Germany

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
First of the three Potsdam class offshore patrol vessels of the German Coastguard has set sail with its new 57mm gun mounted. Additionally two pintle mounts for .50cal MGs were installed. The other two ships will receive the same modification sometime next year.

First German armed coastguard vessel since the Federal Borderguard was converted into the Federal Police in 1997. The three new 2,000-ton ships with a crew of 14 (!) also carry a pair of interceptor RHIBs, can accomodate a Super Puma helo and have a flex deck for five containers for mission-specific equipment. They're a slightly enlarged version of the OPV80 ships sold to the Colombian and Chilean Navies.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
The German Army has been planning to reintroduce brigade artillery as part of their Division 2027 concepts and general expansion of combat ability.

By now the artillery men have had their pow-wow, and have came up with what they want.

Basically, what they want it:
  • Keep the current battalions - including their locations - and expand them into regiments.
  • Assign three of these regiments to a division each, with different readiness-to-deploy times in line with them.
  • Each regiment provides for its division
    • one "divisional artillery group" (DAG) that is basically what the battalions are now (2 howitzer, one rocket battery plus a battery for UAVs and COBRA)
    • three "brigade artillery groups" (BAG) with two howitzer batteries forming battalion-level units, one for each brigade (plus JFST platoons for non-infantry combat battalions of that brigade - infantry battalions have these embedded)
  • The fourth current battalion would become "corps artillery" as a rocket artillery battalion
The concept is pretty close to US Army Cold War DIVARTY.

Of course we don't have the equipment for that. The notional idea is that the BAGs get the existing ca 120 PzH2000 assigned (except BAGs supporting infantry brigades) and that the DAGs get the current ca 36 GMLRS launchers.

In addition the concept calls for:
  • procurement of a medium-range precision strike missile system (300+ km range, four batteries) for the corps artillery
  • procurement of around 100 additional wheeled self-propelled howitzers that would equip the remaining batteries in BAG and DAG
  • procurement of AT2 rocket replacement (remote-emplaced minefields) for DAG
  • pretty heavy use of reservists in filling up posts (somewhere around 30% cadred/inactive for call-up)
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
JFS-M proposal from MBDA, KMW and ESG:

JFS-M is their proposal for the "corps artillery" in the last post, to fill a "long-range indirect fire support" capability requirement. The missile itself is basically a modified Taurus cruise missile.

The video focuses on its application in a short-range tactical scenario, highlighting its AI-based automatic target recognition and datalink capilities as well as launch from a regular MARS II launcher optionally loaded with mixed pods - 6 GMLRS in one, 3 JFS-M in the other. All three JFS-M in that pod are fired - the first one is the one pretending to be a recce UAV loitering above in the beginning.

Presumably the combination of functionality portrayed was chosen to highlight the contributions of project partners of MBDA (KMW and ESG); the video was published yesterday on the occasion of the three companies announcing they had signed a MoU to jointly develop a proposal.

The video omits the main capability set of JFS-M in a tactic-strategic application over long ranges. As in "MTCR is just a political treaty" ranges. It also omits, or rather obfuscates loitering UCAV applications advertised earlier that would be politically problematic.
 
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ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
It appears that the Bundeswehr has a problem with some strategic stores in Afghanistan. Some RNZAF and RNZN veterans are prepared to offer their services to help the Bundeswehr mitigate the problem, in the interests of closer Coalition and German and New Zealand relations of course.

 

Redlands18

Well-Known Member
It appears that the Bundeswehr has a problem with some strategic stores in Afghanistan. Some RNZAF and RNZN veterans are prepared to offer their services to help the Bundeswehr mitigate the problem, in the interests of closer Coalition and German and New Zealand relations of course.

I’m quite sure we could re-raise the ANZAC corps to help them with this terrible problem ;)
 

oldsig127

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
I’m quite sure we could re-raise the ANZAC corps to help them with this terrible problem ;)
I'm sure that our Kiwi cousins would prefer to handle it alone. After all, the ones I served with usually drank OP's

oldsig

(No, not overproof, other people's)
 

Chaldry

New Member
Can someone here give a recap on what is currently being done to fix the issues the Bundeswehr is facing? I am curious whether the German politicians are merely letting out hot air or if they are taking matters into their hands.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Depends on what kind of issues you mean - internal ones, external ones?
 

Chaldry

New Member
Yeah, that was a very broad question on my end - I apologise for that.

