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This guy wasted about 2.3 billion Euros by grossly mishandling protective mask purchases during the Corona pandemic. His level of competence and his level of ethics fits to his party, so he's now his party's 2nd most powerful member and currently very influential on federal legislation.
I could tell more (very!) bad things about this very unnecessary person, but I'm writing this blog post in reaction to the disinformation in the screenshot. It's taken from one of the less terrible German media organisations that's usually not under suspicion of campaigning for his party (unlike many others).
They claim his waste of public funds (a.k.a. taxpayer money) is likely the greatest any German politician is responsible of.
This is a symptom of the widespread defence policy illiteracy - and this media outlet (or at least its print twin) is one of the more active and history-rich ones in terms of reporting on bad military or defence policy.
2.3 billion Euros damage - here's a short list of worse waste of money that politicians bear responsibility for (IMO the minister of defence bears full responsibility albeit members of parliament and career officers effed up as well, of course):
- near-useless Tiger helicopters
- near-useless NH-90 helicopters
- useless heavylift helicopter (CH-47) order
- useless F 125 frigates
- F-104 Starfighter (corruption and tunnel vision, not plain incompetence)
- F-35 (2.3 billion € spent fixed cost for nothing so far)
To compile this list took a minute. There's more, so much more.
S O
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The Tiger was most certainly not useless. What performed very badly was the PARS 3LR missile that was developed for it in German service. The shift away from it also does not speak to it being bad, but to the German army as a whole moving away from the classic attack helicopter concept in the face of what is happening in Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteThe NH-90 is completely fine. The horror stories come mostly from the Australian and Norwegian armed forces where sub par license manufacturing and insufficient spare parts were the culprits, along with armies being unfamiliar with this type of helicopter. It is seeing great success especially in its naval version and the land version is by now also mature and works well.
The CH-47 and F-35 points are clownish.
The F-125s were bad procurement decisions, but not from a programm management perspective (though that had its hiccups). The navy was set the goal of building a patrol vessel for anti piracy and extraction operations on the other side of the planet and that is exactly what it got. They are also being upgraded with IRIS-T SLM, so might become more capable in the future.
The Starfighter scandal took place in the 50s/60s in West Germany; Spiegel is probably referring to the reunited Germany when it says "ever".