German Armed Forces reduced to 150 000?

[seahawk]

But AKK did actually a good job.

[Markus Becker]

Stop confusing me with facts! 😉

Seriously, well done and power to her. In the environment* she was working.

*=🐷

[Angrybk]

16 hours ago, Ssnake said:

In the heart of Europe is a ravaging war. This gave me an opportunity to gain special impressions and to meet many and great people. For that, I want to express my gratitude.

 

Lol ok that’s pretty bad!

[kokovi]

47 minutes ago, seahawk said:

But AKK did actually a good job.

She even tried to streamline the organization back to some sort of working entity but that was instantly stopped by Lambrecht.

I think Boris Pistorius is neither the best nor the worst choice. At least he is a leader who fought for our state police both against treasury and the left wing of his own party.

Edited January 17, 2023 by kokovi

[seahawk]

And so quickly that one has one to doubt Lambrecht ever cared to look at the work done.

[Markus Becker]

News from the broken dpwn Pumas. All but one could have been fixed by the army itself in 30 minutes if:

- they had the parts

- they had enough mechanics 

- and ones trained for the lastest Puma version

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Markus Becker

[BansheeOne]

While I don't agree with everything in this recent "Spiegel" analysis of the Bundeswehr's problems, and there are some outrights errors as usual, the parts about leadership reform quoted below ring mostly true.

Quote

The Bad News Bundeswehr

An Examination of the Truly Dire State of Germany's Military

Last February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the country was going to invest substantially in its military. But not much has happened since then. And now Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has been replaced. DER SPIEGEL takes a closer look at what is ailing the Bundeswehr.

By Matthias Gebauer und Konstantin von Hammerstein

17.01.2023, 12.48 Uhr

Shortly after this story went to print, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht submitted her resignation. It was announced on Tuesday that she will be replaced by Boris Pistorius, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) who is moving to Berlin from Lower Saxony, where he was the state's interior minister.

[...]

The Culprits

The search for the politicians responsible for today's mess quickly leads to two Lambrecht's predecessors, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg and Thomas de Maizière of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) respectively. Why? The reforms pursued by the two former defense ministers, both of whom were installed by Chancellor Angela Merkel during her long tenure at the top, broke the back of the Bundeswehr. That, at least, is the assessment of most military officers who witnessed the drama at the time. Indeed, compared to Guttenberg and de Maizière, their verdict of Lambrecht's direct predecessor, Ursula von der Leyen, is almost favorable.

[...]

It was left to De Maizière to complete what his predecessor had set in motion. Within the Bundeswehr leadership, many believe to this day that his reforms were the nail in the military’s coffin. De Maizière reduced the armed forces to a kind of modular kit from which contingents for foreign missions were thrown together from various units.

Divisions, brigades and battalions remained in existence on paper, but they were equipped with only a fraction of the necessary materiel, which in turn became increasingly obsolete due to budgetary constraints. The units that were scheduled for deployment had to scrounge up equipment from the entire Bundeswehr. "Width before depth" was the new motto, and the shuffling back and forth of the few tanks and howitzers was celebrated as "dynamic availability management."

He also rebuilt the lines of responsibility at the Defense Ministry, with disastrous consequences. Previously, there had been two central controlling bodies in the Defense Ministry. The Armed Forces Staff reviewed whether or not the ministry’s guidance served to improve or maintain the readiness of the armed forces. And the Inspector General's Staff served as the key military advisory body to the defense minster.

The political counterpart was the Planning Staff, which former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had introduced back in 1969 when he was defense minister. The Planning Staff was designed to steer the huge military apparatus politically and, not unlike a mine-sniffing dog, detect conflicts early and, if possible, defuse them.

De Maizière abolished both staffs. Since then, the Defense Ministry has effectively been incapable of leadership. Germany is likely the only country in the world with a military that isn’t led by a general staff or a comparable military body. Should a crisis arise, officials would first have to call around to determine who was going to take charge.

