Minimum army weapons set, revisited

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I like to cut things down to essentials, so I wrote in 2023 about a minimum weapons sset for an army. To have very few different weapons helps coping with the difficulties in procurement.

/2023/01/a-minimum-army-weapons-set-for.html

So, almost two and a half years more developments in the Russo-Ukrainian War, does the blog post hold up well (IMO)?

 

#1 hand grenade, a timeless classic

#2 rifle, a timeless classic

#3 (light) machinegun, infantry will go on strike if it only gets rifles

#4 HEDP rifle grenade, infantry will insist on having something to shoot into a window 50 m away and this is the simplest means unless you insist on firing many shots.

#5 short range anti-MBT weapon They're worthwhile, but don't deserve a "minimum" list entry according to my opinion as of today. Fibreoptic FPVs can fly so well around obstacles that they can engage well in areas with very short lines of sight, so we don't need weapons that excel in such places any more.

#6 Well, this was close to the fibreoptic FPV quadcopter, albeit I mentioned a rocket-propelled missile as representative (there were no fibreoptic FPV quadcopters yet). The increased agility, the hover ability and the ambush ability of fibreoptic FPV quadcopters are huges advantages, worth more than the speed loss compared to the missile. So I say the #6 entry would not be represented by a rather fast fibreoptic FPV quadcopter (with thermal channel)

#7 LMM is still quite expensive (~30k €) compared to some targets, so one should rather look at an even cheaper solution now. I don't happen to know a truly satisfactory one, though. Mayb one could trust #6+#10 and scratch #7?

#8 C-UAS RCWS,  absolutely, still a great take!

#9 wheeled 155 mm SPG This one is increasingly dubious until we learn to manage the drone threat at least at 20 km depth. Some reports indicate that towed guns dug in (even 105 mm) are better, it's almost safe to say that spending the same money on towed 155 mm L/52 with auxiliary propulsion rather than on 155 mm SPGs is better. Please note; I am a proponent of using PGM missile artillery, which was not included in the lsit because a "minimum" list has to assume air support.

#10 Tamir, still a great take (to deal with Shaheed, cruise missiles, GUMLRS-ish munitions, not as the Israelis do against ordinary Grad and homebuilt rockets). Don't buy Israeli, though. Build an analog.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Rackets

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So according to the news, the German minister of defence comes with news from NATO; according to NATO directives or whatever Germany is supposed to add formations to its armed forces.

Meanwhile, some American dipshit in office blathered something about seeing NATO countries moving towards 5% GDP military spending.

 

This truly is the idiocracy timeline !

 

The German constitutions says 

Article 87a
[Armed Forces]

(1) The Federation shall establish Armed Forces for purposes of defence. Their numerical strength and general organisational structure must be shown in the budget.

Translated to commoner language, this means it's the legislative branch that defines the general organisational structure in Germany, NOT the minister of defence. I understand it's done differently in practice, but the German minister of defence has jack shit authority to define the general organisational structure of the German armed forces (except in his capacity of also being a member of parliament and having one of hundreds of votes in there).

That's exactly as much (=jack shit) authority as NATO does have in the matter.

This is a well-established racket. It's something similar to the appeal to authority fallacy.  

 

Regarding the 5%: Dipshit's own country won't spend that, there's no reason to bother paying attention to the word salat puke of the lying moron. There's no 5% GDP military spending agreement, no 5% GDP military spending obligation - there's none for 2% GDP, either.

Our #1 defence policy issue is the efficiency of spending followed by keeping China out of Europe. The military spending budgets are plentiful, regardless of the fact that claiming the opposite is fashionable.

 

related:

/2017/02/stephen-m-walt-on-2-debate.html

/2018/04/patterns-of-propaganda-for-higher.html

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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In-war deterrence by nukes

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It's about time to spell out something painfully obvious, because I don't see anyone else doing it:

Russia would have lost this war decisively long ago if it was no nuclear power.

The frontline combat is at a stalemate, the naval blockade crumbled long ago and Russia cannot win by strategic air war because Ukraine gets enough outside support to cope with the damage done to its infrastructure and economy.

