Just want to know some facts about the german army. [Archive]

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UoUo

12-09-2003, 10:17 AM

Since WW2 i know that the german army didn't allowed to but submarines and act.....

Whats going on with the german army today ? how much people they can have in the army ? how much tanks ?

Soory about my bad english. :(

Haiw

12-09-2003, 10:39 AM

As far as I know they aren't 'limited' in anything anymore...They're a big-ass NATO member and all now you know. :)
Didn't they sell some subs to Israël a while back? If so, I'd say the sub-ban is gona for sure :)

UoUo

12-09-2003, 10:42 AM

Yes they did... 3 Dolphin attack submarine... woot

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/naval/dolphin/dolphin_s1.JPG

perdurabo

12-09-2003, 11:09 AM

Dolphins agr great but they have now something better U212A Type :) with Walther eingine to stay long underwater.

Kitsune

12-09-2003, 11:23 AM

The German army is allowed to hav submarines. Germany is still one of the worlds leaders in submarine design. (German subs are quite small and not nuclear powered. This design seems to prove its worth more and more, submarines of this type are very hard to detect.)

During cold war times Germany had the most potent army in Europe (with exception of the Soviet Union of course). In fact Germany was divided into two states one belonging to the western bloc and one belonging to the Soviet power block. Both sides utilized "their" Germans for defense. In Western Germany, creation of "Bundeswehr" was something like the prize Germans had to pay for the near soverignity of the Western German state. Since the Soviets possessed a huge army and firmly believed in the use of masses of soldiers, the West had to counter it...because of this Bundeswehr was quite large (around 550.000 at its height). More important conscription was used, not only to bring on this number of soldiers but also to teach basic military knowledge to the wider population, so that the armed forces could be inflated to more than a million soldiers in size. Eastern Germany used similiar methods.

The main problems were twofold: Firstly the Germans had enough of war. After two World Wars and with the outlook to be the main battlefield of a third one (with Germans fighting against Germans) military things were never as popular as in other states. Secondly, there was considerable mistrust towards the Germans from the side of other European nations. The possibilty that Germans with strong armed forces (more than 5000 Main Battle Tanks at its best) could AGAIN conquer them...
To counter this Bundeswehr was nearly totally bound into NATO. In effect in case of war the German army (not the Americans) would have been the main fighting force (at least in the beginning if the war drew out for years...) under the command of SACEUR (always an American general). That last point is important since it means that Bundeswehr was never an army to promote mainly German interests (excluding defense of course, but the start of WWIII would definitly NOT have been in German interest and only then Bundeswehr would have been needed) like it was in, lets say the American, British or French case.
Also Germany agreed to never develope or use WMDs of any kind, ensuring that Germany could not see to its security on its own (and enabling other European powers to win any war with Germany with ease).

All this changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed to the reunification of Germany (against the wishes of our French and British "friends") on the condition that Bundeswehr was reduced to less than 350.000 soldiers. (Still quite a deal at the time). In fact, with the considerable economic strain of bringing eatern Germany to the prosperity niveau of the west (a process that still is going on) the armed forces were downsized well below 350.000...at present they number 280.000 and they will be reduced to less than 250.000 in the next years. The German military budget was reduced to a mere 1% of the BIP (on of the lowest in Europe). But on the other side German troops are now more and more used for operations in far away countries...something Bundeswher with its conscription structure is ill geared to do. So today the gGrman armed forces are in a lot of trouble. A conscription army with too short a conscription time. Not enough money. But more and more expensive expeditionary operations. Until now the leadership created some professional units to handle those operations and left the rest of the army to fall apart.

The real solution (in my opinion) would be to heighten the military budget by no less than 10 billion Euro, to drop conscrition completely and to create a small but superbly trained and equipped professional army...which would be quite a change for Bundeswehr which always was an egalitarian conscript army, eschewing the use of "elite soldiers" as much as possible (not unsimilar to the Americans by the way).
In the end I think ist time to except fot Germany that they should create an national army like all the others (British, French, Americans)...an army to further German interests...which means ist should be able to work together with others on a supra national level (preferably a European one).

p-)

hedgehog

12-09-2003, 12:01 PM

The new 212s may use a better propulsion unit, but are not build with the oversized torpedo tubes to launch nuclear missles. Israel should finally just come out and say that they have nukes and that's why they requested the Dolophins with the larger T. tubes. Anyone know if the Italien ones will have the larger ones?

