via Sputniknews.com
German soldiers used painted broomsticks instead of machine guns on armored personnel carriers as part of NATO Response Force (NRF) drills in Norway.Two points.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Equipment shortages forced German soldiers to mount painted broomsticks instead of machine guns on armored personnel carriers as part of NATO Response Force (NRF) drills in Norway several months ago, two German magazines have revealed.
Kontraste and Report Mainz magazines gained access to a German armed forces' internal report published Tuesday, which detailed the absence of equipment during the course of exercises conducted in September 2014 in southeast Norway.
"Painted broomsticks were installed on GTK Boxer armored personnel carriers during training in Norway since no machine-gun barrels were available," the internal report reads as quoted by the publications.
The document goes on to say that in addition to full-scale shortages concerning personnel carriers, 41 percent of German soldiers lack P8 Luger semi-automatic pistols, and another 31 percent – the MG3 machine gun.
If you thought that the Germans were a restraint on Russia because of their military then this should change your mind real quick and in a hurry.
Next.
WTF are we doing? We are straining our military...our US Army by sending Brigade Combat Teams on rotations to Europe and the largest economy on the continent isn't even properly equipping its soldiers?
We need to have a come to Jesus meeting with our SOME of our so called partners.
Weird news... Luger P08 was decomissioned shortly after WW2...
ReplyDeleteWhile there may be a professional skeleton, the Army is fleshed out with waves of reservists who serve for a couple of months and return home to wait for the next mobilization wave. With the mobilization waves and volunteers, the Ukrainian forces are largely reservists at this point.
ReplyDeleteand considering how many units are supplied via crowdsourcing or be wealthy sponsors, they are held together by proverbial duct tape and bailing wire. If it weren't for the patriotism/fighting spirit of Ukrainians, they'd have collapsed months ago.
to sell the Ukraine down the river at this point would be a tragic betrayal, but I'm not sure what weapons the West has would be qualitatively better than what they have now. Nor would they want to waste time re-training their forces.
If anything, the US should be tracking down every single former major Soviet weapon system among our former Warsaw Pact allies and offering to replace them with US equivalents.
We just gave Lebanon 70+ M198 155mm arty systems. We could do the same for Romania, Poland, etc. with their D20 and D30 152mm and 122mm systems.
Or replace all of their AT4/AT5 ATGWs and replace them with new TOW missiles and launchers.
or 122mm GRADs and replace them with M270 MLRS
then sending all those old Soviet items to Ukraine.
Sputnik news? Moscow? eh
ReplyDeleteThe Krauts just gave a bunch of rifles, MGs and Walther P1 pistols to the Kurds. They had an Army of hundreds of thousands soldiers during the Cold War, I bet they are sitting on warehouses of small-arms that are packed in cosmoline, but not ready for service.
Still, the point about Come to Jesus meeting is sound. NATO is a paper tiger that exists as a figment of imagination and public relations wizardry. The West has no real military capability and we can't blame it on Iraq or Afghanistan operations (though, those didn't help). They have defunded and disarmed their militaries. NATO is a joke and the US is being left with the bill. The ironic thing is that it is conservative free-marketeers in Germany and the UK that are the ones to blame or their countries military demise.
I have no problem with rotating BCTs through allies who are committed like Poland, Lithuania, Romania, etc., but we do need to sit down with our so-called partners and explain to them what is at stake is the fundamental existence NATO.
We may need to kick out a few nations like the Netherlands and invite in Finland or Sweden
Meanwhile Poroshenko is delusional in his statement about this huge loss
ReplyDelete....We can assert that the Armed Forces of
Ukraine have fulfilled their tasks completely. This position and success
were urgently necessary for us in the course of the Minsk negotiations
and after them. We managed to show to the whole world the true face of
bandits-separatists backed by Russia, which acted as guarantor and
direct participant of the Minsk negotiations.... Now, I am departing to the front to meet those who left Debaltseve. I am honored to shake hands and thank Ukrainian heroes.
We'll likely get the whole soldiers on vacation, pointed in the wrong direction, or "This is Western Propaganda" BS from Putin.
ReplyDeleteWorse yet, our leaders will be all too ready to fall for shit like that, shit anyone with intelligence knows isn't true, just to get this "episode" "behind" them.