Ukraine, on the other hand, could have won long ago by a strategic air war effort:

It could have destroyed the oil refineries, which a Russia under sanctions could not have coped with.

It could have destroyed enough transformer stations to collapse the Russian rail traffic in European Russia, which Russia could not have repaired due to sanctions alone (tiny chance that China could have helped out enough). 

Both would have collapsed the Russian economy as much as the railway grid bombing collapsed the German economy in I/1945. 

Why didn't Ukraine do it? My best guess is that its Western supporters gave support under the condition that no such extreme (=decisive) measures would be taken. Why would they have done that? Nukes.

So nuclear munitions are not just a deterrent in peacetime that so far helped to avoid direct war between nuclear powers. Nuclear power status has consequences during wartime that go beyond making force concentrations and single breakthrough points impractical. They also exert political influence. In the case of Russia, nukes protect Russia against strategic knockout blows.

 

Ukraine really has to work toward collapsing Russian ground forces' morale in order to reconquer the occupied areas. That is, unless a Western nuclear power grows some balls and knocks out Russian oil refineries by itself. The British could do that with cruise missiles.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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The "new" warfare in the Russo-Ukrainian War

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A string of twitter threads by different authors create an impression that this war is very different, kind of with different rules than previous wars, military doctrines from pre-2022 are obsolete now.

https://x.com/sambendett/status/1927076283000701067

https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1927714854351085928

https://x.com/Playfra0/status/1928183254089429005

https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1926930735266509094

I object.

 

Quite generally, when somebody claims that previous military theory is obsolete you should ask yourself what previous military theory this person knows about. You're nearly perfectly safe if you assume the answer is "very, very little" even if said person is a general.  Very few people dedicated much of thier lives tot he study of the art of war and people who learned some of it profesionally (such as generals) hardly ever learned much that goes beyond their own country's doctrine, and very little about how and why their county's doctrine came to be.

The drone war in Ukraine isn't terribly new. It's almost exactly a replay of the air war development 1911-1945, for example.

 

Yes, the kamikaze FPV threat is severe to up to 9 km depth, often extending to 20 km and rarely extending beyond that with almost none happening beyond 40 km depth against non-strategic targets.The long-established military term in English for this is "battlefield interdiction", and air forces aspire to do it not to 40 km depth, but to hundreds of kilometres depth.

To move yourself or goods to the front seems like running the gauntlet on the final 40 km and gets the worse the more close you are to the front? Does that sound all-new to you? Then you're not aware of the experience of the Japanese merchant marine trying to resupply distant island bases in the Pacific War or the experience of the German armed forces in France during June 1944, when the Northern French railway and airfield network was bombed to swiss cheese standards by the 9th Air Force. Do you think it's now that quadcopters are capable of cheap PGM-like precision attacks even on individuals? 8th Air Force fighters got bored in 1945 and began strafing individual bicyclists hundreds of kilometres away from frontlines in 1945.

What's "new" is that wer're in a brief "the bomber always gets through" pahaes during which there aren't enough counter-drone ("C-UAS") defences, so drones of BOTH SIDES are effective at battlefield interdiction instead of one side establishing low level air superiority/supremacy or both sides defending effectively to diminish the threat. That's about the situation we had in the very early 1930s when bombers were not slower than fighters.

All those improved fortifications, evolved through wartime experience? That's fortifications designed by amateurs who learned lessons by spending blood. There were VASTLY better field fortification schemes back in the 1950's already, but the overwehlming firepower of nukes didn't allow them to become very central to doctrines. Netting not just for concealment, but also for keeping drones out is new, but it's also pointless in face of the heaviest anti-trench munitions (bombs, TOS-1, napalm B).

Tanks get cages to keep FPV drones out? How is that conceptually different from cages to keep hand grenades out?