Other points:

Main battle tanks: All leopard 1 battle tanks have been decommisioned (probably to be sold for low low prices... )
Leopard 2 tank force will be reduced from ~1800 to 800 in the future, with a portion of those remaining being upgraded to the latest standard (L55, new mine protection, etc.

All Hawk, and Roland will be decommisioned by the air force.
FAst attack missle boats to be decommisioned
Lot of base closures

All 23 Migs given to Poland
All F4s to be phased out as soon as EF2000 comes off the production line

New Acquisition programs (just from the top of my head)
bridge layer
Fennek reconnaisance vehicle
Boxer 8 wheel APC (various configs ~3000 to be bought)
Igel Tracked APC
Type 212 Subs (4 total - 2nd one launched this week)
3 F124 Air Defence Frigates (1st one in sea trials)
Upgrade of all 20mm and 40mm manual on Navy ships with new MLg 27mm remote
Eurofighter
NH90 - to replave the UH-1Ds
A400 Transport - to replace the C-160s
MRTT Conversions
F130 Class Corvettes
Tiger Helicopter - hence retire the old BO105s
New missile programs (Iris T - replace sidewinder, Taurus - standoff attack etc..
Lots of other smaller implementations ex. 50 cal for ship defence against speedboat attacks, MG 43, 40 mm grenade launchers, digital communications etc..

There is too much too list.. try to narrow down your question a bit . ie you want to know total numbers of vehicles, types, average age etc?

UoUo

12-09-2003, 12:24 PM

No...that will be all...i just thoght that after WW2 germmany didn't allowed to have a army....

Thanks for all of you. :hug:

Haiw

12-09-2003, 01:03 PM

No...that will be all...i just thoght that after WW2 germmany didn't allowed to have a army....

Thanks for all of you. :hug:
That was after WW1, when Germany was only allowed to have a very small army just for defense...

Nite

12-09-2003, 01:35 PM

Igel Tracked APC
2 small corrections:
1.) the "Igel" is now called "Puma"(german for Cougar)
2.) the Puma is an IFV, not an APC

Mr Gently Benevolent

12-09-2003, 01:39 PM

Try www.fas.org UoUo it has some good info on the current state of first world armies.

Shiruzu

12-09-2003, 02:10 PM

Seiyuuki

12-09-2003, 03:52 PM

Germany is planning to reorganize its army, say U.S. military observers. Since World War II, the German army has been structured and equipped to provide homeland defense and disaster assistance. "German Army 2020," an internal planning document leaked to the Pentagon, outlines a transformation plan to add equipment and tactics that would make the army a blitzkrieg-fast mobile reaction force. The German government is expected to formally announce the reorganization early in 2004.

Shiruzu

12-09-2003, 04:23 PM

seventy6er

12-09-2003, 05:50 PM

Can you give me the source of this text?

Popular Mechanics (http://popularmechanics.mondosearch.com/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=7&EXTRA_ARG=&CFGNAME=MssFind%2Ecfg&host_id=42&page_id=12389888&query=Germany+is+planning+to+reorganize+its+army&hiword=to+GERMAN+GERMANO+GERMANS+Germany+GERMANYS+its+REORGANIZATION+REORGANIZED+PLANNED+PLANNER+PLANNERS+planning+GERMANIC+is+army+ARMYS+reorganize+)

seventy6er

12-09-2003, 05:55 PM

He219

12-09-2003, 06:11 PM

Germany still has NATO's #2 MBT-fleet (perhaps not in quantity - Turkey might have more MBTs, but most definitely in quality) after the USA (cut down from more than 5.000 MBTs to 2.000 Leopard2 of versions A4 to A6 right now). That's way too much in my opinion (compare these numbers with France or Britain).

You can never have 'too much' (http://www.deutschesheer.de/C1256B6C002D670C/CurrentBaseLink/N25EDAR7764SWINDE) of a good thing .....