In the last few years there have been a few articles and a report describing issues with supply chains leading to a too large portion of the military hardware not being ready for duty (MBTs, aircrafts, submarines etc.). Another is excessive bureaucracy and political interference limiting decision-making for military personnel though that probably goes partially hand in hand with the first I issue listed.

I have read the budget for the Bundeswehr has been raised to at least partially mitigate some problems with a lack of spare parts and vacant leadership positions, but I am curious about which other changes (if any) has been introduced to increase the "overall effectiveness" (for a lack of a better phrase) of the Bundeswehr.

Sorry if I come off as ignorant. My knowledge on the subject is rather limited and it is only reinforced from my subpar understanding of the German language, so most of my information is derived from English-based media, but I want to learn so asking here seemed like a good starting point.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
In the last few years there have been a few articles and a report describing issues with supply chains leading to a too large portion of the military hardware not being ready for duty (MBTs, aircrafts, submarines etc.).
Supply chain issues in the Bundeswehr stem from reliance on civilian business consultants and their rationalization efforts that started under the libertarian-influenced last CDU/FDP government about 10 years ago. Most programmes initiated back then were cancelled in 2014-2016, although the consulting companies have kept their power in the ministry of defense until at least the last change of minister in early 2019.

With the II/2020 last report "material readiness across all 69 main combat systems" is 74% officially. The detailed report with data beyond this number is of course classified.

political interference limiting decision-making for military personnel
The parliament as representative of the sovereign is supreme in decision over military matters. The government is merely the administrator of armed forces, the armed forces themselves are merely an executive tool subject to the government and parliament. This is laid down in our constitution and will not change.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
It's not a problem that's unique to the Bundeswehr. The US military have problems with far right nutters in their ranks and in the NZDF we have one individual who is subject to disciplinary action for passing on NZDF information to a far right group.
As per May 7th 2021 military justice has about 50 disciplinary cases open with regard to KSK, of which about half are at a stage ready to be tried. About 30 of these are explicitly for rightwing extremism, the rest is mostly for (related) ammunition disappearances and -mishandling.

There is also an ongoing investigation into procurement processes at KSK which will result in more disciplinary cases but is not counted among the above.

The internal intelligence service MAD since beginning investigations into and observations of the group in 2017 has investigated "about 50" cases of extremism suspicion within KSK. 7 of these cases were cleared ("green"), 24 cases have ended (suspect sentenced, dismissed, retired or transfered out of KSK), about 20 cases are still active. One case was switched from "suspect" to "proven" ("orange") after the dissolution of 2nd Company.

MAD has explicitly not found a group intending to remove the free-democratic basic order of Germany or elements of it (as in a group that could be outlawed and members punished due to their support). It has however found a "mesh" (they're trying to avoid the word network) of mutual acquaintances of various levels between suspects that is based upon a "common mentality" and is being further investigated.

Out of 66 soldiers that were part of 2nd Company at its dissolution 61 were transfered internally and remain within either KSK or in the training command or recruiting teams separated from KSK since then.


Brigadier General Kreitmayer, the head of KSK, in September will be transferred to a post in the Armed Forces Office that is used for "problematic" cases that the Bundeswehr wants to keep out of the public light. For some scale, that post is currently held by Brigadier General Georg Klein, who in 2009 ordered a controversial airstrike in which about 100 civilians died.
Kreitmayer's replacement will be Brigadier General Ansgar Meyer, the current commander of TAAC-N - i.e. the German Forces in Afghanistan - who will need a new job anyway once the withdrawal concludes. He will additionally now have to report to a - so far unnamed - new "Director of Special Forces" at the Army Command who will be set up to "coordinate and oversee" the special forces of Army, Navy and Air Force (of which KSK is about 70%).

Major General Hannemann, head of the Rapid Forces Division (and hence the commander above Kreitmayer), will be laterally transferred to become deputy commander of the German-Dutch Corps. Hannemann came under some scrutiny for lack of oversight in logistics processes, but is not accused of anything in this regard. The transfer and replacement in his case is supposedly unrelated to the investigations.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
In its last week of parliamentary session the German Bundestag lower house of parliament will be presented 27 projects for which the Bundeswehr requires budgeting approval. The exact amount spent on projects is classified; all projects are "above 25 million Euro". Not gonna tally it up, but the overall sum is probably around 10 billion.

