• Germany’s army is so under-equipped that it used broomsticks instead of machine guns
    64 replies, posted
[QUOTE]The German army has faced a shortage of equipment for years, but the situation has recently become so precarious that some soldiers took matters into their own hands. On Tuesday, German broadcaster ARD revealed that German soldiers tried to hide the lack of arms by replacing heavy machine guns with broomsticks during a NATO exercise last year. After painting the wooden sticks black, the German soldiers swiftly attached them to the top of armored vehicles, according to a confidential army report which was leaked to ARD. A defense ministry spokesperson said the use of broomsticks was not a common practice, and that the decision of the involved soldiers was "hard to comprehend." According to the ministry, the armored vehicles were furthermore not supposed to be armed. It remains unclear how many broomsticks were substituted for machine guns.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/19/germanys-army-is-so-under-equipped-that-it-used-broomsticks-instead-of-machine-guns/[/url]
truly intimidating
Holy shit, just like Sgt. Johnson? [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOjAplfTHZA[/media]
Wonder if there's any pictures of said vehicles with broomstick machine guns
Whoever leaked those is gonna spend a good amount of time in Military Prison.
They will sweep away the opposition.
Hasn't there been similiar cases were armies have trained using imaginary weapons as well? Though, surprising Germany's army is THIS underfunded, thought it'd be doing pretty well.
here's a leaked vid of the exercise [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R89vhiua35A[/media]
[QUOTE=The fox;47185553]Hasn't there been similiar cases were armies have trained using imaginary weapons as well? Though, surprising Germany's army is THIS underfunded, thought it'd be doing pretty well.[/QUOTE] There usually fake props or at least things that act like weapons in some sort of competence. [editline]21st February 2015[/editline] And this, Europeans, is why you ain't prepared for shit.
That can't be worse than Belgian army. We don't have enough money for ammo, and we're in a lack of toilet paper. Our soldiers are forced to shout "Bang, bang" during the trainings :v:
Looks like giving Greece all this money took its toll
Not exactly new, Germany has had an emaciated military for a while. It's Air Force is in an even sorrier state. It's part of the reason why there is a growing amount of discontent among US civilians and military leadership over NATO. If Europeans don't give a shit about their own defense, why should the US? Especially when a number of European countries, [URL="http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-germany-anti-american-sentiment-fuels-push-to-tread-softly-on-ukraine-1402443505"]Germany especially[/URL], are generally anti-American.
[QUOTE=Srillo;47186035]Not exactly new, Germany has had an emaciated military for a while. It's Air Force is in an even sorrier state. It's part of the reason why there is a growing amount of discontent among US civilians and military leadership over NATO. If Europeans don't give a shit about their own defense, why should the US? Especially when a number of European countries, [URL="http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-germany-anti-american-sentiment-fuels-push-to-tread-softly-on-ukraine-1402443505"]Germany especially[/URL], are generally anti-American.[/QUOTE] Following some scandals including NSA spying on USAs own allies, no wonder they begin to be anti-American
[QUOTE=Srillo;47186035]Not exactly new, Germany has had an emaciated military for a while. It's Air Force is in an even sorrier state. It's part of the reason why there is a growing amount of discontent among US civilians and military leadership over NATO. If Europeans don't give a shit about their own defense, why should the US? Especially when a number of European countries, [URL="http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-germany-anti-american-sentiment-fuels-push-to-tread-softly-on-ukraine-1402443505"]Germany especially[/URL], are generally [B]anti-American[/B].[/QUOTE] Holy shit, seriously?! Europe in its entirety is a firm USA-ally, even after all the bullshit that you put us through with the phonetapping of Angela Merkel and what not. You have no idea what you're talking about even. European countries are not economically dependant on it's warmachine, so it gets slimmed down in times of economic crisis like we've seen the last few years. The USA has a permanent war economy. Such enormous amounts of manpower invested in the production of weapons and militairy logistics that you have to have war to even have a viable economy. This is not a critique, but it's the way it is. European countries are so massively different on that front. Now I agree that militairy spending should be going up at least a little, since uncle Putin is pulling shit not unlike Hitler before his first militairy escalation. (No I'm not saying Putin is Hitler, or that he's going to murder jews but there are parrallels between how Putin is behaving towards other countries now, and how Hitler was doing before WW2)
It reminds me of the stuff I put up with in the marines. The front line guys all had good gear, but is folks in the rear did not. We'd do field training, where the army would be using sesims or MILES to simulate live fire " with rubber rifles shouting bang bang every time we "shot" our rifles. We'd be training with rocks instead of weights and used Vietnam era flak jackets for our equipment.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#Causes_of_the_failure_of_Operation_Barbarossa]Wouldn't be the first time the Germans had trouble with supplies.[/url]
[QUOTE=Cheshire_cat;47186238][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#Causes_of_the_failure_of_Operation_Barbarossa]Wouldn't be the first time the Germans had trouble with supplies.[/url][/QUOTE] Well it's a good thing Germany isn't invading Russia then?