The inspectors were ousted from the ministry and shunted off to the commands of the individual branches of the armed forces. And even there, they no longer have much of a say – not even over the use of their unit’s equipment. That responsibility lies with the Bundeswehr's procurement authority in the city of Koblenz. When the chancellor decides to contribute a Patriot anti-aircraft battery to Ukraine, the air force inspector is lucky if he doesn't find out about it from the newspapers. He and his counterparts in other branches of the military are anyway rarely asked for their advice, unless they thrust themselves into the debate.

To the outside world, the inspector general is still the face of the force, but in reality, his domain only includes three of the ministry's 10 departments. The other seven report to the two state secretaries, who are career officials and not political appointees. As a result, there are now at least three centers of power inside the Defense Ministry, each of which is primarily interested in warding off encroachments from the others. A joint management body worthy of the name does not exist.

That means that when the personnel department, which report's to Lambrecht's State Secretary Margaretha Sudhof, issues a new personnel directive to the Bundeswehr, the news may only reach the inspector general by chance. And this despite the fact that his are is directly affected.

This permanent power struggle has paralyzed the ministry. Because the individual areas are blocking each other, new special staffs are constantly being created at the periphery. They are supposed to solve what the apparatus is no longer capable of doing. In reality, though, they merely serve to exacerbate the ministry's dysfunctionality, which increases with each new parallel body. The ministry long ago stretched beyond its target size of 2,500 employees. Well over 3,000 people now work in the bloated ministry.

Among de Maizière's legacies are the Bundeswehr's three monster agencies: one for personnel, one for procurement and one for infrastructure, environmental protection and services. Taken together, many thousands of civil servants and soldiers there are busy harassing the troops with a tightly meshed network of absurd regulations.

The grain-size for sand in shooting ranges is specified, for example, while limits for the exposure to gunshot gas in the combat compartment of infantry fighting vehicles are bickered over so that the threat of "amniotic fluid damage to the female Puma crew" can be strictly ruled out.

Regulators require that gangways on new warships must be as wide as those on civilian ships. Now, you can walk past each other with "two walkers without any problems," as one naval officer scoffs. Meanwhile, though, the Bundeswehr is no more combat ready than it used to be. On the contrary.

The armed forces have lost their core competence over the years as they have become completely bureaucratized: combat. Within the administration, combat isn't even a relevant category – except, that is, when it comes to dealing with the next closest department.

The administration thinks in terms of processes, not results. The most important thing is that decisions be made in accordance with the rules. Every civil servant knows that mistakes can slow down a career and that a project well done doesn't necessarily guarantee further advancement. Instead, risks are eliminated to the degree possible. And time plays no role in the equation.

This combination of regulatory frenzy coupled with risk aversion is stifling the Bundeswehr. Systematically, responsibility has been shifted from the bottom up to anonymous large-scale authorities. In the past, it was up to a battalion to decide who would be promoted to lance corporal. Today it is the Personnel Office of the Bundeswehr that makes that decision.

[...]

An Unbudging Minister

Defense Minister Lambrecht is in favor of changes in the forces, but she has categorically rejected major reforms. "We can't preoccupy ourselves for a long period of time with a sweeping general overhaul or be incapacitated for even a short time," she wrote in her daily orders to the troops in mid-December, "so there will not be a single 'major structural reform.' All organization units and locations will be retained."

The Bundeswehr apparatus understood it as a request to sit back and relax. That's what Scholz's "watershed" looks like if Christine Lambrecht has her way. She prefers to "turn the small screws" rather than the big wheel. Otherwise, the order of the day, which Inspector General General Zorn had to co-sign, was so brimming with self-praise that many commanders refrained from reading it out to the troops as is customary practice.

Lambrecht has now been in office for more than a year. To this day, though, it is unclear where she wants to go with the Bundeswehr. How should the force be position for the new threat environment? Which capabilities should be strengthened, and which should be dispensed with? How does the minister envision the division of duties with the NATO allies? Is the army the most important, or the navy, the air force or possibly the cyber force? What does she want? Lambrecht hasn't answered these questions yet.

[...]

