German army short on machine guns arms turrets with broomsticks

[Mycroft]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...h-broomsticks/

Late last year, as the German Bundeswehr was considering rebooting its expensive, failed Euro Hawk drone program, the army of the country with the fourth largest economy in the world fielded its newest armored vehicles in a major military exercise in Norway with broomsticks painted black and lashed in place of missing machine gun barrels. That detail was part of a German Defense Ministry report leaked to Germany's public television network ARD that exposed widespread shortages of basic combat equipment.

According to the report, the Bundeswehr units deployed as part of a test of NATO's Rapid Response Force in September were far from combat-ready: they deployed with less than a quarter of the night vision gear required. The units were also missing 41 percent of the P8 pistols and 31 percent of the MG3 man-portable machine guns they were supposed to deploy with. And none of the GTK Boxer armored vehicles that deployed were equipped with their primary armament—the 12.7 mm M3M heavy machine gun.

The NATO Rapid Reaction Force is supposed to be made up of 4,000 troops and related equipment that can be deployed in times of crisis within 48 hours. The force was assembled as a response to the growing crisis in eastern Ukraine, where rebels alleged to be receiving material and perhaps even direct military support from Russia pushed back the Ukrainian military even as a cease fire was supposed to begin.

I don't think Russia will fear the broomstick.

[blacksmoke]

You don't need weapons to usher in the new era of peace. Besides, that stuff is expensive.

[glebo]

Weapons are oohh soo 20th century.

Now we will create jobs and put bad guys to work so they don't go around shooting folks...

Geeze, they just need to support their families....so sez our State Dept spoke person...

[-Jas-]

This is just the tip of the iceberg (sadly)

The current situation here is just awful. Weak leadership, politicians who still don´t recognize the importance of the armed forces, despite being involved in international crisis operations, the war against terror and facing a classic symmetrical conflict in it´s new and filthy hybrid form in the Ukraine - literally just outside the window.

In recent years Defense Officials introduced a so called "dynamic supply system" which is based on a ridiculous 70% rule.

Those 70% is material and the ludacris thinking is "you can´t possibly need all of your material at the time so we give you just 70% of it and in case you actually need it we take it from other units (which keep in mind also just have 70%)

an example:

a basic german Infantry company would have 18 Boxer APC. So they are given just 13 of them. So basically 30% of all soldiers in the company have nothing to work with - let alone "their vehicle"

This was initially planned for only "main battle technology" like Vehicles, Tanks etc... But is now praticed in general - and mostly underachieved. So in reality a company would only have 50%-70% of all of its material to work with.

And it gets worse. Now this company gets assigned for a tour in Afghanistan or Kosovo they are pulling material from other units to us in their preperation AND tour. This means over the course of about a year and half another unit has to compensate that - leading to an average of 30% of material in that unit...

You see where this is going. We are basically shipping our gear round country all the time and ending with an army mostly doing nothing or assuring those shipments and tiny fractions of it serving tours and pre tour training.

Plus big defense projects are going down the drench - most notably helicopters. The NH90 program is full of flaws. And the appointed new Navy Frigate Helicopter MH90 may be unsuitable for the job overall. Then the stop on the Euro Hawk (Global Hawk derivative) Drone program, the doubtful cost benefit equation on the new navy frigates...

Out of this - I clearly see the silver lining in the broomstick scandal.

Because most people see a missing machine gun replaced with a painted broomstick on a battle vehicle in a NATO Combat Ready Certification Exercise making Germany looking like a 4rd class off off off broadway production more than a lead nation in NATO.

But I see a fine working vehicle that broomstick was put on - and thats something, cause that could have been cardbord too...

[MR2]

Originally Posted by -Jas-

But I see a fine working vehicle that broomstick was put on - and thats something, cause that could have been cardbord too...

I applaud your optimism, but we call that putting lipstick on a pig.

[The Reaper]

Really?

A $900 machine gun that you used to have tens of thousands of? This isn't new procurement. Where did they go?

May be time to break out the MG 42s again.

TR

[-Jas-]

Originally Posted by MR2

I applaud your optimism, but we call that putting lipstick on a pig.

And I call that my form of professional sarcasm - that puts me through every day explaining to my soldiers why we a) don´t have things and b) used to and where it went

@The Reaper

Well basically the MG3 is the MG42. This is like a 2007 Mustang and a 2013 one. Minor changes...

But most of our Weapons are long over their life expectancies. And the fact, that we are still using a lot of them is that Germany, well, um... did not put them into what they were made for the last 60 years too much.

Most of their DOM are like in the late 60´s through early 80´s. And no one thought about a general replacement. We surely expanded our weaponry park within the last 10 years with some really nice models (MG4/MG5/MG6soon) but in low numbers.

What did we do with our working MG3s`? Peshmergah got some. Other countries too. But well the rest just went out of service.

But as I mentioned: It´s just the tip of the iceberg. Another glimpse in the insanity:

We used to have old Mercedes 2to GL trucks as standard, non armoured transport vehicles. Great for training, versatile, reliable, bulky and well you could mount a MG on top with a gunner behind it. So very useful for training purposes. Now this one went out of service too and got replaced by a brand new Mercedes Artego Truck which they just painted olive drab. This one has also the mechanism for mounting a MG on top. But: Due to a "great plan of cost reduction" this vehicle does not belong to the armed forces but is leased/rented from a contractor. And this firm called Bundeswehr Fuhrpark Service (Bundeswehr Carpark Service) wants to resell the vehicles after some time. So they outruled actually shooting from their vehicles. So broomstick alarm all again.

I could entertain you for hours with those things.

[Ape Man]

Originally Posted by -Jas-

I could entertain you for hours with those things.

I for one would be willing to listen. I saw this story all over the place and wondered what the inside scoop would be. I knew the German military was in a sorry state, but I never dreamed it was so bad they were renting their trucks.