[QUOTE=Complifused;47186270]Well it's a good thing Germany isn't invading Russia then?[/QUOTE] It's a joke, not military policy.
[QUOTE=Cheshire_cat;47186283]It's a joke, not military policy.[/QUOTE] quality humour
[QUOTE=Complifused;47186313]quality humour[/QUOTE] I actually thought it was kinda humorous given the recent political climate and tension with Russia but whatevs.
Given a kerfuffle, NATO would militarily fall back on the US. That's just how it is. You'd have the US military fighting with weapons in part developed or improved by Belgium and Germany while offering supplementary training and oversight to the military forces of other nations. That's how this works. It isn't necessarily a bad thing.
[QUOTE=Pr0fane;47186161]Holy shit, seriously?! Europe in its entirety is a firm USA-ally, even after all the bullshit that you put us through with the phonetapping of Angela Merkel and what not. You have no idea what you're talking about even. European countries are not economically dependant on it's warmachine, so it gets slimmed down in times of economic crisis like we've seen the last few years. The USA has a permanent war economy. Such enormous amounts of manpower invested in the production of weapons and militairy logistics that you have to have war to even have a viable economy. This is not a critique, but it's the way it is. European countries are so massively different on that front. Now I agree that militairy spending should be going up at least a little, since uncle Putin is pulling shit not unlike Hitler before his first militairy escalation. (No I'm not saying Putin is Hitler, or that he's going to murder jews but there are parrallels between how Putin is behaving towards other countries now, and how Hitler was doing before WW2)[/QUOTE] Not trying to seem like a pro-NSA post here or anything but stop acting so naive, every single country in the world is spying on each other. We just got caught, acting like this is somehow an isolated incident is laughable. [url]http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150204/1017786738.html[/url] (If there's a better link to the story I posted someone please post it, not sure how reliable that site is tbh)
The Germans just [URL="http://www.newsweek.com/germany-and-sweden-send-troops-and-increase-aid-kurds-battling-isis-298740"]gave away to the Kurds 8000 assault rifles[/URL] and other weapons a few months ago. They are the [URL="http://www.sipri.org/googlemaps/2013_of_at_top_20_exp_map.html"]3rd world biggest exporter[/URL] of military stuff. This is probably part of a larger effort to justify increased military expenditure in reponse to the Russian threat.
[QUOTE=MattSif;47186521]Not trying to seem like a pro-NSA post here or anything but stop acting so naive, every single country in the world is spying on each other. We just got caught, acting like this is somehow an isolated incident is laughable. [url]http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150204/1017786738.html[/url] (If there's a better link to the story I posted someone please post it, not sure how reliable that site is tbh)[/QUOTE] Probably true but irrelevant for the both of us. My point was that we are firm allies, and rightfully so. Saying we are 'anti-American' because of a few points of critique is stupid. Basically I think we agree with eachother MattSif.
