deewayne2003
AH elite
The analysis here paints a pretty poor picture.
Fit for war in decades: sluggish German rearmament versus surging Russian defence production
It will take Germany, and Europe more generally, decades to match current Russian volumes of weapons productionwww.bruegel.org
Germany has been underinvesting in its military for decades now.
“During the time of the ‘peace dividend’, Germany’s military capabilities decreased dramatically, to the point where the Bundeswehr “more or less stands bare,” according to German Army Inspector Alfons Mais, in February 2022 when Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. German military savings in the last three decades are estimated at €400 billion to €600 billion (Bardt, 2018; Röhl et al, 2023).
These considerable savings were associated with sharp reductions in military stock. By 2021, Germany had around 340 tanks, or just 8 percent of the more than 4000 West German tanks it had in 1992 and 14 percent of the 2400 tanks it had in 2004. The number of howitzers fell from more than 3000 in 1992 to almost 1000 in 2004 and a mere 120 in 2021. Similar numbers apply for other weapon systems. Even for the fighter jets that NATO puts significant emphasis on, numbers came down by more than 50 percent.
After this long period of disarmament, German capacities have only increased marginally since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In Wolff et al (2024a), we show it will take decades for Germany’s military stocks to reach 2004 levels at current procurement rates: 10 years for combat aircraft, 40 years for tanks and 100 years for howitzers. In comparison, it would take Russia only two to seven months to produce 2021 levels of Bundeswehr stocks.
German orders rose meaningfully only after July 2023 – a long delay compared to the swift Russian commitment in autumn 2022 to reinforce its weapons industry. The number of orders has now risen but the proportion of orders without a fixed delivery date has also risen, suggesting growing delays and production backlogs. And numbers remain relatively small. For example, only 22 howitzers have been ordered, a number so low that it does not compensate for the larger numbers of howitzers committed to Ukraine and pales relative to Russia’s monthly production of 38. For the main battle tank, the Leopard 2, it took until July 2024 to place more than the replacement order of 18 tanks. The 105 Leopard 2 ordered in July are only expected to be fully delivered by 2030.”
I remember when Russia invaded there was a BBC report stating if the conflict escalated that many of the NATO EU nations would have less than 2 weeks worth of munitions on hand to fight the Russians.
There are only two explanations for this......
1. Incompetence
2. These nations have relied on the USA for security for so long they lost touch with reality.
I also remember Germany laughing at Trump when he told them not to rely on Russia for natural gas.......
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