The frontline with up to 40 km battlefield interdiction poses a different challenge than pre-2022 warfare for breakthrough efforts? Sure, but is it really new, or worse? Breakthroughs against ready defenders were never easy, after all. I actually madke the case that the drone war situation is liberating in a way; suppose the FPV munitions are effective in a radius of 10 to 20 km. Traditional ATGMs were effective in a radius of 0.6 to 4 km mostly, with 2 km being a common practical limit in Ukrainian terrain. Now look at my (very) old text about repulsion and let it sink in. The increased radius of action actually liberates the attacker, he doesn't get channeled! Pre-2022 the same effort looked like this and it was the shorter rnage of the ATGMs that was slowing down the attacker. Now there's no such measures to limit losses to ATGMs. Attackers who would want to breakthrough could shout 'Damn the torpedoes, flank speed ahead!' and the breakthrough could be VERY quick if done well, which includes dealing with the WW2 revival band of mines, anti-tank ditches and gimped dragon's teeth as well as a fires plan that would make 1917's Bruchmüller proud.

I could go on, feel free to bring up true novelties in the comments. I have a hunch I'll reply with a military history analogy.

 

Patton was once asked about how he was such a good general and he replied (paraphrased) that nothing was really new to him during WW2. He knew everything from books already. Such students of military history and art people don't get fooled by fake novelty, but they are RARE.

Don't get fooled by people who claim novelty and impossibility because they don't know the past.

 

related:

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/02/fact-check-military-hardware-novelty.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/02/update-ugv-history.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2015/05/another-fact-check-military-hardware.html 

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2023/07/russian-fortifications-present-old.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2025/05/c-uas-on-battlefield-at-very-low.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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C-UAS on the battlefield at very low altitude

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/2017/08/very-low-level-air-defence-against.html

/2018/05/summary-modern-air-defences-for-europe.html

One might increase the rate of fire of a MG3 back to about 1,500 rpm and use a duplex cartridge (two bullets in one cartridge) for 3,000 bullets per minute rate of fire, 50 per second.*

 

All kinds of drones and most missiles would be hit very quickly and be stopped by such a volume of fire even from a single RCWS. The detection of drones might depend on a quickly rotating (~100 revolutions per minute) AESA radar with such lower power and (by radio band) such a high atmospheric attenuation that it senses drones out to no more than 400 m and cannot be triangulated from more than two kilometres away.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

* 20 mm autocannons with simple HE-PD rounds would be an option for tanks, I dislike the specialised and expensive 30 mm autocannon with HE-PROX rounds solution. One might also stick with the duplex round MG3 approach as long as the tank has a coax gun of more powerful calibre, ideally a .338 chaingun.

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A mystery about FPVs and tanks

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The FPV (kamikaze drone) threat is by now well-known to those who paid much attention to what's going on in the Russo-Ukrianian War. Yet, there's a mystery that this war cannot tell us anything about:

What if there was a proper breakthrough and a proper exploitation of the same. Mounted forces roam deep and quickly, expoiting that they are not opposed properly. Would the FPV threat be iminished in such a situation, meaning that such exploitation forces need no great C-UAS defences? Or would the movement (dominantly along roads) create turkey shoot conditions for whatever FPV teams are in the area? Just let one drone rise to spot movements, then the turkey shoot begins?

Properly-planned standoff ECM support would rather not be available, after all.

 

And suppose it's neither extreme, but the FPVs still cause much damage; is the exploitation drive still 'worth it'?  Imagine a FPV unit doing one high value target kill per day during static trench warfare conditions, but ten per day during a four-day mobile phase being on the defender side. The FPV unit's lethality would be way up during the enemy's offenisve, but the harm it does might seem like acceptable losses if the breakthrough exploitation bags many prisoners of war, captures much material and conquers a city or two.

The pychological element may be decisive. A FPV unit may run in panic just as any other unit. Or maybe it doesn't - who knows? I suppose nobody, so we won't know until ther eis acutally mobile warfare again. More mobile than the Kharkiv offensive (which wa skinda slow) and more mobile than the Kursk offensive '24 (same). 

