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German Armed Forces reduced to 150 000?


m4a1

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It's still incomprehensible to me why this wasn't done 15 months ago. You could see this coming on day five of the special military operation. Except of course, Lambrecht at the time actively sabotaged things from the top.

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Of course, this is after donating artillery munitions to UKR. It's just that, as soon as a donation of artillery shells appeared as a remote possibility, a prudent MOD should have immediately set in motion tentative procurement for a 1:1 replacement of such a donation, for twice, and for four times that amount for the paperwork to be ready the moment that the donation would be decided.

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2 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Of course, this is after donating artillery munitions to UKR. It's just that, as soon as a donation of artillery shells appeared as a remote possibility, a prudent MOD should have immediately set in motion tentative procurement for a 1:1 replacement of such a donation, for twice, and for four times that amount for the paperwork to be ready the moment that the donation would be decided.

According to this source, Germany has donated 24 500 155mm shells to Ukraine, so that implies Germany only had 44 500 155mm shells before the war started...

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I've said it before, I'll say it again. I'm not convinced that the Bundeswehr was run into the ground exclusively by budget-driven ignorance. In the best of cases, I see willful ignorance hard at work, but it could be much worse.

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13 hours ago, Laser Shark said:

According to this source, Germany has donated 24 500 155mm shells to Ukraine, so that implies Germany only had 44 500 155mm shells before the war started...

It is also ironic that when reunification took place the opposite problem was happening. Germany inherited 300,000 tons of ammunition from East Germany...

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10 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I'm not convinced that the Bundeswehr was run into the ground exclusively by budget-driven ignorance. In the best of cases, I see willful ignorance hard at work, but it could be much worse.

I believe that our politicians were and are too stupid to run the Bundeswehr deliberately down. But out of stupidity, lack of an ability to think strategically and a general disdain of the military, yes.

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Normally I would agree, but there are too many other data points that just don't fit. Schröder, and half of the Hanoverian SPD, are effectively assets of the Russian state in Germany. Schröder may no longer be chancellor, but his power base with a large network of supporters hasn't disappeared, and there's just too many people who directly profited from being "in" the circle of Russophiles.

When Sigmar Gabriel became minister of economy, Germany imported 20% of its gas from Russia and was in control of the largest gas storage sites. When he left the office, Germany had sold the storage sites to Russia, and imported 40% of its gas from Russia. These were ministerial decisions made against outspoken warnings about the possible consequences.

When Steinmeier was Foreign Minister, he became apoplectic over the dossier of Putin that listed the possible link of him to the 1999 Apartment bombings, and demanded that this "baseless speculation" be removed from the dossier. While it was certainly his prerogative to dismiss the possibility, the demand for removal clearly crosses a line.

Mützenich as an outspoken radical pacifist didn't become leader of the SPD fraction in the Bundestag because he was isolated. He, too, has an extensive network of supporters, and he pushed "5000 helmets" Lambrecht into the MOD job. And Lambrecht did exactly what he expected of her, to sabotage anything that would make the Bundeswehr capable of what it's for. Mützenich is on the record for his strategy of making wars impossible by sabotaging armies, and he just started with the one at hand.

 

These facts may not be sufficient to disprove the theory of incompetence. But I think that all these people are actually pretty intelligent. Maybe their risk assessment was just shoddy. But Steinmeier wanted the Putin dossier be purged - just because he couldn't handle the cognitive dissonance? Or because he wanted to make sure that people after him would not receive this information?

If it was random incompetence, one would expect that some things would have gone in Russia's favor, but not all of them. Am I convinced that we've been witnessing sabotage from the top? No, I'm not. But I find it shocking enough that I'm seriously contemplating that possibility for more than a year now and haven't dismissed it yet. It should be the premise for a rather ludicrous spy thriller. Except that there's enough supporting evidence that it's no longer ludicrous. I'm not even convinced that it's still far-fetched. And I find the low but decidedly non-zero possibility rather distressing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Bundestag authorized various major and minor procurement items this week, though adding some criticism and conditions on cost. Chiefly, the 60 CH-47F, where the price tag has increased from six to 7.2 billion Euro (not including adaption of infrastructure); the three new ELINT ships to replace the current Oste-class at 3.2 rather than 2.1 billion; 3,000 new digital radios, provided no subsequent compensation claims emerge due to a suit by Thales against the selection of a competitor for the order; up to 3,058 Rheinmetall Caracal air-deliverable vehicles to replace Wolf, Mungo etc. in the airborne forces; and lots of ammunition in 7.62, 30, 120 and 155 mm etc.