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-bad-news-bundeswehr-an-examination-of-the-truly-dire-state-of-germany-s-military-a-df92eaaf-e3f9-464d-99a3-ef0c27dcc797

[BansheeOne]

On 1/17/2023 at 3:14 PM, BansheeOne said:

Yeah, it could have been worse. Not my first or second choice, but at least an experienced (albeit state) minister who has dealt with (albeit domestic) security and has some (albeit fleeting, as an 80s conscript) acquaintance with the Bundeswehr. By his whole record he's not afraid of a good fight to get things done, and as some note, at 62 he doesn't need to mind a career beyond. He'll need to deliver pretty much instantly though.

One month into his spell, the one thing you can say about Pistorius is that his communication is like night and day to Lambrecht's. It remains to be seen what actual changes, if any, will follow his assertive statements, but at least you sense he actually knows what he's talking about, which alone is a 100 percent improvement. Among the points he has brought up:

- Agrees with his NATO colleagues who have suggested that the two-percent spending goal of GDP should become a minimum rather than an aspiration; for starters has demanded that ten billion should be added to the regular defense budget of 50 billion as planned for the next few years, regardless of the 100 billion extra funds.

- Kicked off a debate about bringing back conscription or a general civic service; though his own position is one of reluctant realism, and legal and political hurdles speak against it, at least there is broad public awareness building for the persistent manpower problems of the Bundeswehr.

- Seems intent on tackling the organizational problems noted in the last post, bringing back a plans staff at and slimming down the Ministry of Defense from its current bloated size of 3,000, reforming procurement organization and process, etc.

[Ssnake]

If he manages to instill a new spirit of results-orientation rather than focusing on the flawless execution of dysfunctional processes, that alone would be worth it.

Add restocking of spare parts and consumables, and full equipment for every brigade, and we might actually end up with a Bundeswehr that would have the potential to become as good as many of its members currently seem to think it is.

[Rick]

May be hard to answer, but do other N.A.T.O. armies believe  the Bundeswehr is capable of repealing a large armored attack and/or counter attacking the same entity?

[Ssnake]

The Bundeswehr is absolutely capable of doing that - for two or three weeks. Equipment and training are good. The burraucracy is terrible, but would not necessarily hamper the military action as such. The boys CAN fight, they could without a major breakdown during the Good Friday battle, with no prior experience of company...battalion scale engagements that would last a whole day. So, training and doctrine are solid, abd if equipped adequately you'll get adequate results.

 

It's just, there isn't ENOUGH - spare parts, ammo, some brigades are only partially equipped with their main combat systems, encrypted radios, NVGs.

[txtree99]

The truth about Germany’s defense policy shift

A year after Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a sea change in German defense, Berlin’s security policy is the same as it ever was.

 

 

https://www-politico-eu.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.politico.eu/article/germany-zeitenwende-defense-spending-nato-gdp-target-scholz-ukraine-war-russia/amp/?amp_js_v=0.1#webview=1&cap=swipe

[BansheeOne]

Not a bad analysis.

[BansheeOne]

Also:

Quote

What happened to the German military's €100 billion fund?

Ben Knight

2 hours ago

A year ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to upgrade the Bundeswehr with a massive one-off fund. Critics say not much has happened since.

Just over a year ago, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the German parliament that is likely to define his chancellorship — and he was barely two months into it. The "Zeitenwende" speech (literally "turning of the times"), a response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was built on the announcement that the German military would receive a special one-off fund of €100 billion to be upgraded.

On June 3, the center-right opposition in the Bundestag joined forces with the ruling parties to change the constitution and allow the additional debt — an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Federal Republic.

Since then, Scholz's center-left coalition has been dogged by broadsides from the conservative opposition and critics who say Germany's troops have not benefited from this windfall. "The Bundeswehr has tremendous deficits, and the Zeitenwende hasn't even started in it," Roderich Kiesewetter, foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper on Monday. "The military has lost a year and is barer than it was at the start of 2022."

In response, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, head of the Bundestag defense committee and a member of the governing coalition's Free Democratic Party (FDP), remarked pointedly to the Deutschlandfunk public radio station that, in the 16 years the CDU had occupied the Defense Ministry under Angela Merkel, "nothing at all" had been done to modernize the army.