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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The U.S. as we knew it for the past ~45 years may be collapsing, lying moron or no lying moron

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Budget deficits are no problem for a state as long as the trend GDP growth (and thus trend revenue growth) is stronger than the growth of public debt. Suppose there's a country with a GDP of 1,000 and a debt of 1,000. This country may have an annual budget deficit of 50 (5 %GDP). This is really bad with economic stagnation, but with a (hypothetical) growth trend of 5%GDP p.a. (50 per year) the deficit would actually be sustainable unless interest rates rise and grow the deficit.*

Let's look at the development of public debt in the U.S.:

A budget deficit projection of around 5 %GDP p.a. seems optimistic to me (there's good reason to expect bigger deficits), more about this later.

Now what does the GDP growth trend in the U.S. look like?

That looks strongly as if something close to 3% p.a. GDP growth is a reasonable expectation.

 

Let's pay attention to why the deficit developed as it did. 

1. The long term trend was that Republicans in control of both Congress and White House did cut taxes (thus revenue, fairytales about tax cuts being budget neutral don't fly in continental Europe) and increased spending (especially military spending). The Republicans basically have two policies for economic growth; they claim that their tax cuts bring growth (not for real!), but what really brings growth is the sugar high of deficit spending.
2. Republicans do on the other hand try to starve the executive branch off funds whenever it's being controlled by a Democrat in the White House. Then they suddenly claim that they're extremely concerned about the lack of sustainability of deficits and social security and run scare campaigns to build up political support for budget cuts. They usually spare the military from cuts, though. These periods of Republicans controlling the purse and a Democrat controlling the spenders (the executive branch) show an improvement of the budget balance. The improvement even reached a surplus late in the Clinton administration, but the improvements (reduction of deficits in %GDP) are visible during the Obama and Biden administrations as well.
3. Democrats in control of Congress and  Republicans in control of the White House tends to play out as Republican Presidents largely getting the budget size they want.
4. Another mode is Democrats in control of both legislative and executive branches. This leads to deficits, but in normal times these are not as extreme ones as when Republicans are in full control.
5. The fifth mode is disaster mode; 2008 Great Recession, 2020 Covid. This produces huge spikes of deficit spending, seemingly regardless of the party in power.
   

The Republicans are now in control and about to establish a dictatorship on a spectrum from one party dictatorship to overt Fascism. The remaining lifetime and effectiveness of the lying moron decides what it becomes. Their majorities in Congress are small, but they are a thing, and it's clear that they are by now "Republicans" in name only. Actions speak louder than words.

A true republic would likely continue the dysfunctional up and down of the past 45 years (hopefully without a 3rd giant disaster). To project about 5 %GDP budget deficits for the next ten years as in the 1st graphic makes sense under the assumption of a true republic.

A "Republicans"-controlled U.S. on the other hand would likely go all-in on the "Republican" orthodoxy of cutting taxes for the rich (fig leaves for the middle class) and undisciplined deficit spending, including growing military spending. To project a %GDP budget deficit development from 5 %GDP p.a. towards about 8 %GDP p.a. by 2030 seems most plausible for this scenario to me. An issue is that they may enter a war to distract from their domestic policy issues.

So the growth of the public debt till 2030 would likely be in the 27...35 %GDP range. It's at about 123 % GDP by now, so the path to 2030 would be around 150...158 %GDP.

Now let's look at economic growth. Economic growth can be explained by increased inputs (more hours worked, influx of foreign capital pushing investment, greater exploitation of natural resources) and technological progress. The Americans already work many hours per week with few vacation days and holidays per year, so there's little room for increase. Anti-immigration policies will reduce the hours worked (though an increase of pressure on unemployed people may partially compensate for this). The growth of working age population is projected to be very weak. Finally, the misogynistic leanings and traditionalism of the Republicans do not promise an increase of the percentage of females in jobs unless there#s workforce mobilisation for a war economy. 

The Biden administration was already quite eager to exploit natural resources (example crude oil) contrary to some perceptions, so there's little potential for improvement in the next couple years (and IMO also in the 30's).

