The next German federal budget is available here(well, its PDF document).
Einzelplan 14 (the budget of the ministry of defence, BMVg) gets 10.3% of the cake in 2011:
Die Verteidigungsausgaben werden im Entwurf des Bundeshaushalts 2011 mit rd. 31,5 Mrd. [Euro] veranschlagt, im Finanzplan bis 2014 mit rd. 30,9 Mrd. [Euro] im Jahr 2012, mit rd. 29,6 Mrd. [Euro] im Jahr 2013 und mit rd. 27,6 Mrd. [Euro] im Jahr 2014 fortgeschrieben.
(The defence expenditures are being set in the draft of the federal budget 2011 with approx. € 31.5 billion, in the financial planning till 2014 with approx. € 30.9 billion in the year 2012, with approx. € 29.6 billion in the year 2013 and with approx. € 27.6 billion in the year 2014.)
In billion Euros:
(2010-2014 in 2010 Euros)
2008: 29.5
2009: 31.2
2010: 31.1
2011: 31.5
2012: 30.9
2013: 29.6
2014: 27.6
The government expects an economic output of € 2,447 billion in 2011. This would set the military expenditures at a rather low 1.3% GDP. Well, we're not in a Cold War any more.
The government's expectation for economic output in 2014 appears to be € 2,571 billion. The military expenditures would then drop below 1.1% GDP.
The budget deficit has to be reduced to .35% BIP (~GDP) in 2016 for legal reasons (constitution article 115). Additional constraints for the years 2011-2015 were set in multilateral agreements and treaties. The overall budget had to be planned with this in mind.
The planned budget deficits in billion Euros are .
2010: 80.2
2011: 57.5
2012: 40.1
2013: 31.6
2014: 24.1 .
The military expenditures will apparently be smaller than the federal budget deficit till 2013.
Often times you need to invest first in order to create long-term savings; golden handshakes, real instead of improvised building repairs, setting up new and more efficient barracks and such.
Instead, we'll feel the cuts more severely than the mere budget totals suggest.
I am personally fine with a trend towards 1% GDP military expenditures as long as security situation on the EU's periphery doesn't deteriorate substantially. My disagreement is rather about the "how", not about the "how much in total". I guess everyone with some interest in defence policy has his own thoughts and disagrees at least a bit with such a budget plan.
One of the most interesting news from Russia during the last years (aside from the T-50 fighter prototype) has been the Russian interest in buying Western arms.
The Russian interest in buying a Mistral class ship from France came as a surprise last year, and since then there have been additional reports about Russian interest in Western equipment, such as the Iveco LMV vehicle.
A summary is here and an interview summary is here.
The Russian arms industry is in shambles and not exactly up-to-date in regard to electronics - that's well-known. This wouldn't prevent a rebuilding effort, though. It's furthermore very rare that states seek to purchase foreign products merely for the purpose of instilling some competition into the market.
Russian relations with the PR China have entered a rather cool period again and Russian relations with India have apparently improved much.
Is this Russian interest in arms deals (I suspect they're interested in some offset deal, the supplier's nation would commit to buy Russian hardware in return) a symptom of a new Russian grand strategy?
Maybe they want to integrate with the West; cooperation instead of confrontation, similar to West Germany's post-'49 grand strategy? Putin's recent proposal for a free trade zone encompassing the EU and Russia (albeit with unknown details) appears to confirm this.
The involved diplomats and deal negotiators have an interesting job these days, for sure
Both are interesting because very similar stories exist about 1940-1945. High frequency warfare is usually depicted as a WW2 thing, but it apparently began in WWI.
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The first article is also relevant to a topic that seems to interest quite a few people; why did the German military perform so out of proportion in both World Wars?
The answers aren't only in the German army's leadership and training system of the 1880's to 1943 period.
Germany was a leading country in physics, chemistry and engineering till the end of WW2. It's still strong in engineering (in fact, engineers play even an excessive role in the German economy) and its chemical industry is still strong as well. The physics research isn't outstanding any more, though.
The engineering strength led to the great arms industries, the quick rise of the navy in 1898-1914, the ability to compensate for bomb damage on a never seen before scale (the arms and ammunition production of 1944 was much greater than that of 1943) and the huge surge of military-technical innovation of 1938-1945.
Strong research in physics enabled a strong electrical equipment industry which was almost capable of meeting the combined radio technology advances of Britain and the U.S..
