Bundeswehr garrisons

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The basing of Bundeswehr units and formations inside Germany was typically the one aspect of its post-1990 downsizing that garnered the most public attention. Suddenly, military bases were considered an economic factor to the (often times rural) region rather than a noise nuisance.

Insiders were most concerned about such plans and reforms as well, since it often meant that they had to move to a different place. Children had to be separated from friends at school, some older NCOs and officers who had hoped to not need to move another time short before retirement had purchased homes which needed to be sold (often at lower prices because regional demand dropped by thousands of housing units).

In short, politicians often wanted to keep "their" base, and soldiers often didn't like to move.

Many criteria were used to determine the future location of bases; among them party politics and the quality and capacity of housing and training areas. Still, some recently renovated or even new-built barracks were given up. Mountain infantry was obviously based in the deep south, close to the Alps.

One criterion didn't seem to be influential; proximity to the Eastern NATO frontier.

It would probably make sense to have all mechanised army forces and most Typhoon wings based in Eastern Germany. The Typhoons could conduct CAP over Poland and Lithuania with little or no aerial refuelling. The mechanised forces might arrive 8-16 hrs sooner at Warsaw than if based in West Germany. Air defence units of the Luftwaffe could be sited for near-immediate protection of said East German bases and Oder bridges upon an alarm.

Schools and the type conversion aircraft units would be fine in West Germany, same as most of the ammunition depots and an Tornado wild weasel and recce wing each.*

The actual distribution of Bundeswehr forces across Germany looks random by comparison, with even elements of single brigades scattered among multiple barracks.

German Army bases, October 2012, (c) TUBS

The Luftwaffe's tactical air wings are located as follows:

one in south

one in north

two in west

one in northwest

one in northeast

This leaves but one of them fairly close to Lithuania and to Poland's Eastern border. It's the wing for type conversion to Typhoon, thus partially a training outfit. The Northern one is a Tornado and UAV recce wing.

The Luftwaffe could surely re-deploy its combat aircraft in a day, but the ground crews and their equipment would likely need 12-24 hrs to become mission ready at a distant airbase, and then there would still be but one fully operational and likely overcrowded airbase in the East. Some airports and Cold War air bases in Eastern Germany and even Poland could be used as improvised airbases, but the Luftwaffe isn't really trained for pulling this off as quickly as in a few days.

In summary; the basing of the German military is in no way oriented at a timely defence (and thus deterrence) at NATO's Northeastern border, the least unlikely defence scenario area.

The Polish land forces aren't deployed this randomly. They're based according a pattern - a pattern that's more stupid than a random distribution would be.
They're mostly too close to Kaliningrad Oblast or really close to Germany (old Cold War bases, obviously) and thus poorly located for intervention in Lithuania or protection of Warsaw against a threat from the East:

Polish land forces basing (c) TUBS - this would make sense only
if they wanted to surprise attack both Russia and Germany at the same time.

It would make much sense to base the field formations of the Polish army close to Warsaw, (north of the Vistula river) and to base the air force at the German border instead of the army. That's not quite where they are, of course.

Militarily purposeful basing of forces is a skill that seems lost to European politicians**.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: I suppose they couldn't be used to good effect in the first days of conflict anyway, and could thus first deploy to more forward bases in the case of crisis or war.
**: Similarly questionable base distributions can be found in many other European countries.

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