Finally, technological progress. The rate of it has been shrinking since the 70's. You may look up articles on whether technological progress is slowing yourself, I didn't find a really great one. The phenomenon has been known for a while, and it's not an American one - technological progress has slowed in all rich Western countries. It's the same story in Germany, UK and so on - sometimes even worse because the U.S. recovered particularly well from the Great Recession due to huge deficit spending fiscal stimulus efforts early in the Obama administration.

Long story short; there's no reason to expect a trend growth better than what we've seen in the 2nd graphic. about 3% p.a. GDP growth is a reasonable expectation. Politicians promise much, but they never deliver a clear growth trend improvement in an already well-developed economy. 

So there's likely going to be 5...8 %GDP annual deficits and 2...4 % GDP growth p.a. on average. The former because of policy and the latter because of fundamentals that politicians can do little about (unless they deport too many people, as then both deficits and growth would become worse).

Where is the breaking point? I wrote about 150...158 %GDP public debt by 2030. Japan has about 250 %GDP, Singapore about 170 %GDP, Italy about 135 %GDP public debt. There's apparently no accurate breaking point. The U.S. might keep going forward on its unsustainable path (the trade balance is terrible as well) for quite some time. On the other hand, it might collapse anytime as well. To alienate Europeans, Australians, Canadians, Japanese, South Koreans and Taiwanese may create a tipping point in one way or another, for example when confidence in the USD as reserve currency takes a big hit. The cardhouse may collapse if and when the USD loses much of its reserve currency status. There's no reason why all those alienated countries should do the U.S. the favour of keeping the USD as reserve currency. No reserve currency status for the USD means the U.S. could not sustain its trade balance deficits. This means its consumption AND capital investment would collapse. An overtly Fascist U.S. may find it difficult to buy certain capital investmnet goods such as TSMC machines anyway, and right now it's already restricted in terms of rare earths imports. The lying moron's disrespect for Federal Reserve Bank's independent operation as shown in 2017-2020 might create such a tipping point as well. A Sino-American War is a real possibility as well.

The truly scary thing about this is not the possibility of a tipping point or the acceleration of the downhill race. The truly scary thing is the seeming inevitability. The fundamentals cannot really change for the better by much and the political system doesn't appear to be able to improve, either. So the fiscal policy won't improve fundamentally. A long-term dictatorship deserves a projection of a worsening fiscal policy until some kind of disastrous crash occurs that forces a change of a fiscal policy pattern that held for 45 years.

I understand that Americans have been told a plethora of fairy tales and scaremongering stories about this topic. An American who is not an economist would be well-served to ignore those and simply think of the economic growth trend as weakening and being near-impossible to improve, while the budget deficit is essentially about overspending on the military and undertaxing the rich (including the foreign rich; 40% of American stocks are owned by foreigners, so tax cuts on American corporations are in large part tax cuts for rich foreigners). The public debt is not really about escalating healthcare costs (which is stagnating at about 17.x %GDP since the "Affordable Care Act" a.k.a. "Obamacare" went into force) and social security isn't a big driver, either. Example: Social Security had 1.22 T $ revenue and 1.24 T $ expenditures in 2022 - its deficit was tiny in comparison to the federal budget deficit around that time (1.4 T $ in FY 2022).

By the way; the Euro area is not that unsustainable. The public debt stands at about 90% for that area as a whole. The only large Euro area country that's worsening its public debt situation is France. The overall %GDP debt increase in the Euro area was much smaller than the American one and the %GDP public debt level is below 90 %GDP instead of above 120 %GDP. The Euro area has no chronic trade balance deficit, though that may change once the EUR gains use as reserve currency. Last but not least; increases of military spending are unlikely to change this terribly much, as they would act as fiscal stimulus (few Euro zone countries are at economic capacity limit). It's still wasteful to overspend on the military, but increases big enough to propel an European-style about 0.5 %GDP aggregate budgets deficit to an American-style 5 %GDP p.a. budget deficit are plain unrealistic short of WW3.

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

P.S.: This was originally written 21 Feb 25, but not published right away and slightly edited before publication (addition of the reserve currency issue for tipping points mostly).