She then listed what she said were the government's achievements of the past year: new orders of F-35 fighter jets and heavy transport helicopters from the United States and a new digitalization drive to modernize the forces.

For its part, the Defense Ministry says €30 billion of the €100 billion has already been earmarked for major purchases. There has been some criticism from European allies, and within Germany, that so many big orders have been placed in the United States, though ultimately most of the special fund is likely to stay in Germany, which has a strong weapons industry.

And anyway, Strack-Zimmermann said, €100 billion isn't something that can easily be spent in a year. Manufacturing sophisticated new equipment takes time. The first eight F-35s, for example, are expected to be delivered in 2026 (they will initially stay in the US while Bundeswehr pilots are trained), with the remaining 27 to be delivered by 2029. Some goods, like new digital communication equipment, will be available more quickly, while others will take even longer.

Dwindling pile of money

Time is pressing. Economic forces are eating away at the €100 billion. Rafael Loss, a defense specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told DW that the original estimate was that only €8 billion of the special fund would have to go toward the interest payments on the loan that the government had taken out. Now, thanks to rising interest rates, that estimate has gone up to €13 billion. So that leaves €87 billion of actual money to spend.

On top of that, there's inflation, dollar-euro exchange rates, and the value-added tax, all of which mean that, once all the extra costs have been covered, only about €50 to €70 billion will be left over to spend on actual hardware. "The longer you have this money sit around somewhere, the longer factors like inflation and interest payments have to eat away at this pile," Loss said.

To some extent, Loss agrees that the government could have acted quicker. "In some ways, last year was a lost year for the Bundeswehr," he said. "But the new defense minister (Boris Pistorius) seems to be pushing for a lot of things to happen on accelerated timelines, like the replacement of the Leopard tanks."

[...]

The procurement ecosystem

Loss said the complexities of procurement remained an issue that defies easy fixes: "It's a very complex ecosystem between parliament as the budget holder, the Defense Ministry, procurement agencies and the armed forces."

After the Cold War, he said, the Bundeswehr settled into a culture in which speed was not a priority. "There was an enormous risk aversion to doing anything wrong and spending maybe a little bit too much money on things to get them through the procurement pipeline faster," he said.

On top of that, Loss thinks that the regional interests of Bundestag members often played a part in how procurement decisions were made — with Bavarian politicians pushing for Bavaria-based aviation companies to win contracts, for example. "This leads to budget processes being less oriented towards military needs," said Loss. "I suppose in the US they would call this pork-barrel politics."

In other words, Scholz's famous "turning of the times" involves turning around the colossal ocean tanker that is the German military, its culture and its bureaucracy. Even one year isn't enough to do that.

https://www.dw.com/en/what-happened-to-the-german-militarys-100-billion-fund/a-64846571

[seahawk]

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/germany-asks-switzerland-to-sell-back-some-leopard-2-tanks/48329132

Germany wants some Swiss Leopard 2s

[BansheeOne]

On 8/8/2022 at 6:11 PM, BansheeOne said:

So we finally get a 2027 target structure. For the first time it depicts full Dutch-German Army integration with NL 43rd Mechanized Brigade assigned to 1st Panzer Division as it already is, but also 13th Infantery Brigade to 10th Panzer and 11th Airmobile Brigade to Division Rapid Forces, which also takes over GER Mountain Brigade 23. There are some other expected novelties, and some unexpected.

The current "standard" mechanized brigade organization with three mech and one Jäger battalions, long questioned, are changed to pure mech and motorized infantry brigades. All previous Jäger battalions seem to be designated "wheeled grenadiers", suggesting at least partial equipment with the Boxer IFV variant, three battalions to a brigade. Every mech and motorized infantry brigade gets an artillery battalion, tracked or wheeled respectively, which will also develop air defense capabilities.