The "Bellingcat investigation team" is another creation of Eliot Higgins, an Englishman who gained fame and perhaps notoriety for his Brown Moses effort, tracking weapons in Syria.
ReplyDeleteOfftopic
ReplyDeleteNew episode of Russian designers’ slobbering about alleged look of Boomerang platform and Armata.
http://glav.su/files/messages/2015/02/18/2918650_dcd49f2b791c409fee1e52e02cb3b7b7.jpg
http://glav.su/files/messages/2015/02/18/2918650_13ac3b52b179be97610fb8952662a75a.jpg
Still wet dream in case of Armata... but the Boomerang concept looks nice, more real. What do you think, automatic 100mm?
ReplyDeleteI'm more interested with this bad boy:
Btw: guess who was cough by the seppos on vid... the gen. Aleksandr Lencow deputy head of Russian Federation land forces. He is long way from Moscow.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq2kE9YmNI4
NATO Response Force (NRF) - news reports
ReplyDelete2014
Sep 1 - We already have a NATO Response Force. This is a multinational force, which brings together land, air, maritime and special operation forces.
Sep 6 - "The details will be worked out in the coming weeks," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after the summit in Wales, in answer to the question exactly how many troops will form the new "rapid reaction force," and who will bear the associated costs.
Sep 13 - Ft Stewart Georgia.-based troops train for possible NATO mission as quick-deploy force
Sep 18 - NATO to fast-track rapid-reaction force
Dec 1 - The High Readiness Joint Task Force, or the Spearhead Force, will become fully operational in 2016
2015
Jan 6 - NATO's priority in 2015: Setting up reaction force in Europe
Jan 14 - Interim NATO 'spearhead' force of several thousand is active
Jan 30 - NATO to deploy small units in 6 Eastern European nations
Feb 15 - NATO's Plans for its Next Force Taking Shape - The work to pool assets under the three-year-old Smart Defense program has been slow.
The US is sending combat-ready units, plus:
Oct 25, 2014
RHINE ORDNANCE BARRACKS, Germany — After more than a year of delays, American and German officials heaved the first shovels of dirt Friday to mark the symbolic start of construction on a nearly billion-dollar U.S. military hospital here.
Last summer Ukraine had to withdraw from many border areas as they were fired by Russian
ReplyDeleteartillery but didnt have permission to shoot back due to all-out invasion fears.
The vaunted soldiery of one age is the fleeing rabble of the next.
ReplyDeleteSo?
ReplyDeleteHas to be the obvious question
Germany has ran out of machine gun barrels and operable fighters.
The UK is down to forty operable tanks, probably less now.
I can't imagine anyone else in Europe is in better shape, the rest of Europe was mostly payroll before the crisis.
The Russians might not want to start a war, but I don't believe they fear losing it, certainly if the US can be kept out of it.
As if they had any artillery radars and could shoot back at all.
ReplyDeleteThis is at least something aproaching proof altough methodology leaves things open ,i would expect similar efforts from NATO but no intead just PR from kiev repeated uncriticaly.
ReplyDelete''An independent military forensics expert warned that the accuracy of
crater analysis in determining direction of fire on the basis of
satellite photography was scientifically unproven, but said that the
images of firing positions on the Russian side of the border were
compelling and raised questions of what they were doing there.''
It s worse, we are caught in "we done that too in the last"... And nicely praised to shut the fuck up by russia...
ReplyDeleteProblem is that NO "western" nation did that in past... not in XXI century at least.
ReplyDeleteNow this is something interesting!
ReplyDeleteThe Ukrainian National Security Council agree and support president Poroshenko proposition to ask the UN for Peacekeepers forces that would watch over the case fire.
This is hot news, from 1h ago. Wonder what will UN do now... I can take bet's that Russia will use veto if there will be a meeting of security council.
You got the bet.
ReplyDeletePoland and Finland are in a good shape. Also, French, despite all their cuts, can still pack some punch.
ReplyDeleteIn good shape compared too?
ReplyDeleteCan France pack a punch? France couldn't even deploy to Mali without US and UK logistic support.
How many artillery shells do they have in storage? How many spare tank gearboxes? Track linkages? Transmissions? Bomb guidance kits?
How many hundreds of millions of rounds of small arms ammunition?