[QUOTE=Pr0fane;47186161] Europe in its entirety is a firm USA-ally, even after all the bullshit that you put us through with the phonetapping of Angela Merkel and what not.[/QUOTE] You mean the thing EU countries actively participated in, by knowingly sharing information with each other and the US? And when it came to light tried to pretend they had no idea what was going on while they played up anti-American tropes to appease their voting blocs? Spare me this navel gazing horseshit. European hypocrisy on domestic and international spying makes me want to gag. [QUOTE=Pr0fane;47186161]European countries are not economically dependant on it's warmachine, so it gets slimmed down in times of economic crisis like we've seen the last few years.[/QUOTE] Europe had been trimming their defense capabilities for years before the 2008 financial collapse. The US made up 63% of NATO's funding in 2001, it now makes up 75% of that. There's actually an interesting corollary between Greece and Europe in that regard. Greece financed it's own largess through borrowing under the idea the EU would guarantee this borrowing for ever, only for the rug to be pulled out from underneath them. Europe also financed it's largess (initially) and then post 2008 to finance it's idiotic austerity on the notion that cutting defense was ok because 1) the Cold War was over and 2) the US is the guarantor of their security. [QUOTE=Pr0fane;47186161]The USA has a permanent war economy. Such enormous amounts of manpower invested in the production of weapons and militairy logistics that [B]you have to have war to even have a viable economy[/B].[/QUOTE] And you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Yes, the US has a large defense budget, the US also has a large budget period. Only 19% of that 3.3 trillion dollars goes towards defense, of which includes the money we spend to effectively upkeep European defense and another significant portion goes to paying personnel (benefits included). If your theory is true, then the US should be on the verge of a economic collapse right now. The Iraq war has been over since 2010, and Afghanistan has drawn down to considerably low levels. Yet here we are, growing at 3% a year, exporting over a trillion dollars of non-war related goods and with market surging to record highs. I will concede that the US could do with defense fat trimming, there exists a lot of graft and bloat there.
[QUOTE=Cheshire_cat;47186238][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#Causes_of_the_failure_of_Operation_Barbarossa"]Wouldn't be the first time the Germans had trouble with supplies.[/URL][/QUOTE] joke's a little too dense, sorry m8 I get it, but it stretches too far should have mentioned one guy having to carry a mop, and one a bucket into battle because shortages are so bad a la enemy of the gates
[QUOTE=Redrock79;47186541]The Germans just [URL="http://www.newsweek.com/germany-and-sweden-send-troops-and-increase-aid-kurds-battling-isis-298740"]gave away to the Kurds 8000 assault rifles[/URL] and other weapons a few months ago. They are the [URL="http://www.sipri.org/googlemaps/2013_of_at_top_20_exp_map.html"]3rd world biggest exporter[/URL] of military stuff. This is probably part of a larger effort to justify increased military expenditure in reponse to the Russian threat.[/QUOTE] It doesn't matter how much you export if you aren't funding your own military enough to fully equip them. This isn't a big deal since it was just a training exercise though.
Reminds me of the US army before we entered WWI.' You know when we used wooden sticks for rifle practice and people sat on barrels kinda like a sit n' bounce in order to simulate riding horses. The thing is that Germany can probably get away with not having enough weapons at this time. They aren't under threat of a full scale conventional war, and if such a thing where to happen Germany would probably get more then enough warning to start upscaling its war economy enough to more then outfit its entire army. Historically very few nations kept their armies well equipped during peacetime. The US sure as hell didn't until after WWII. This situation is far from abnormal.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;47187891] Historically very few nations kept their armies well equipped during peacetime. The US sure as hell didn't until after WWII. This situation is far from abnormal.[/QUOTE] Do you mean WWI? Because after WWII is when the military-industrial complex began to take shape, not to mention the Korean Conflict and Vietnam happened fairly soon after WWII.
I knew Heckler and Koch weapons were expensive as hell, but this is ridiculous :v:
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.