Reassignment of units for the 2027 target structure will start on 1 April (yeah, it's a foolish date). Mountain Brigade 23 will switch to Division Rapid Forces; Panzer Brigade 21 receives Jäger Bataillon 91 and 423 and loses Panzergrenadier Bataillon 212 to Panzergrenadier Brigade 37, which in turn loses Panzer Battalion 363 to Panzer Brigade 12.

[kokovi]

9 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Reassignment of units for the 2027 target structure will start on 1 April (yeah, it's a foolish date). Mountain Brigade 23 will switch to Division Rapid Forces; Panzer Brigade 21 receives Jäger Bataillon 91 and 423 and loses Panzergrenadier Bataillon 212 to Panzergrenadier Brigade 37, which in turn loses Panzer Battalion 363 to Panzer Brigade 12.

I think the structures of Panzerlehrbrigade 9, Panzerbrigade 12 and Panzergrenadierbrigade 37 make sense. The rest is weird, especially the hodgepodge of support elements above brigade level and wheeled air defense elements for tracked forces. That will be really interesting in unfavorable terrain.

And the mix with NL will be a logistical nightmare for everything except main weapon systems.

[Harold Jones]

This just randomly occurred to me and I figured this thread would work as well as any to ask it. Do any current German units have names in addition to their numbers?  

Fake edit: I just answered my own question.  I have a badge from the Bayreuther Jäger https://www.flickr.com/photos/bayreuther_infanterie/ which was our sister unit when I was in 1/2 ACR.

[Ssnake]

Generally, no.

[BansheeOne]

There are a few (?) more "Jäger"-named battalions, like Panzergrenadierbataillon 371 "Marienberger Jäger". But generally, only brigades started being named for their basing areas from the late 80s.

Meanwhile, recruiting seems to recover somewhat from the COVID impact. Last year, 18.775 new troops joined the Bundeswehr (9.171 on contract, 8.623 short-timers and 981 homeland protection volunteers); that's about twelve percent more than 2021, but still below the last pre-COVID number of 20.170 in 2019. Compared to the last, the share of women rose from 15 to 17 percent, and 17-year-olds from 8.5 to 9.4 percent.

The latter is controversial, as some on the political Left have long campaigned for Germany to adopt the "straight 18" additional protocol of the UN Childrens' Rights Convention, which would forbid those below that age to enlist, rather than just to be deployed. The current government has that aim in their coalition agreement - while at the same time intending to lower national voting age to 16; a contradiction which is going to get them in trouble with the conservative opposition whom they will need in the chamber of states for the latter.

OTOH, as usual in times of tension, numbers of conscentious objectors also went up in 2022 because "I never thought there was a chance I'd actually have to serve in a war". There were alarmist reports of "five times more soldiers refuse service over Ukraine war", citing a number of 1.080 over about 210. However, nearly 600 (compared to just 23 in 2021) of the applications were "pre-emptively" by people who had never served, but feared they would be caught up in a re-installation of the suspended draft (and some 130 of them turned out to not actually be eligible if that was the case).

Another 266 were from reservists (compared to ten the previous year), and only about 220 from active soldiers (compared to about 190). Then again, others are revoking their earlier objection now, some publicly in media articles - though given that almost all of them would have objected before the suspension of the draft in 2011, many are probably of an age where they can be reasonably certain they'll not be drafted before Putin rides a bear across the Oder. So it's pretty much virtue signalling on those guys' part, even if you think it's good virtue signalling.

There was a related recent YouGov survey somewhat scandalized as "only eleven percent of Germans prepared to defend the country in case of attack". More precisely, five percent of respondents across all age groups above 18, and of both sexes, said they would volunteer to fight; another six expected to be conscripted. Eleven said they would volunteer to help by other than military means (this was particularly mentioned by those over 60), while 33 said they would try to keep living their life as usual, and 24 that they would leave the country as quickly as possible (stated by more of the younger than the older respondents).

Unsurprisingly, those who already know how to use guns (23 percent of respondents) were more than twice as likely to volunteer to fight. More surprisingly (but then again maybe not given current politics), Green voters were also more inclined than those of other parties; as were men compared to women. Of course the overall impression remains that more than half of Germans would try to avoid being inconvenienced by an attack at best they could, including by fleeing the country.