*: p.a. = per annum = in a year

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Nonsensical German army structure

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I'll deliver a critique of the nonsensical German army structure. It's the same bollocks as we've had for a long time, they just evolve bollocks. The German army ceased to be serious about conventional warfare sometime in the early 90's and the nonsensical army structure that would have been impossible with the 1960's, 1970's crop of generals is a symptom of this non-seriousness.

I did this before

/2008/12/todays-10-panzerdivision-bundeswehr.html

/2015/10/critique-of-german-army-brigades.html

 

I'll use the easily accessed and easily readable structure graphic from Wikipedia.

(c) Noclador see here

 

I partially checked on the Bundeswehr website whether the Wikipedia graphic is correct and as a result didn't find the Panzerbrigade 45 as part of the 10. Panzerdivision. This brigade was formally founded only days ago, so I suppose the official website is simply out of date. Another deviation is that Panzerbrigade is and always was one word, while Wikipedia calls it "Panzer Brigade", same with Panzerdivision and some battalion names.

Sigh. Let's begin, from the left.

 

1. Panzerdivision, three brigades. two to four brigades is OK for a division. An issue is Panzerbrigade 21 that doesn't fit qualitatively, later more about that. There's no divisional logistics formation.

Panzerlehrbrigade 9. A "Lehr-" formation is traditionally for testing, demonstration and training in addition to being an actual combat formation. That's a German thing. So basically, let's treat it as a Panzerbrigade and ignore the "lehr" part for the purpose of this blog post. Two tank battalions, two mechanised infantry / Panzergrenadier battalions.That's a lot, especially a lot of tanks (nominally) for a brigade. A Panzerbrigade should have a 2:1 ratio between tank battalions and (mechanised) infantry battalions.* A 1:1 or 2:2 ratio suits a Panzergrenadierbrigade, but admittedly, the difference should not just be a difference of balance, but also of attitudes and tactical principles (Panzerbrigade being more dashing, while a Panzergrenadierbrigade rather moves from one solid standing to the next solid standing). Here's the big problem with this brigade: It has no artillery and no mortars. It's not a combined arms formation. There is a divisional artillery battalion, but that's no excuse. There's no engineer battalion. The Panzerlehrbrigade 9's structure is simply wrong.

Panzerbrigade 21. It isn't. There's no tank battalion, not even a mechanised infantry battalion. An armoured engineer battalion is the only trace of a mechanised kind of brigade - exactly the battalion that the Panzerlehrbrigade 9 misses! There are three Jägerbataillons (kinda motorised infantry battalions; wheeled APCs, so not really light infantry) in this brigade. So why the heck is it called a Panzerbrigade? It's a Jägerbrigade or Infanteriebrigade! Well, at least it has an artillery battalion (the artillery systems are AFVs, as we have no non-AFV artillery). So this kind of brigade doesn't necessarily belong into a Panzerdivision, but I understand a case could be made for it. A bad, but for defensive missions workable brigade design.

Panzergrenadierbrigade 41. No tank battalion and no artillery battalion, but three (!!!) mechanised infantry battalions. Now we see that the one divisional artillery battalion (a mixed self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launcher battalion IIRC) is not really enough for the two brigades that lack artillery, even if the divisional commander did assign it. The Panzergrenadierbrigade 41's structure is simply wrong.

 

10. Panzerdivision. Five brigades including the 13th Light brigade (Dutch), too many IMO. 

Panzerbrigade 12. Three tank battalions (one of which with a nonsensical 'mountain' designation, but it does use Leopard 2), two mechanised infantry battalions, artillery battalion, engineer battalion. Main criticism: It's way too big, unwieldy. This is more like two brigades in one. That's borderline acceptable for a Panzergrenadierbrigade, but a Panzerbrigade should be agile, and this one is agile only if it separates into at least two parts, for which there's no command and support structure present. A brigade commander should not lead more than four line of sight combat battalions (span of command). Also, this oversizing conceals that there's not enough artillery. There should be two artillery battalions for five line of sight combat battalions. The Panzerbrigade 12's structure is simply wrong.

