It's official: German Bundeswehr to shrink to 180,000 troops & drop conscription
So that's it... We're NATO's last "major player" to get rid of conscription.Germany's minister of defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg eyes the conversion of the Bundeswehr into a professional army. However the CSU politician wants to axe fewer jobs than initially planned. The Bundeswehr was to shrink from 240,000 to 180,000 to 185,000 troops, zu Guttenberg told an officer's conference in Dresden on Monday.
(...) Zu Guttenberg also announced an official date for the suspension of compulsory military service. The reform was to be implemented beginning with July 1 2011, he said. This date was "justifiable and right", zu Guttenberg said.
Fortunately I´m dropping out early enough...
Although the idea of cutting "Retirement Home" departments (I´m looking at you, WBK!) for the sake of having more combat troops, I´m not too pleased of having less soldiers at hand. And don´t get me started on the abolishment of conscription....cutting conscription down to 6 months was bad, but without Privates soon Uffze and Fw will have to do their "simple" work.
Agreed. There have to be more career opportunities for enlisted personnel.
Read again: it seem just like in USA, conscription is SUSPENDED, not dropped altogether.
That's hairsplitting. The result is exactly this: conscription is to be dropped. Even the official recordal of youngsters who are liable to military service is on the brink.
Our apprentice is in a bit of dilemma now. He planned with his service, now has to fill the gap in his CV soon. He had to tell the Kreiswehrersatzamt, that he was good for entry early next year. Not too long ago they told him to put university and job ahold, because they would draft him right after his apprenticeship. It surprised me that they were so tough on him. Had a different impression in the last years. Confusing. They didn't answer his questions just a few weeks ago. The ifs and whens.
Does anybody know if the last recruits are already drafted, or if they will continue to date X?
Antey, just a technical difference to not change the laws completely. We're talking about a future without the draft. In case of total war, it will be reinstalled. Chances are close to zero.
No more Army time for me then.
(And they declared me T2 just 2 weeks ago!)
Yes Merkel also said that this was exactly for the reason that you cant really predict the future, and that it would be easier and best to suspend it instead of abolishing it completely.Originally Posted by Antey
Was just a question of time. I have mixed emotions on it, but inevitable it was nonetheless.
If you wish you can still join them.
Tehe, not If I get my job in the "höhere Beamtenlaufbahn".
Would it still be possible to join for 9 months, or so, though? Just in case none of the cities want me...don't want to do nothing after the Abitur.
Not sure about how FwdL will be handled.
Maximum enlistment will continue to be 23 months, but maybe they will raise the minimum to 12 or even higher.
F**k.
Doesn't look good for me.
I'm sure they keep an eye on the ratio of Mannschaften/Uffze.
What concerns me more is that the SAZ4 "Career" is very unattractive so that the people willing to join in are mostly of a rather "problematic" social descent.
On the other hand you can still join the Bundeswehr voluntarily for up to 23 months in the future. So this option matches the FWDL that is offered today. And to be onest: during my time serving as a conscript (2 years ago) there where only very few people not willing to be there. Even if you are drafted, you can still reject the service in the forces and find yourself in an retirement home or hospital in no time.
That makes me optimistic concerning the numbers of voluntarily serving young people and I hope that probably the training quality will increase since there are fewer recruits to deal with.
Regards
Problem with Mannschaften is that barely wants to stay one. FW and U "careers" are more attractive, therefore the number of SAZ Mannschaften is rather low and I fear that with the abolishing of conscription the ratio between the rank groups will be even more off.
And I can hardly believe that we´ll find enough FWDL and SAZ Mannschaften to compensate the huge loss of Gs/OGs, especially because many conscripts extend their service or become SAZ during their time in the army. Conscription is a cheap and easy way to find more people, because it´s a good "Schnupperphase".
I´ve met quite a few people who were drafted, were seemed fit and joined the BW because they didn´t want to do Zivi but had to somehow spend 9 months anyway and now that Zivildienst will be abandoned, too I can barely imagine many possible recruits already signing their 23 months service in their KWEA (I fully extended my service to 23 months, too, while being in my Stammeinheit, but I have to admit that I´m one of the rare nut cases who already signed up for FWDL 18 in my KWEA ^^).
And about basic training quality: I guess it has more to do with the branch they serve in, than the number of recruits in a basic training unit.
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