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  • 1 month later...
On 10/17/2022 at 7:20 PM, BansheeOne said:

There's finally some information on this. The first step is on the Luftwaffe side and possibly intended to replace the Ozelots they took over from Heer air defense artillery when that branch was disbanded. This calls for four firing units, each of one medium-range and two short-range platoons, each platoon of one command and three launch vehicles. Industry is offering IRIS-T SLM and SLS on GDELS Eagle 6x6 (already in Bundeswehr service as a medium protected ambulance) respectively. The selection was expected to happen this year, but there is some worry as decisions for projects under the 100 billion program have lagged behind plans so far.

A tender for actual mobile air defense was originally planned for 2026. The plan is for ten firing units (attached to the brigade and divisional artillery battalions), each possibly of a command and six effector vehicles. Those might be Skyranger Boxers with a mix of guns, missiles and lasers.

The industry syndicate for V/SHORAD made their Best and Final Offer last week. It includes Skyranger 30, of which an initial 19 could be authorized for procurement by the Bundestag before year's end, and two additional Boxer variants: the fire control vehicle and an IRIS-T SLM launcher.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some additional images of the planned FlaRak Boxer with a bigger missile load. In direct fire as opposed to vertical launch mode, IRIS-T apparently has a twelve kilometer range and eight kilometer ceiling. Radar reportedly from Hensoldt's Spexer series.

Flugabwehrraketenpanzer.jpeg

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On 9/21/2022 at 3:59 PM, BansheeOne said:

Following the pilot Heimatschutzregiment 1 in Bavaria, No. 2 was established in North Rhine-Westphalia in February, also to eventually include seven companies. As of yesterday it seems clear that No. 3 will be in Lower Saxony which lobbied for it; not sure if this will replace or be in addition to the states mentioned earlier, as it appears to include only five companies. Even if this is a sixth regiment, the planned total number of 42 companies should allocate seven of the latter to each though.

Heimatschutzregiment 5 will be established in Hesse in October next year, initially with a HQ, support, and three line companies, one of which ("Mittelhessen") to be newly raised next month. Intended total size is "up to" ten companies with 1,200 personnel though. These may include some of the two from Rhineland-Palatinate, one from the Saarland, and the three from Baden-Württemberg. However, even with several new units planned, we're still short of the announced total 42 companies, so the final organization remains somewhat unclear so far.

At current plans, the distribution is

- HschRgt 1 - Bavaria (seven local line companies)

- HschRgt 2 - North Rhine-Westphalia (five locally planned line companies)

- HschRgt 3 - Lower Saxony (three local, but may include companies from Hamburg and Bremen)

- HschRgt 4 - Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (three planned locally, but may include two companies from Schleswig-Holstein)

- HschRgt 5 - Hesse

- HschRgt 6 - Berlin (one local, but may include companies from Thuringia, Saxony, and two from Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt each).

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/31/2022 at 8:03 PM, BansheeOne said:

- 20.7 billion for C4: Digitalization of Land-Based Operations (DLBO), a Tactical Wide Area Network (TAWAN), extending SATCOMBw, a German Mission Network for deployments abroad, a data center network, more PRC-117G off the shelf.

Ah, the pitfalls of procurement. Last December, the Bundestag authorized 1.35 billion to procure an initial batch of 20,000 Rohde & Schwarz personal and vehicle radio sets, with a particular view to equipping the mechanized division promised to be fully deployable by 2025 with modern comms. Rohde & Schwarz have already delivered a four-digit number. What has not been made so far however is orders for mounting said radio sets in the intended vehicles. Apparently making contracts for about 350 different types of vehicles is a complicated thing ...

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Noone seems to know. There's talk of space and power requirements, cables, sockets and certification for radiation hazards, but more likely it's just administrative inertia of the bureauceatic-industrial complex to issue invitations to tender, chose competitors, and make contracts to actually physically mount the sets ...

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Heer has reportedly chosen the RCH 155 as the wheeled SPH for the medium forces (no surprise there). They want a total of 168, though the available budget of 1.3-1.4 bn Euro so far will only allow for a "middle-two-digit" number. Parlamentary authorization could be requested in the first half of next year, with introduction from 2026.

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