After the next week parliament will go into summer break, and after the summer break the runup for the September federal election begins, which may or may not subsequently result in a different government. This week is therefore pretty much the last chance to get the budget for defence projects rounded out before possible major changes in policies and priorities, and probably before we also have a new MoD.

Expects contracts for any of these projects - if approved - to be signed sometime in the next 3-6 weeks.

The 27 projects are very varied, and for real "procurement" include:
  • five P-8A Poseidon (to replace P-3C Orion).
  • two new "Sea Trials, Coast" boats (small).
  • three new Class 424 ELINT ships (frigate-sized) plus "stone ship" equipment for training.
  • two Class 707 medium fleet oilers.
  • two U212CD submarines.
  • PEGASUS, development and delivery (integration of ISIS sensor system into Global 6000 aircraft in lieu of Eurohawks cancelled years ago)
  • HADR successor, development and procurement (for four radar surveillance stations)
  • NSM Block 1A procurement
  • SALIS extension (as in An-124 commercial flight hours)
  • "Medium Vehicle Special Forces", framework contract for development and delivery (replacement of 80 AGF Serval plus introduction of a utility vehicle version in similar numbers)
  • framework contract for Secunet SINA (encryption/tunneling hardware), probably up to a five-digit number of stations
  • framework contract for new unarmoured ambulance/medical vehicles.
as well as a bunch of modernizations and prototypes:
  • FCAS demonstrator phase.
  • development project "Joint Fire Support Team, Heavy", demonstrator (JFST hardware on a Puma)
  • development project "Electronic Warfare System and SatCom for NH90 TTH", demonstrator
  • "consolidated upgrade" for Puma IFV Batch 1 (i.e. bringing the vehicles delivered so far onto a common proven-to-work standard...).
  • wide introduction in Navy: communications and command system for damage control teams on seagoing vessels.
  • wide introduction in Navy: new navigation radars for "multiple classes".
  • upgrading SMART-L air surveillance radar on F124 (for BMD)
  • upgrading IMCS on M332C minehunters
a couple minor systems:
  • air-transportable containerized air traffic control solution
  • maintenance/recertification hardware for RBS15 Mk3 (presumably necessary since they just bought a bunch more missiles for the additional K130)
  • armoured wounded transport containers.
and a bunch of regular items to be procured for ongoing operations: Programmable proximity fuzes for HE artillery shells, reflex sights and laser modules for assault rifles, new parachutes from French-led trinational framework contract and something that sounds like spare parts supply contracts for F123 frigates (three different ones as a set).

You may note that a couple projects are missing that were previously noted.

In full projects that didn't make it in are:
  • MGCS, next development phase
  • new RHIBs for sea battalion
  • modernization and new batch procurement of SmArt 155 guided artillery munitions
  • air-transportable containerized recce interpretation station for Tornado
 
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kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
The defense committee session is today.

Not gonna tally it up, but the overall sum is probably around 10 billion.
Apparently i was lowballing that. It's 19.1 billion Euro (22.8 billion USD).

Major projects within that (multi-billion) are:
  • 1.43 billion for P-8A (5 aircraft)
  • 1.9 billion for Puma upgrade (150 batch 1 units to same level as VJTF Pumas and beyond)
  • 2.1 billion for ELINT ships (3 frigate-sized ships, 4 electronics sets)
  • 2.79 billion for U212CD (2 submarines)
  • 4.468 billion for FCAS (Phase 1B/2 Implementing Arrangement 3)
For the rest about half are in a broad 100 million to 500 million range, a quarter is above, the rest below that.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Defense Committee has signed off on all 27 projects. The budget committee will now go through them in the afternoon.

However, for FCAS the Defense Committee has tacked on a "stipulation". It calls on the government to
  1. provide the final negotiated contract to the committee
  2. take measures to ensure a timewise parallelity between FCAS and MGCS
  3. ensure that all member nations in FCAS operate at equal level by transferring the project to a multinational oversight organization
  4. ensure that a demonstrator is designed such that it can be licensed for operations in Germany
  5. adapt IP regulations within the project such that generated IP can be used outside the project
  6. submit FCAS for approval again to parliamentary committees before activating the optional second phase
This addresses most concerns German industry has with regard to FCAS. An identical draft has been submitted for the budget committee session.
 
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kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
The Budget Committee has passed the same project list, but has added a bunch of stipulations.