Finally, Germany had and has the second-largest population in Europe, second only to Russia.
Judging by this history, we better hope that the next huge war of necessity strongly benefits financial 'industry' and other service-related skills and capacities, for that's what many NATO countries went for instead of sustaining and expanding actual industry-related skills and capacities.
A leading CDU politician proposed a restriction of the freedom of the press, so the press shall not report about possible terror targets any more. It's so outrageous that even a CDU-friendly newspaper reports about it.
Why am I not surprised that such an assault on civil liberties comes from a CDU politician, not from the supposedly dangerous "Die LINKE" party?
Oh, I remember. It's not news. CDU politicians have also proposed internet censorship, using the military for policing at home, database-driven profiling of Germans and numerous domestic espionage and surveillance proposals including the documentation of internet connections.
That's also the party which produced numerous laws that were afterwards declared unconstitutional by the federal constitutional court - and this was often times even expected as early as when the bill was passed.
Finally, CDU politicians have promoted the idea of a third category of people, between the "guilty" and "innocent" people: "Gefährder" ('endangering people'). This word has repeatedly been used in the last years (and almost established through repetition) to unhinge the protection of some people against the state's powers. The suggestion is that 'they' are 'they' and not 'us' and 'they' are dangerous, thus can, should and need to be treated different. They only think of thousands of people, of course.
Zuerst holten sie die Kommunisten;
ich schwieg, denn ich war kein Kommunist.
Dann holten sie die Juden;
ich schwieg, denn ich war kein Jude.
Dann holten sie die Gewerkschaftsmitglieder unter den Arbeitern;
ich schwieg, denn ich war kein Gewerkschafter.
Danach holten sie die Katholiken;
ich schwieg, denn ich war Protestant.
Schließlich holten sie mich,
und da war keiner mehr, der für mich hätte sprechen können. (Martin Niemöller)
(First they came for the communists;
I kept silent, for I was no communist.
The they came for the Jews;
I kept silent, for I was no Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists among the workers;
I kept silent, for I was no trade unionist.
Afterwards they came for the catholics;
I kept silent, for I was protestant.
Finally they came for me,
and nobody was left who could have raised his voice for me.)
The only good thing about this is that the junior coalition partner cannot afford to lose its civil liberties reputation; they will most likely block such CDU efforts. The CDU and its sister party CSU are for the next few years limited to preparing the ground for such deteriorations only verbally and in print.
Rheinmetall appears to be developing a new defensive (1) hand grenade for Sweden and showed it off at an infantry symposium in Germany a few weeks ago (~an industrial fair).
The hand grenade can be thrown as usual, erects itself upright with a mechanism, launches its warhead into a height of 1.5 metres and there it explodes, showering the lower hemisphere with fragments.
The only photo known to me is in the current issue of the SuT journal (German). I didn't ask Rheinmetall for permission to use the photo in light of what I'm going to write about the concept.
My first impressions were of course "mean!" and "technically interesting!".
Next, I recalled the technical predecessors:
* Jumping warheads have been employed with medium mortars, 30mm low-velocity grenades and anti-personnel mines. The principle appears to have satisfied the users (and horrified the enemies) when a clear shot upwards was possible (such as with AP mines). High trajectory grenades of such a kind were apparently rather unreliable.
* The mechanical principle for erecting the device after impact has been widely used for scatter mines and appears to be quite effective as well. Here's a mine which shows the principle:
POM-2S anti-personnel mine
The technology was clearly available at least a generation ago, maybe two. Why wasn't such a high performance hand grenade developed before? There's sometimes a reason for such an omission.
- - - - -
I did recover quickly from the first impression, though. Effectiveness isn't all that you need. The most deadly hand grenade is not necessarily the best one. Well, it may be sometimes, but not necessarily in the whole picture.
A maximization of a hand grenade's lethality like this reveals probably a fundamental misunderstanding of a hand grenade's purpose (this blames the Swedish army material procurement, not the developer).
The German production of hand grenades from 1941 till 1945 was 140 million. Most likely less than one per cent killed a soldier, while most likely the vast majority of the production was spent in combat or training.