;)

Loco

12-09-2003, 06:13 PM

UoUo, I suppose you´re from Israel. I think in the last 30 years Israel bought some submarines to Germany, or at least they were built under a close cooperation of germans in all aspects in israelies dockyards, including financial help.
As others forum members said before, Germany was authorized to rebuilt an army and a navy in the 50´s, since it was member or NATO and it was in first line in the case of war with countries of Warsaw Pact. Of course Germany used in the postwar the acknowledgment accumulated decades before when it was possible, and when not it had the help of USA. In the case of the navy, many miner/counter miners ships based in designs of IIWW were built in the postwar in Germany or licensed to built or upgrade in countries like Spain, Chile or many others in the 50´s or 60´s. Talking of biggers ships, germans built in the 80´s the frigates Class Meko, which were exported to several countries. In the case of light weapons like gunmachines MG42, now called MG3 and still used in a lot of countries. In short, Germany plays strong in the industry of armament. And good night, here´s too late.

hank

12-09-2003, 06:45 PM

This may be a little off topic but since seventy6er and others with German Army experience are here, I'll ask anyway.

On the G3 video on 76er's site the G3 fires disintegrating link belts - I assume 7.62 like the 240 and other NATO MGs. But at one point in the video the guy fring the MG starts a new belt and there is a metal link that stick out the right side of the G3. Looks a lot like the old WWII MG42 non-disintegrating link but then when he starts firing it is pretty obvious that the links breakup. What gives? Is it just a starter link to help you load? That is what I figure but I have not seen it before.

This is totally based on what I saw in that video. The little info I find about the G3 just tells me that it fires 7.62 disintegrating link like the other NATO MGs. I am sure I am missing something, but I haven't seen that before.

Thanks in advance.

hedgehog

12-09-2003, 06:57 PM

http://www.ohioordnanceworks.com/parts/images/dmi.jpg

Is this what you mean? The starter tab as far as I know allows you to load without opening the cover? (I could be wrong as I have not actually fired this gun)

Loco

12-09-2003, 07:09 PM

Hank, I used the Mg3 in the spanish army. I don´t know if it was and old model, but of course it shooted cintas/links without desintegrating them. The links, or chains?, we used were made of metal, and you could reload them because that´s why they were intended for, in theory you could stand shooting the machinegun all day without stopping only hunging the hook? of the link/chain to the one loaded in the machinegun before this was finished at all. Of course, we were training in the range and only shooted short periods of bursts and were very careful changing the barrels soon. The machinegun was fed by the left side, spiting the cases by the down side of the machinegun.

hank

12-09-2003, 07:12 PM

Thanks Hedgehog. That is what the tab looked like, but then when he started firing the links did not stay together.

Maybe seventy6er can clarify but your picture looks like a non-disintegrating belt. I am not good at linking to sites, but if you look on the Ohioordinance site there are some disintegrating links and the notes about your picture say it fits MG42.

Maybe I just looked at the video wrong, but it looked like a normal disintegrating link that had a tab to start.

Your probably right about the reason for a tab.

hank

hank

12-09-2003, 07:20 PM

Loco. Thanks for the info. The link/belt/chain that stayed together was what the original MG42 from WWII used. I had never seen a G3 fired until that video and I had always assumed that the link/belt/chain for the G3 was the same as for the MG42 (just changed to hold the new cartridge).

If you can, go check out seventy6er's site and see what you think.

Thanks again for the info.

hank

Shadow

12-10-2003, 08:04 AM

37 000 Cluster Bombs will be reduced to 0.

Nite

12-10-2003, 08:14 AM

AFAIK there will be about 8'000 CLuster Bombs left just in case.

seventy6er

12-10-2003, 02:01 PM

On the G3 video on 76er's site the G3 fires disintegrating link belts - I assume 7.62 like the 240 and other NATO MGs. But at one point in the video the guy fring the MG starts a new belt and there is a metal link that stick out the right side of the G3. Looks a lot like the old WWII MG42 non-disintegrating link but then when he starts firing it is pretty obvious that the links breakup. What gives? Is it just a starter link to help you load? That is what I figure but I have not seen it before.

It is actually an MG3 (not a G3) which is the successor to the MG42. And YES, it's just a starterlink... ;)