Besides FCAS (see above) stipulations were handed out for
  • the Puma upgrade : "use VJTF2023 for a study on operational costs, prepare proper planning for unifying all Puma to common standard, use it to decide on whether to procure a second batch in tradeoff analysis versus alternatives". In addition the budget committee denied the original MoD proposal to make SVFuA (new comms equipment) optional and requires them to integrate it as part of the upgrade.
  • F123 modernization/upgrade : generate a concept for how the Navy shall fulfill its ASW commitments to NATO. Also industry service contracts may not lead to losing knowhow in the Navy Arsenal.
  • ELINT ships : have to be produced and supported entirely domestically. Critical Design Review has to occur before Feb 28th 2023 and may not exceed costs as approved here. Civilian building standard (which the MoD wants) for the ships are allowed as long as this does not constrict operational use in reconnaissance and/or regarding core military capability. Measurable and provable functionality specifications have to be provided in parallel to the design process.
  • Fleet tankers : apparently down to a single bidder. Stipulation is to provide an own cost calculation to measure the bid, renegotiate with regard to allowed listing of the ships (apparently that's a point of contestion), and provide navy personnel to closely monitor construction.

The FCAS stipulation with regard to that optional second phase is relevant financially. It is interpreted in both Germany and France (who are closely watching the process of course) to mean that the parliament only allows an initial investment of 1.3 billion Euro into FCAS Phase 1B/2, and will only okay the remaining ca 3.3 billion separately later on before the "optional second phase" - not now.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
  • "Medium Vehicle Special Forces", framework contract for development and delivery (replacement of 80 AGF Serval plus introduction of a utility vehicle version in similar numbers)
Apparently these will be bought from Defenture B.V. in the Netherlands. Defenture currently only has a single vehicle model, the Vector ATTV used by Dutch special forces - although the platform is adaptable, and they did announce working on three other common platform models in March this year.

Initial contract is for 4 prototypes plus a first batch of 49 vehicles, with possible second batch of further 31.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
  • PEGASUS, development and delivery (integration of ISIS sensor system into Global 6000 aircraft in lieu of Eurohawks cancelled years ago)
Contract for PEGASUS has been signed with Hensoldt as general contractor.

PEGASUS is an Airborne SIGINT platform replacing the Breguet Atlantique BR1150M variant retired in 2010. The BR1150M was originally supposed to be replaced by Eurohawk, a derivative of the Global Hawk HALE UAV, to be equipped with the ISIS "Integrated SIGINT System". After Eurohawk failed to get certification for German Airspace they tried Triton HALE UAVs, which failed for much the same reasons and was dropped late last year. The ISIS system concept is currently marketed by Hensoldt as "Kalaetron".

As part of PEGASUS Lufthansa Technik will buy and refit three civilian Bombardier Global 6000 small passenger aircraft, presumably used (there's supposedly a former Canadian government Global 6000 that has been bought as part of this by Lufthansa already). These will then be equipped with the ISIS system - three sets were produced and stored in 2017, but of course will have to be adapted for the new platform. Planned introduction is 2026, FOC in 2028. Procurement budget is 1.54 billion Euro including ground-based analysis stations and training equipment.

The Air Force already flies six aircraft of the Bombarder Global series (5000/6000) as their standard small VIP aircraft for the government.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Next one:
  • framework contract for Secunet SINA (encryption/tunneling hardware), probably up to a five-digit number of stations
Framework contract with Secunet Security Networks for SINA components and support has been extended.

SINA is a IP Layer 2 hardware-based encryption and tunneling system for classified material up to NATO Secret / EU Secret classification (certified for both). There are also workstations with lower classification level available for specific purposes, and ones for German equivalent of Top Secret classification. It is a core component of battlefield management systems in virtually every Bundeswehr project developed in the last 15 years (spreading in particular with FüInfoSysH, but also embedded into e.g. warship CMS systems such as on F125), and virtually all red/black communication within military IT in the Bundeswehr runs via SINA nowadays. Currently 15,000 terminals equipped with SINA are deployed, mostly lower-classification workstations.

SINA has been in use both with the Bundeswehr and civilian authorities for about 20 years. The framework contract worth 874 million Euro and now running for another 4 years is specifically for the Bundeswehr. There is a second parallel framework contract between Secunet and the Ministry of the Interior used for civilian authorities to procure SINA components. A major civilian user is for example the Federal Police.
 
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