This should come as no surprise, for hand grenades are not primarily about killing and wounding. They are much more often employed for two other purposes:
* Scaring the enemy; deterring the enemy against closing in / chasing the enemy away
* Security; attack on an area (such as a room or tunnel) that might be occupied by the enemy
One example; combat in woods. Forget the daring attacks through woods in peacetime exercises. Infantry combat in woods among well-supplied regular army infantry tends to look differently.
Even as early as 1914 when no machine gun was at company level or below and when there were only handguns and bolt action rifles, infantry got pinned down regularly in wood combat. The deadliness and scariness of the rifle fire simply did not permit much offensive movement. Such combat often degenerated into hand grenade duels. Both sides threw many hand grenades because raising the head for locating enemies and aiming ranged from futile to suicidal. Rommel's "Infanterie greift an!" book mentions several such hand grenade duels, for example.
Now think about it - how much does the increased frag effect really help? Even a 100% increase in lethality (just an example figure) could in practice turn out to help only in 5% of the cases, leading to a net loss of capability because of the increased weight.
It's likely very dependent on the situation,and on the ground condition (flat or waved). It might even be prohibitive if the cover of friendlies is too low and would protect against an air burst frag effect.
I would rather prefer a lightweight hand grenade for most purposes. There are such lightweight hand grenades. Examples:
Such hand grenades can be as small as 6 x 4 x 4 cm.
Normal hand grenades range from about 270 to about 570 g, with fragmentation types usually being much heavier than concussion types. The mini hand grenade throwing range can reach out to 40 m, while the heavy examples can be typically thrown to about 30 m. Safe handling with a glove is a concern, though.
- - - - -
Hand grenades can be 'improved' in a technical, engineering sense. Such an improvement would be about better explosives and better fragmentation pattern. The simulation of fragmentation patterns of warheads in computers keeps quite a few engineers in their jobs. It's a typical technical way of looking at hand grenades.
A rather 'military-historical' perspective emphasizes that infantrymen like to expend them for many purposes, not just for actually hitting the enemy with high probability. A large quantity becomes most important.
A practical perspective would emphasize the fact that hand grenades are scarce in part because they weigh a lot. A great weight efficiency becomes important.
A more military-theoretical perspective suggests an emphasis on the psychological effect: Hand grenades define areas in which nobody wants to be. You can use this to keep the enemy out of the area (such as the area immediately in front of your position) or to chase him away.
This psychological value of a hand grenade is certainly improved by a well-deserved reputation for deadliness, but I have little doubt that thirty lightweight hand grenades are scarier than ten high fragmentation hand grenades.
The procurement of lightweight hand grenades with high quality explosives is likely one path of improvement, but there's more: Flash effects could be added.
An enhanced flash effect could help a lot, especially at night. It would require only about five gram of additional filler, preferably on the outside of the explosive. The effective dazzling radius against night sights and unprotected eyes could be enlarged considerably beyond the concussion radius.
There are numerous complaints about the weight carried by the infantry. It's probably not a preferable development path to create a heavier and more complicated hand grenade for increased lethality in the few per cent hand grenade uses where this really counts.
That approach may be right, but I suspect it's not. I do rather suggest to look more at weight reduction and flash effect.
(1): "Defensive" because of the fragmentation effect. Fragmentation hand grenades are regularly preferred when friendlies are behind cover, while "offensive" blast/concussion grenades are preferred if the casualty radius has to be low or for demolition. The jumping warhead approach is only reasonable for the defensive type.
S O
P.S.: Long-time readers might be remembered of my earlier text on flamethrowers which emphasized the not-so-obvious psychological effects in a similar fashion.
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These photos of a German self-propelled howitzer in Afghanistan show its camouflage paint coating (the photos are several months old):
The camo looks appropriate in that region, doesn't it?
The only problem is that camouflage makes almost no sense for large vehicles over there. It's extremely unlikely that vehicles there will ever avoid being penetrated just because they used camouflage. It would take a lot of dust from vehicles driving ahead or a very partial exposure to allow the vehicle (crew) to avoid detection or to avert good aiming by the enemy.
The SPG will probably not even move much outside of the camp, for its range is about 40 km. It might leave the camp in support of more distant actions, but then it would most likely be stationary for most of the time and easily spotted and observed anyway simply because it's a huge tracked vehicle and not well-suited to running around much on a deployment that's going to last months or years.
I assert that this camouflage was applied without much thought - it was applied because it's what you do. Camo has become an end in itself for some.
What shall this howitzer do? It shall provide superior firepower and scare the enemy away (or kill him).