Panzergrenadierbrigade 37. Four (!!!) mechanised infantry battalions, one tank battalion, one artillery battalion, one engineer battalion. Again too big. The Panzergrenadierbrigade 37's structure is wrong because it has at least one line of sight combat battalion too many, but I understand that some people would argue that today's staff sizes, signals equipment, battle management systems would permit a command span of five.

Panzerbrigade 45, the one to be based in Lithuania. Let's ignore this one, it's being raised. The structure as shown is acceptable, main criticism is the unusually weak (only a company) engineer support and the infantry weakness considering how much woodland is in Lithuania. I generally reject multinational formations (the brigade integrates a NATO multinational composite battalion) and I dislike it being stationed in Lithuania. For one, I reject the concept of tripwire forces and second, being stationed abroad badly hikes the personnel costs due to extra pay.

Franco-German Brigade, a mixed French-German brigade loaded with much symbolic value. As mentioned, I reject the concept of multinational brigades. That being said, it's a kind of infantry brigade and the mix of battalions is OK. 

 

Rapid forces division / Division Schnelle Kräfte. This is basically the Col War cheat of the 12th division promised to NATO being a cheap airborne division, but the current crop of leadership at the MoD probably bought into their own propaganda. A para brigade, a mountain infantry brigade, a special forces command (size-wise a big battalion) and the helicopter forces (extremely shitty due to gold-plated yet extremely bad helicopter designs). A Dutch airmobile brigade actually belongs to this division as well. Marginal support formations.

Luftlandebrigade 1 (paras). Two para regiments, no artillery. The official website does not mention independent engineer and recon companies unlike Wikipedia. Main criticism: Airborne is bollocks, see Hostomel. Secondary criticism; no artillery is bollocks, too. This brigade is crap in conventional warfare. Most likely the brigade would (it certainly should) be reduced to an administrative staff, with the two regiments attached to 1. Panzerdivision and 10. Panzerdivision as divisional light infantry formations for woodland and settlement areas, requiring non-organic artillery support.

Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23 (mountain infantry bde). Three mountain infantry battalions, no artillery (Germany doesn't use pack howitzers anymore). The Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23's structure is simply wrong for lack of artillery.

 

Heimatschutzdivision with six Heimatschutzregimentern; this is basically an object security division, not meant for conventional warfare, but rather for guarding locations against sabotage and so on. It's also supporting allied forces in Germany or passing through Germany.  wrong, but this is due to lack of maintaining suitable artillery.

General remark: I didn't comment on the recon battalions so far. German recon is really more observation by now. Actual recon should be at higher echelon. 

All brigades are lacking proper air defence. There's simply no equipment for that in the German army, so it's not a brigade or division design issue, but a long term force development issue.

I understand that shortages of material, shortages of (having maintained) suitable training infrastructure for tank crews in certain areas, restrictions regarding where usable barracks are have influences the brigade layouts. Still, these on average appallingly bad brigade designs are damning for MoD leadership. Most importantly, these brigade designs show that there's no real concept of land warfare behind them.

 

We could have

• three agile tank brigades (tank bde + mech inf bn + arty bn)
• four all-round mechanised infantry brigades (tank bn + 2 mech inf bn + arty bn)
• two infantry brigades (3 infantry bn)
• three light infantry brigades (3 light infantry bn without APCs) 

All these would lack would be additional artillery for the latter five brigades (at 2...4.5 M € per howitzer and minimum 18 howitzers per brigade this would have been affordable; less than 1 billion € including periphery). There would be a clear repertoire portfolio and thus role set for each of these four brigade types. Instead, we have nine brigades, six fo them without proper doctrine / ill-fitted to doctrine.

