The new German Armed Forces

And back to BAND OF BROTHERS, this is the "alleged panzer" that was retreating from "shermans" in episode 3 or 4 or such...

www.achtungpanzer.com...



The Wespe, technically it's panzer, but it's not a "Panzer".

It's self-propelled artillery, which is no match for a sherman. No wonder it retreated.

And back to the topic: one's impression is that the German government's chief aim is to cut costs - not to expand (hence the continuing draft and statements by Struck (Defence Minister then, if not now)
One recalls the Bundeswehr coming close to a strike in 1999 over cuts. And the Gemans are not massively well equipped in state-of-the-art munitions, machines and so on.
While the odd unregenerate Hun may be dreaming of restoring Western Poland, I suspect the modern ones are more interested in economic security.
It's another case of a modern nation realising that -with the Warsaw pact gone -it's hard to imagine whom one might have to fight in a full-scale war.

Why dont just read what they are up to: link
its all about shrinking and specialising the bundeswehr to a quick deployable crisis respond task force, taking over police tasks in destabelized regions, which the not so prudent us military cant bear...

the whole population, as far as i can judge is against any kind of war, and would prevent such actions you discussed


secondly about this whole strand of a destabelised german economy: how do you get to this? we have a giant trade surplus, a moderate public debt (almost non existing compared to the us government debt) and a currency getting stronger each day... maybe i missed the point but for me it sounds nicer than putting billions and billions of doller i dont even have in building and supporting the biggest military machine which even now is rendering it self useless (to many soldiers deployed, so that recruiting and education can barely keep up with replacement rates.. the way out, the military is using (recruiting the poorest and least educated) leads to awkward situations like putting up road- and direction signs consisting of funny colored symbols, on nato missions in foreign countries additional to the english written ones, which all other nato soldiers understand, only for those growing fraction of american soldiers unable to read)

i really like that idea of sizing the whole military down, put some fancy technology to do what is necessary and not wasting billions of dollars and thousands of lives to get hands on some more squaremiles of desert in a region where almost nobody gives a # about invasions called "bringing freedom"

how comes that so many americans like the idea of military engagements so much that they keep stumbeling from one disaster into another?
allthough i dont like the idea of people getting killed or injured sometimes it looks like america had not have enough war in their own territory (if one not consideres the 10,000-20,000 murders in the u.s. every year such a thing)

Why do the germans need helicopters and heavy duty military stuff? I could see them buying it if they were in a war and all, but why now? Nothing is going on for them.