Imagine an impressive paint coating and a few life fire demonstrations - the whole province shall know the beasts. Give them a paint coating that means every child is going to remember them.
Don't give it a paint coating that looks as if you attempt to hide the SPG. Make it look fearsome, notorious, commanding respect. Tiger stripes maybe. Black-red-gold. Gold. Chrome. Paint a lion face on its glacis.
Whatever - just don't fall into mindless routine and give it a futile camo paint coating only because that's what's usually being done.
I am a huge fan of even extreme forms of camouflage (search for "camouflage" in the search box if in doubt), but camouflage is great because it's often an effective means to an end. There can be superior alternatives in some cases, and officers get paid to think about what shall be done. They should in my opinion arrive at the conclusion that this is such an exception.
Scales and van Riper do correctly point out that peacetime efforts of armies are supposed to give an unfair advantage over the enemy in wartime. They complain that this was not done for modern infantry, as evidenced by (in their opinion) fair infantry combat in Afghanistan.
- - - - -
I would like to point out several problems in this article:
(1)
Is infantry combat in Afghanistan really "fair"? They appear to have very high expectations, for I would count bulletproof vest plates, marksmanship training, indirect fire support and air support in the available quantity already as very unfair.
(2)
They appear to have believed in the Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) fashion's promises, have observed how RMA largely failed in Iraq and Afghanistan and now they aren't irritated by the failure the slightest bit. Instead, they demand a greater push for RMA (for perfect situational awareness thanks to robotic eyes in the sky). This appears to be a 'little bit' inflexible.
Granted, they also point out movement mistakes (not securing the high ground), but those movement mistakes are a result of the addition of heavy hard body armour.
(3)
"Yet as a proportion of total combat deaths, infantry deaths have increased from 71 percent in World War II to 81 percent in wars fought since."
This doesn't seem to be a proper remark because this statistic is dominated by the wars in Korea and Vietnam, not by the two 2000's wars. The infantry's share of losses has in fact dropped to a low recently because the enemies target everyone who's on the road, not just and not primarily infantry. Non-infantry units had to serve as auxiliary infantry and had casualties in those missions as well.
(4)
How exactly do these two quotes fit together without a serious dissonance?
Too often defense gurus inside the Beltway still view war as a science project.
After nine years of war, no small unit in such peril should ever cede the high ground to the enemy, particularly when unmanned vehicles are capable of monitoring constantly overhead and transmitting clear pictures of the surrounding terrain.
Ortmann to Scales and van Riper: You should not blame technology whores and then propose a high tech fix yourself!
(5)
They should be asking why the richest nation on Earth could not have done more to help this small infantry unit spot the enemy ambush from the air and defeat them with overwhelming killing power.
Did they seriously suggest that the U.S. should spend more on the military? The quote certainly sounds as if they blame the civilian world for the infantry's woes. This sounds ridiculous with the incredible spending levels in the background. They should rather blame the dysfunctional procurement system and the military service itself - than the nation.
- - - - -
Here are my proposals for fixing the problem:
(I)
Don't fight stupid, useless wars of choice.
- - - - -
OK, maybe readers would want to read alternatives just in case
someone really believes the occupation_war_against_the_guys_
died in the process) is a war of necessity even many years after
they lost power:
(a)
Don't red tape them with excessive force protection requirements (armoured vehicles which cannot leave the 'roads', heavy body armour plates, airspace deconfliction).
(b)
Don't force them into stupid behaviour (commute to war, predictable patrols).
(c)
Re-structure the ground forces if you're in a multi-year fight in order to meet the demand for military police and infantry troops (instead of retaining the peacetime all-round structure).
(d)
Re-think the American Way of War, which fared poorly every time it faced infantry-centric forces which were neither trapped on small islands nor composed of elderly and boys. Produce something different than the extreme caricature of this way of war that is known as "RMA".
(e)
Think about diversifying infantry into light and heavy again - for combined operations, not for very different battles. The fight for hill and mountain tops was the job of lightly laden light infantry before the 19th century when all infantry became standardized. The skirmishers with their light weapons and no or light armour fought for the hill tops and ridge-lines, the heavy infantry with body armour and large shields advanced in the valley and was sent into the larger fights.
Maybe modern infantry could split up into lightweight and full kit as well to be both superior in firepower+protection and in positioning?
