Tanks For Nothing, Vlad

January 4, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, History, Hurt Feelings Tags: Armament, Arms Buildup, Crimea, Fulda Gap, Germany, Leopard 3, Military, Putin, Russia, Tanks, Ukraine, War Leave a comment

The end of the Cold War didn’t necessarily mean the end of war between big countries, and Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine undermines the notion that a quiet Europe is forever free from war. And modern warfare means tanks. Germany recently bolstered their current arsenal of tanks by buying and upgrading 20 Leopard 2A7 tanks acquired from the Netherlands, though originally from Canada.

Upgrading old tanks is fairly routine and accounts for the dangers of the present. Developing a new advanced tank, instead, is a bet on the future. In August, German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), makers of the current versions of the Leopard tank, merged with French defense company Nexter. Speaking to the merger, KMW CEO mentioned the idea of a Leopard 3 tank, noting that France has a strategic perspective that stretches decades into the future. In October, when the budget committee of Germany’s parliament put together their draft of a 2015 spending bill, the proposal to develop a new tank was quietly noted, and then debated in an independent German armed forces journal.

German Soldiers Build Schools

December 30, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Afghanistan, Bundeswehr, German, Germans, Germany, Kill Lists, Military, Soldiers Leave a comment

And roads. And they train the police and only do the things that other bad soldiers won’t do because they reek of goodness and niceness.

And of course they also select insurgents to be placed on “kill lists” when nobody else is looking (so the bad soldiers can kill them later). But still.

A so-called “Target Support Cell” was based at the German headquarters of Mazar-e-Sharif. The group’s mission was, according to the report, “to collect information for the nomination of individual targets.”

The Dirty Dozen

December 11, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Bundeswehr, German, Germans, Germany, Iraq, ISIS, Islamists, Military, Peshmerga, Terror Leave a comment

No, not the movie. That’s the number (12) of German “troops” currently active in Northern Iraq training Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Just sending weapons all the time was starting to get a little peinlich (embarrassing) for everybody – even here in Berlin – so this bold military move needed to be undertaken to prove to the rest of the world that, well, I don’t know what this was supposed to prove.

And now get this: Word is out that Angela Merkel’s government may now even want to surge big time and send more than 100 trainers more.

But don’t worry another invasion of Poland or anything just yet: Under German law, any military deployment abroad requires parliamentary approval, but this mission may require more than a simple parliamentary vote. The Defence Ministry fears it may require a change in the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, Bild reported quoting an unidentified ministry source.

Right. The Germans will change their constitution for this? Hey, it’s better to have a dirty dozen than no dirt at all.

Bundeswehr: An Army Of One?

December 1, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Army, Bundeswehr, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Military, Recruiting, Service, Slogans 2 Comments

No, not one as in officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted.

One as in one big waste of time. A Bundeswehr Strong waste of time.

Germany Launches U.S.-Style Military Recruiting Center in Berlin

German Police Academy II?

October 23, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Afghanistan, Arms exports, Germans, Germany, Iraq, ISIS, Kurds, Military, Police, Terror, Weapons Leave a comment

Word is out that Germans will “most likely” provide military training to Kurdish groups in northern Iraq.

That’s cool, I guess. But we can only hope that these trainers won’t be as ineffective as those who just spent ten years training Afghan police forces and failed miserably at it.

German officials have been training police in Afghanistan for a decade, but a visit to their training center in Mazar-e-Sharif creates major doubts about the effectiveness of the mission. Afghan police remain poorly prepared to tackle the mighty challenges they will face as Western forces withdraw.

Ineffective and Unsustainable: Failure Threatens Afghan Police Training Mission

And In Other News: Germany Unable To Deliver On Its NATO Promises

September 28, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Bundeswehr, Defense, Germany, ISIS, Military, NATO, Russia, Ukraine Leave a comment

Ain’t no big deal. It’s not like NATO partners could ever get attacked or anything.

And besides, it’s not the Bundeswehr’s fault. “Industry” let them down again (or the lack of it?).

Germany could not currently fulfill its NATO commitments in the event of an attack on a member of the alliance, owing in part to severe backlogs in replacement parts for its aircraft.

“With our airborne systems we are currently below the target figures announced one year ago, defining what we would want to make available to NATO within 180 days in the case of an emergency,” Defense Minister von der Leyen told the “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper. “Delays for replacement parts for our planes and the missing helicopters are the reason for this.”

The German War Machine She Is Broken

September 25, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Army, Bundeswehr, Defense, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Military, Pacifism, Profit Leave a comment

Only half of Germany’s Eurofighters are operational. Of Germany’s 180 tanks (total), only 70 are ready to roll.

But honestly, who cares? Where would these tanks roll to even if they could roll? Other than over and die, I mean.

This “shocking” new revelation that doesn’t shock anybody who has lived in this country for more than five minutes is just another one of these famous German Scheindiskussionen (mock discussions). Everybody here knows that even if all of this equipment was in perfect working condition it would never be used anyway. It’s at times like these when everyone else in the world can see what the German army really is: An Alibi Army (you can’t sell expensive weapons systems without having an army to justify why you built them). Not that anybody out there could care less or anything. But still.

Nur 42 der 74 verfügbaren Eurofighter der Luftwaffe sollen für Ausbildung, Übungsflüge oder Einsatz bereitstehen, bei den Tornado-Jägern seien es nur 38 von 66. Von den 43 aktuell verfügbaren Transall-Maschinen C160 könnten demnach nur 24 starten, beim Transporthubschrauber CH-53 seien nur 16 von 43 einsatzbereit…

Since When Does Ukraine Have A Graffiti Problem?

September 16, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking Tags: Ceasefire, Drones, German, Germans, Germany, Military, OSCE, Ukraine Leave a comment

German drones could soon fly over eastern Ukraine? I thought they were only used for patrolling railyards by night to fight graffiti spraying terrorists here in Germany.

Or to harass the Bundeskanzlerin in Dresden. Or to terrify passengers on commercial airplanes trying to land in Kabul. Hey, practice makes perfect, I guess.

France and Germany are preparing to send their unmanned aircraft as part of the ongoing OSCE mission. The first soldiers from those countries arrived in Ukraine Tuesday to evaluate the conditions on the ground.

German Army Wants Armed Drones Just In Case

June 30, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms, Drones, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Military, Pacifism, Satire, Weapons Leave a comment

So it can have the military ability to answer with a resounding no if anybody ever asks them to use them, I mean.

What on earth are they smoking over there with Colonel Klink these days, anyway?

Drone-opponents worry that having armed drones at the Bundeswehr’s disposal will lower inhibitions to use them, too. There is also the fear that fully automatic drones will at some point be able to make decisions regarding life or death. UAVs can already take off and land by themselves and – once programmed – fly routes without human involvement.

Russia

March 19, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms exports, Crimea, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Military, Pacifism, Profit, Putin, Rheinmetall, Russia Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Because somebody has to admire them.

In addition to purchasing two French helicopter carriers for $1.6 billion, the Russians turned to the German firm Rheinmetall Defence to build a $132 million modern army training center — Mulino — near Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga.

Ein Gefechtsübungszentrum bei Mulino soll demnach noch in diesem Jahr dem russischen Heer übergeben werden. Im Moment sehe man keine Risiken für eine termingerechte Lieferung und wolle über die Folgen einer etwaigen weiteren Verschlechterung der Beziehungen zu Russland nicht spekulieren, sagte der Sprecher weiter.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Military