Then again, disregarding detailed distribution between ages and genders, just five percent out of 30 million citizens estimated fit for military service volunteering would be 1.5 million. Add six percent willing to follow conscription, and you're at 3.3 million - compared to a current military strength of 183,000, a cap of 370,000 mandated by the Two-plus-Four Treaty on reunification, and a combined East and West German strength of ca. 660,000 during the Cold War. I think we're gonna be okay.

[Harold Jones]

The propensity for people who are morally opposed to war to join the army during peacetime has always slightly baffled me.  When my unit was activated for ODS we had one person who discovered that not only was he the sole support for his mother but that he was also opposed to all wars.  Didn't hurt my feelings to see him left behind when we deployed.   He was out of the army by the time we got back.  When the NG and Reserves were activated for OIF there were a fair number of quotes from newly professed pacifists along the lines of "I didn't think we'd ever get called up, I just joined for the college money.." I had to ask myself what they thought the guns they all learned to shoot were for.

[BansheeOne]

We first experienced that at the same time when a squadron of Alpha Jets, some Roland and Hawk etc. were deployed to Turkey in Operation Ace Guard to defend NATO territory against a possible spillover of ODS. About 50 personnel from one involved Luftwaffe missile wing alone found that the possibility of an actual shooting war was not part of their personal life plan.

[BansheeOne]

Also:

Quote

Most Germans want compulsory military service return — poll

11 hours ago

Compulsory military service was suspended in 2011. A recent survey suggests 61% of Germans want it reintroduced, with over a third saying it should apply to women as well as men.

The majority of Germans want to restore compulsory military service, which was scrapped in 2011, a survey revealed on Thursday, as war on the European continent between Russia and Ukraine drags on for over a year.

The survey was conducted by the Paris-based Ipsos MORI group, a multinational market research and consulting company. It polled 1,000 eligible voters aged between 18 and 75 nationwide. 

The poll revealed that 61% of the respondents were in favor of reintroducing compulsory service.

Furthermore, 43% believed that compulsory service should apply to all genders, while the remaining 18% said it should apply but only to men, as was the case under the now-defunct law. 

Earlier this year, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius fueled the debate when he said that, in his opinion, "it was a mistake to suspend compulsory military service."

How do the numbers play out among different ages and genders?

The polls showed that older people who would no longer face military service were much more likely to support the idea than younger people who still might. 

In the 60-75 age bracket, support was most pronouned, with 47% in favor for all and another 18% saying it should be reintroduced for men only. 

Among respondents aged 18-39, meanwhile, 39% supported reintroduction for all and another 21% supported it for men only. 

In no age group did more than one in three respondents voice a strong aversion to the idea, which might come as a surprise in a country known for a pacifist streak since its defeat in World War II.

Men were also more likely to say military service should apply to both sexes equally, at 49% of respondents, while 36% of women argued for this, with the idea therefore not achieving majority support among either group. 

[...]

https://www.dw.com/en/most-germans-want-compulsory-military-service-return-poll/a-64935279

[seahawk]

I must say, it would be good. Not only for the armed forces but also for the social services and also for the young people. The time in the Bundeswehr or the social alternatives, were useful to find out your strength and weakness and people left more mature than they were before.

[BansheeOne]

I agree in principle, though I've always rejected the "school of the nation" idea as a justification for the draft; it's a nice side effect, but the overall reason can only be the needs of national security. I don't think we're quite where necessity trumps the drawbacks yet - the regular training of major numbers of short-serving recruits ties up lots of ressources, and since international missions outside NATO won't go away, you're back to a two-class army with specific all-volunteer formations for that.

Personally I'll wait for another four years or so to see how recruiting turns out to develop en route to the 2031 target. If the planned structures can't be filled even with the ongoing buildup of reserves, and the current threat level continues, we may well face the choice to go back to a 240-250,000 strength that looks like the minimum for a sensible application of general conscription. If additional things happen, like the US suffering an aggravated relapse into Trumpism, it might not even be much of a choice.