Germany Has Fewer Than 10 Tiger And 12 NH90 Helicopters Ready For Combat

[Georg]

Airbus is indeed one of the main problems of readyness ...

Germans take regulations pretty serious... one example... the new NH 90 Sea Lion was grounded right after the delivery of the first units... reason... Airbus did not deliver the complet documentation and in the one they delivered were endless mistakes. Other than perhaps the USA were they simple ignore such shortcomings (See Boeing desaster) in Germany such things are taken serious and the delivering company has to adress the problems and deliver solutions... as long the solutions are not there the equipment is not used.

Tiger if I remember correctly had wrong mounted structural parts right from factory... the reason why all were grounded till the parts were replaced...

Eurofighter problem that the company producing key parts for the wing mountings stoped production without sending a note to the Luftwaffe, the new company producing the parts has no quality verification... perhaps the british dont care about crew safty...Germans do and till the company producing now the parts cant verify quality standarts the parts are not used. Which is now the case and the german Eurofighter have a rediness of much higgher than 70%...and they start to replace the first tranche Eurofighter with newer more advance one.

Most problems are carryed from companys into the Bundeswehr... and of course some problems are selfmade by not ordering enough spare parts in time... money is not a problem... the Bundeswehr adress this problem since years and there are signs of improvment.

Every year the Bundeswehr has to adress the German Bundestag the rediness quote of the main weapon systems... this quote is since 2017 at constant 70% which is pretty normal compared to any Army in the world... there is always equipment in repair maintenance or upgrade programs that are not avaible... the only different Germany officel publish this numbers and every "expert" in the media is raving about it.

For example Leo2, most ships, Boxer, Eurofighter are way abouve 70% rediness.
At new systems like Puma, NH90, A400M, H 145M LUH SOF and GTF ZLK 15 the rediness is between 29% to 95%
Nearly all pretty old systems like Tornado, CH-53, P-3C Orion and fuel transport Marine class 704 that gets replaced in the next years have a rediness of around 50%. Because of the age not all spare parts are avaible anymore and so the number of ready to use is shrinking... but for both are already replacements planed.

The German press only picks the worst examples and made big noise about it.

 

[Ich]

No @Georg. The way how the report is written has changed in 2015. Bevor 2015 only that what was "ready for combat" was called "ready for combat". Meanwhile not only the real "ready for combat" are count, but also the theoretical "ready for combat" are count as "ready for combat". Theoretical means e.g. the Tank exists, the spare parts are all there, but the Tank is e.g. in maintenance.

Edit: Where "maintenance" here means "normal maintenance", not long term maintenance if e.g. a complete new turret is needed for the tank.

Edit 2: My english is awful. I try a better explanation.

There are 284 Puma. From this 284 Puma are 191 offical (theoretical) combat ready. But real combat ready (drive to the front NOW!) are only 67. So in the report they take the 284 and from that they say that 191 are "combat ready" and so the number is greater 50% combat ready

 

[Georg]

No @Georg. The way how the report is written has changed in 2015. Bevor 2015 only that what was "ready for combat" was called "ready for combat". Meanwhile not only the real "ready for combat" are count, but also the theoretical "ready for combat" are count as "ready for combat". Theoretical means e.g. the Tank exists, the spare parts are all there, but the Tank is e.g. in maintenance.

Edit: Where "maintenance" here means "normal maintenance", not long term maintenance if e.g. a complete new turret is needed for the tank.

no the rediness is the % number of equipment that is realy ready for use... look BMVg there you can download the whole 2019 report and read through it there is detailed explained what rediness is.

Clearly claimed... rediness is a full function, ready developt system, achive all the industry claimed capabilitys and has enough service and spare parts to be operated... thats ready for combat...
newly integrated systems that are still under development and dont achive all claimed capabilitys are not counted in the rediness number

 

[Ich]

Georg, the % is wrong. If you have 284 Puma and 191 theoretical ready (verfügbar) and only 67 are "Front-Ready", then this is not 35+%, but 23%. There is only combat ready or not. All other tricks dont count. And only 67 out of 284 is only 23%.

Imagin you are a general and there is a battle coming up and you need to plan your tactics and you ask your Ordonnanz "How many tanks we have" and the Ordonnanz answer "We have 100 tanks "verfügbar" (available)" and then you go in battle and there are only 55 tanks running on your side and not 100? Wtf is it? The Bundeswehr is for war and not for wishful thinking. And in war there are only two things for you: Alive or dead, combat ready or not.

But lets stopp here.

 

[Vergennes]

Looks to me like a serious mismanagement of funds. How do you have a budget of $45 billion and not have readiness. Especially if your military is the size of Germany with such a budget. I've said this before and I'll say it again, the Germans are either doing this on purpose to urge the Americans to urge them to up their spending to 2%, which would mean nearly $ 70 Billion. If this happens it would outmatch France and UK making Germany both the economic and military powerhouse in the EU. I doubt German nationalism and aspiration for power have gone with the defeat in WW2, and this could be a "German" solution to a European problem of having a too powerful Germany. If it's not this then serious corruption or payment to the US for protection, either way the money is being spent somewhere and somehow.

It's insane. This country is spending 45 billion USD for its military - annually! And yet, they don't even have 20 helicopters ready for combat. This is just sad.

I remember reading a large part of the German defence budget is spent on staff costs and operating expenses,leaving a "small" part to the equipments and the maintenance. Couple it with years of underinvestments/budget cuts and you've got an answer. (Partial or not)

Anyway,given Germany doesn't want to take a more active role on the international scene and limiting the use of its armed forces for historical or moral reasons (which are BS to me),what's the purpose of such a budget and build up ?

 

[Ich]

Anyway,given Germany doesn't want to take a more active role on the international scene and limiting the use of its armed forces for historical or moral reasons (which are BS to me),what's the purpose of such a budget and build up ?

Not historical or moral reasons. The german gov has no moral and hates history. It is cause they want an EU army and the national army disturbs that. Cause the national army is under control of the german parlament. It is historical. So no Bundeskanzler can go to war without aproval of the parlament. Take a look at US and Trump. But the EU army will never more under controll of any german instance, only under control of a handful at top of the EU.

An the budget is for the coming EU army. Bring the best in from Bundeswehr to the EU army.

Maybe you hear something of Eurogenfor. This is the first stone in the EU dictatorship. This EGF is hierachical above normal national police and you could seen them in france while acting against the yellow vests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Gendarmerie_Force

But germany is not allowed to take part at that force cause this force has military character and in germany it is forbidden to use military inside the country for police purpose.

But if there is a EU army and no more Bundeswehr, then there is no need for this law anymore and they can take part at both. You see, the Bundeswehr disturb a lot of plans of the german gov.

 

[Elvin]

I remember reading a large part of the German defence budget is spent on staff costs and operating expenses,leaving a "small" part to the equipments and the maintenance. Couple it with years of underinvestments/budget cuts and you've got an answer. (Partial or not)

Anyway,given Germany doesn't want to take a more active role on the international scene and limiting the use of its armed forces for historical or moral reasons (which are BS to me),what's the purpose of such a budget and build up ?

Good point, however Germany has 182k active troops and some 28K reserve. Those soldiers must be making 100K per year, where do I sign up?