German military prepares for offensive operations.

[Tripledoc]

Ok now for some serious sh*t.


The general inspector of the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces,Wolfgang Schneiderhahn has disclosed his new and revolutionary plan.

Instead of dividing the armed forces into army, navy and airforce, the new model will work with an expeditionary force of 35.000 men, a stabilization force of 70.000 men and a support force of 145.000 men.

18.000 men from the expeditionary force will be under the new EU expeditionary force.

The new structure will work under the assumption that German armed forces should be able to accomplish five different missions at the same time.

There will be an overall cut in equipment and men, however the draft will be retained, and new equipment like the Airbus A 400-M troop carrier and the Eurofighter will be introduced.

[Kirnwaffen]

Those are five very small missions.

[Tripledoc]

Yes that's what I thought too. Strange.

[Fake Boris]

Is there anything wrong? No bad in preparing your military.

(Though German military doctrines have been known to be efficient and avant-garde. Are we to expect a third Sedan?)

[Kirnwaffen]

I'm not entirely sure I see the logic in this division. In the US, we build expeditionary forces as we need them, which allows us to select units based on the task (not that this always goes right, but it does allow for it). Cookie cutter expeditionary forces don't seem like a good idea to me.

[Patroklos]

Is this just an idea they are playing with or is it actually going itnto effect?

It seems ludicris to me. How do they plan on organizibng trianing if their navy is in for branches, airforce in thee, and army in four? Are you sure they are not talking about diferent operational commands as opposed to branches? America has regional commander CinCs that control all military assets in an are for unfied command., but that has nothing to do with organizational structure.

I would imagine making a change like this to be impossible as I am sure the various branches of the Bundswehr has more than enough political clout to stop it.

- Pat

[Tripledoc]

No the idea is to largely make the distinction between the three branches obsolete, and instead form three new cores around which to build the new Army.

[Myrddin]

Seems to me they will have 35000 ti go and do the fighting, 70000 to clear up the mess and the rest to tidy the barracks in Germany

[Boris Godunov]

I doubt German military operations could get any more offensive than they were 60 years ago.

[oedo]

bringing some (more) facts into this discussion.
1. Art. 26 Grundgesetz (the German constitution) doesn´t allow any kind of agressive war.
now it´s up to anyone´s definition what an aggressive war actually is. is there any difference between an aggressive war and an offensive war?
meanwhile pure country defense is hardly an issue anymore, since Germany is surrounded by friends only. but...
2. German minister of defense, Peter Struck quoted about one year ago: "Die Sicherheit Deutschlands wird auch am Hindukusch verteidigt" (The security of Germany also has to be defended at the Hindukush).
although I respect Peter Struck as a competent minister, I find this quote very dubious, since it can justify any kind of war about everywhere in the world, but just calling it a defense war.
there was no mentionable opposistion to his quote here in Germany, though. the PDS (the communists) would be the only party opposing this new orientation, but they virtually have no voice in our parlament anymore.
3. because of this, there´s currently running a reforming process in Germany. part of it is the numbers Tripledoc stated here. from my knowledge, they´re correct. but I´d like to see a link about that.
also there´s a tendency against conscription. there´s still an conscription army in Germany, but the number of drafted men is declining.
Strucks idea is replacing quantity by quality. in favor of peacekeeping troops and crisis reaction forces country defense doesn´t play a major role anymore. this is amazing, since our constitution does allow an army solely for country defense. (Art 87a Grundgesetz)
but as I already mentioned there´s no opposition to this, neither inside Germany nor outside.

we will see how the current and future goverments will be able to fit this new orientation into our constitution.

[Lancer]

They are finally getting close to the numbers imposed by the Versialles (sp) treaty.

[Ned]

It's very hard to imagine why Germany would need a draft with such small armed forces.

That said, it seems that the German military is taking the next step in integration of the three branches into a single fighting machine. The US has not totally done this yet, it appears, but it is getting very close since it does place all branches under one commander, almost always Army, during actual operations.

We should observe the German experiment with interest.

[Patroklos]

I am still sceptical. Canada has just one branch, but even within that organization they pretty much ahve an Army Navy and Airforce just becasue for training, supply and logistic purposes these entities have few similarities.

I was under the idea that the Bundswhere was like the Wehrmacht in that the word means Armed Forces with the Heer, Lrftwaffe, and Marine forces divided within its structure.

-Pat

[oedo]

Originally posted by Ned
It's very hard to imagine why Germany would need a draft with such small armed forces.

two reasons:
1. the Bundeswehr values high education. however, people with an high education generally don´t want to become professional soldiers (in Germany). as long as we have a conscription army, it´s easier for the Bundeswehr recruiting high educated soldiers for a professional army. currently by far not all conscripts can be drafted, but you can figure that the Bundeswehr has a high priority in drafting well educated conscripts.
2. more than 1/3 of all conscripts claim conscious objections. that way civil service became an important social factor in Germany the recent years. abolishing conscription would also mean abolishing civil service, which could cause major social problems - at least if done from one day to another.

[Ned]

oedo, does Germany have the equivalent of our West Point, etc.?