shilkas or even Tunguskas properly (SPAAGs were represented by M163 VADS!) and got the whole "helicopter as tank killer" concept mainstreamed and from beating up near-defenceless Arabs and Pashtu.

[Gregory]

 

And MBTs are not a substitute for fighter planes when facing Russian artillery. You must've noticed that tanks have suffered significant casualties when faced with artillery bombardment. It's always rock-paper-scissors - each weapon system has vulnerabilities which must be minimized by it's owners and exploited by opponents.

 

The problem is that Apaches are the paper to the Russian battlefield air defences' scissor and there isn't enough ESM and arty to bring a rock into this.

 

The Russians have those battlefield air defences anyway because of our strike fighters and because of path dependency.

Western tanks have pretty good chances to avoid artillery fires by staying either mobile or hidden and pretty good chances to avoid Russian airpower -rotary and fixed wing- because of Typhoon/Rafale/F-22 + Meteor/MICA/AMRAAM reaching far enough into the Russian battlefield air defence umbrella.

 

It was obvious that the way to go for defence was post-Cold War fighters + SPGs + MBTs + infantry in good quantity, all qualified for Baltic year-round operations.

 

The confidence in attack helicopters stems from early 70's experiments that did not simulate Shilkas or even Tunguskas properly (SPAAGs were represented by M163 VADS!) and got the whole "helicopter as tank killer" concept mainstreamed and from beating up near-defenceless Arabs and Pashtu.

 

 

True - which means that helicopters will be used in situations where Russian battlefield air defense is suppressed/occupied with other things (like fixed wing threats)/destroyed via other means/not present. If such situations will practically never occur, I would agree with you that helicopters are useless, but I don't think this will be the case.

[lastdingo]

Keep in mind the officers in charge of the attack helicopter force have incomplete situational awareness. They won't know if Russia air defences are incapable of resistance or just waiting in ambush without emissions.

 

There are passive non line of sight sensors (such as Heliospot) which alert in time about enemy helicopters without the need to radiate anything. This may be a secondary function of Russian counter-arty sound ranging (and mast-mounted counter-arty flash spotting sensors may be used to triangulate helicopters as well).

 

IMO the result is that the Apache force would get a bloody nose, repair/scavenge what's left, and then be very careful.

They would probably hover over friendly forces or hunt for armoured recce and such, but they wouldn't be a main AT force that justifies its great expenses during peacetime.

[JWB]

Modernly Heligunships are only really useful in ambush.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Apaches are no substitute for MBTs when one's facing Russian battlefield air defences anyway.

 

And I don't think the UK is really thinking of its army as one for Eastern Europe.

In the event of conflict in the Baltic the UK would in my opinion

- see its contribution to the composite tripwire battalions be annihilated or withdrawing

- call up army reserve, but not deploy it

- send its paras, commandos and Royal Marines to Norway where they are welcome, and rather safe

- deploy the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade to Poland, it might fight in Kaliningrad Oblast, in NE Poland or (unlikely) in Lithuania

- deploy the bridge engineers in Germany to the Vistula in Poland, which might be critical

- deploy two armoured infantry brigades to Poland, securing Warsaw and waiting for the bulk of NATO forces to arrive

-----------

- send the RN surface fleet out to join a minimum of two USN CVNs in the North Atlantic (out of respect for Russian air power around Murmansk)

- send the SSNs to the area of Murmansk

- send all SSBNs on patrol

-----------

- deploy some Typhoons to Germany for air combat only

- keep many Typhoons and all Sentries at home for home air defence

- send Tornado GR4 to Germany as ALCM slingers only till the bulk of NATO's air power arrived

 

Overall, it would be a contribution of some forces to the hot spot, but likely many forces would be in rather safe places, even at home.

The land and air forces aren't really good for much more, an aggressive employment of land forces weeks after a conflict began would be rather pointless because the Baltics would be occupied by then anyway and whatever HQ is in charge of the theatre would no doubt build up overwhelming strength and try an air campaign first before launching a ground offensive up to Tallinn.

 

--------------------------------

 

I think as of now the German response would look very similar (save for the nuclear-powered subs, of course).

 

And awful lot better than spitballs, which is about what we have.

 

We wont send 3 armoured brigades to Europe. We cant. The current go force is a single Brigade that would take over a month to deploy. Its not clear if that includes the forces we already have there or not, but I cant really see us deploying more than a battalion of Challengers at a time before we update them. That is, assuming we ever do get our thumb out our recess and update them, which is probably not at all certain.

 

We cant send all the SSBN's out on patrol at the same time either, short of replenishing them at sea which we have not planned to do for a generation. And besides, the Vanguards are getting old now. Its probably getting as hard to keep them operational at the end of their lives as the Resolution class were. We WILL be rather better off in SSN's when we finally retire the last of the Trafalgars and get the last of the Astutes into service, which is still some years away. 2023 IIRC?

 

Its a mess. And the claim that one party is better at defence procurement than the other in Britain is hollowly exposed. They all treat it as a sweety jar they can delve into at will to pay off their fiscal mistakes.

[lastdingo]

I suppose people are underrating how quickly Western forces would deploy in wartime.

I bashed NATO for its ludicrous NRF and VJTF myself, but things change in wartime.

 

Fighters that are declared non-operational in peacetime because 'this and that black box doesn't work and there's some weird vibration' would be sent into combat missions in wartime.

SSBNs would be sent out at sea, even if they weren't cleared for no more than 10 kts and no greater depth than 100 m. That's still better than keeping them in port, possibly attracting a nuke strike.

And there's no way the brigades would need 3 months to deploy to Eastern Europe except the material that's on different continents at the time.