I believe this continued (I kept complaining since 2008 !!!) failure to set up a sensible army structure is not tolerable, not excusable, not forgivable. The German citizens gave the German armed forces much money during this time. Much of it was wasted on bollocks. Relatively small changes in big ticket procurement would have sufficed to enable a MUCH more sensible army structure, as I laid out above. Instead, we get one abomination after another. The German public doesn't wake up to this, but in my opinion the presumption of competence in favour of the ministry of defence and the top leadership of the army has to be thrown out. Competent people don't produce such abominations. I understand there are restrictions, but those restrictions are not an excuse after 17 years. Every single minister of defence in this period was crap, their ministry bureaucracy was crap, the army heads were crap. The distraction by the idiotic Afghanistan missions are no excuse either. We've left Afghanistan almost four years ago. That's plenty time to reorient an army towards conventional warfare IF COMPETENTS ARE IN CHARGE ! They had enough money, but they are too incompetent to use it well. This is but the structure; personnel system, equipment issues, maintenance issues, training issues abound as well.

related:

/2022/04/an-army-corps-for-germany-revised.html

/2023/04/a-compact-and-agile-exploitation-brigade.html

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

*: 1:1 was highly regarded among 1950's WW2 lessons learned literature, with stronger infantry battalions than today's. What I wrote here applies to German traditional terminology, in which a "Panzerbrigade" is tank-heavy.

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Two paths to Fascism / A permanent challenge for societies IV

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I think I figured out why people have such a hard time to believe that the current American government is Fascist.

There are two paths to fascism. 

One entails forming an ideology based on certain roots, jingoism, it includes building up organisations, rewriting/reinterpreting national mythology and history. The mythically inflated nation becomes supreme to the individual. It's an effort of thousands of people.

The other path is to simply be an ignorant piece of shit who doesn't give a shit about the well-being of fellow citizens. This path is just fine for ignoramuses, including those who fell for propaganda lies that amoral yet intelligent people devised decades earlier. This path leads to Fascists who don't proclaim to be Fascists, and make minimal use of Fascist-y visual elements. Basically, this is Fascism as the natural destination of moronic sociopaths.

The challenge is probably not so much to be alert and push back against the beginnings of formal Fascism. The challenge for the society is rather to keep dangerous idiots away from extraordinary power.

 

But I repeat myself.

/2009/07/permanent-challenge-for-societies.html

/2012/09/a-permanent-challenge-for-societies-ii.html

/2013/08/a-permanent-challenge-for-societies-iii_5.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Canada's deterrence & defence

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Irony of history. There were some voices obsessing about the Arctic and calling for more Canadian military preparations to counter the oh-so fearsome Russians in the Arctic region; icebreakers, infantry with snow vehicles and whatnot.

Now it becomes obvious that the actual threat to Canada's sovereignty isn't coming from the North; it's coming from the South - icebreakers and fancy snow special forces won't make a difference.

Canadian deterrence & defence isn't about navy, air force or armoured vehicles any more. It's about occupation-proofing themselves  by becoming an armed nation.*

Being allied with Europe won't help Canada much if the Fascists in Washington, D.C. Mar-A-Lago get too greedy for land. It's simply not credible deterrence, for Europe cannot defend Canada against the U.S. given the logistical issues and requirement for troops to face Russia in parallel.

So I offer four advices for Canada

1. Avoid angering the Fascists too much, particularly don't suddenly shut down the electricity exports.
2. Arm yourself with training, equipment, weapons and munitions that would make an occupation impractical and bloody even with a million occupation troops, and let the American public know about it. Conscription for three to six months training is warranted under the current circumstances in my opinion, much longer conscription service for personnel qualified to train the recruits.
3. Build up a conventional deterrent, such as the ability to launch ten thousand cheap cruise missiles within an hour to destroy thousands of fragile power grid and (petro-)chemical industry targets up to 1,500 km deep in Fascist America.
4. Ward against subversion. Shut out American media, prohibit immigration and travel from Fascist America, minimise the quantity of Fascist American diplomats to a skeleton crew in Ottawa, cut all intelligence and security cooperation including ejecting all American military personnel (even embassy marines), shut down NORAD.

Canada: Stop wasting money on toying with a miniature balanced military. Almost none of it has any relevance to Canadian security.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 *: The Americans have the myth that a nation armed with light weapons such as assault rifles is a nation that cannot be occupied. The current crop of American  politicians is stupid enough to believe such propaganda, and so will be the loyalty-over-competence crop of new generals that get installed in commands to coup-proof the Fascist regime. 

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