Posted on 04/13/2025 5:06:46 AM PDT by hardspunned
A German military assessment exposes major issues with NATO weapons in Ukraine. The PzH 2000 howitzer, while advanced, is so technically fragile that its combat usefulness is in doubt. The Leopard 1A5 tank is used mostly as makeshift artillery due to weak armor. The Leopard 2A6 is too expensive and complex to maintain at the front. Air defense systems also face problems. The IRIS-T works well, but ammo is too costly and scarce. The Patriot system is called “unsuitable for combat” because its MAN carrier vehicles are outdated and lack spare parts. This information was revealed in a transcript of a lecture given by the deputy military attaché of the German embassy in Kiev. The summary of the paper is very clear: “Hardly any large German piece of equipment is fully suitable for war.”
(Excerpt) Read more at open.substack.com ...
Sooner or later everything “breaks” in war.
The more basic a weapon is the longer it will last.
The more complex and technical weapons will fail soonest.
The Germans built great tanks. But they couldn’t build enough of them. For every tank they built we built 10. They weren’t as technologically sophisticated as the Germans. But there were 10 times as many. And quantity has a quality all its own.
CC
East German engineer spies did their jobs well when posted to the post war West German armaments industry.
Yep. Technology rules. It will be a long time and many brave young Americans will die before the battleship admirals and the calvary generals come to the realization that the era of naval surface combatants and land armored vehicles is over. Soon piloted aircraft will be obsolete.
As of today, nothing on the ground on the Ukraine battlefront stands a chance against drones.
We have approved the construction of ten more Ford class sitting ducks at $15Billion per carrier!
The big four engine bombing missions required the planes to fly in tight formations to protect each other from fighter attacks. always wondered why the Germans didn’t develop air to air cluster rockets to explode in their midst. also why weren’t the big guns of the battleships equipped with “shotgun” shells for air defense? Imagine if the Yamato had been able to effectively defend itself against relentess American air attacks and had gotten close to the Okinowa battlefield.
And now we're about to do it all over again with China.
What numbskulls we have for leaders.
Sometimes it almost seems as if our politicians create or engage in wars Intentionally as a way to destroy and deplete armaments.
That keeps the money flowing to manufacturers of military machines and equipment, doesn't it?
Do you think that may be why they make seemingly numbskull decisions that create a need for more billions of taxpayer dollars to be spent on new equipment?
Like abandoning a massive amount of military machines and equipment worth billions of dollars in Afghanistan to be used by our enemies?
Of course that loss has to be replaced with new equipment manufactured by the same companies that contribute big amounts of money to the politicians' election PACs
After all, the politicians' bank accounts don't grow to be worth millions of dollars on their own.
German engineering tends to elevate performance at the expense of tolerance for abuse (Stihl chainsaws being the notable exception). Pushing the envelope beyond specifications usually results in catastrophic failure.
Funny...I’ve been reading from lots of Europeans (esp. Germans) that they don’t need the USA anymore...because they ‘have the tech’ and that they ‘just need to ramp up manufacturing’ which they claim is ‘easy to do’.
LOL.
Calvary?
Halfway down the trail to Hell in a shady meadow green,
are the Souls of all dead troopers camped near a good old-fashion canteen,
and this eternal resting place is known as Fiddlers’ Green.
Marching past, straight through to Hell, the Infantry are seen,
accompanied by the Engineers, Artillery and Marine,
for none but the shades of Cavalrymen dismount at Fiddlers’ Green.
Though some go curving down the trail to seek a warmer scene,
no trooper ever gets to Hell ere he’s emptied his canteen
and so rides back to drink again with friends at Fiddlers’ Green.
And so when man and horse go down beneath a saber keen,
or in a roaring charge fierce melee you stop a bullet clean,
and the hostiles come to get your scalp,
just empty your canteen and put your pistol to your head
and go to Fiddlers’ Green.
That keeps the money flowing to manufacturers of military machines and equipment, doesn't it?
Kosovo comes immediately to mind. Both Iraq wars fit too. In both of the latter cases, nation building snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
They did. The few they fired were not nearly as effective as the Japanese thought they would be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler%27s_Green
yeah, nothing new here: in WWII tiger tanks were too heavy to transport, and the other newer tanks were finicky and difficult to repair ... the germans have carried on like this with their modern VW products, forgetting the simplicity of the original VW bugs ...
> All for Euro trash. <
Yep. We shouldn’t have gotten involved in WW1. As the old saying goes, not our circus. Not our monkeys.
It’s true that the Germans provoked us with unrestricted submarine warfare. But to be fair, the British blockade prevented neutral American ships from reaching German ports.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
WIKI
The Hydra 70 rocket is an American made 2.75-inch (70 mm) diameter fin-stabilized unguided rocket used primarily in the air-to-ground role. It can be equipped with a variety of warheads, and in more recent versions, guidance systems for point attacks. The Hydra is widely used by US and allied forces, competing with the Canadian CRV7, with which it is physically interchangeable.
The Hydra 70 is derived from the 2.75-inch (70 mm) diameter Mk 4/Mk 40 Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket developed by the United States Navy for use as a free-flight aerial rocket in the late 1940s. The Mk 40 was used during the Korean and Vietnam wars to provide close air support to ground forces from about 20 different firing platforms, both fixed-wing and armed helicopters.
Hydra 70 warheads fall into three categories:
Unitary warheads with impact-detonating fuzes or remote-set multi-option fuzes.
Cargo warheads with air burst-range, with settable fuzes using the “wall-in-space” concept or fixed standoff fuzes.
Training warheads.
Effective firing range 8,700 yards (8,000 m)
Maximum firing range 11,500 yards (10,500 m)
Maximum speed 2,425 ft/s (739 m/s)
unguided
Unit cost $2,799[failed verification]
Specifications
Mass 13.6 lb (6.2 kg) (Mk 66 Mod 4 rocket motor only) about 25 lb for the rocket depending on the warhead
Length 41.7 in (1,060 mm)
Diameter 2.75 in (70 mm)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_70
That’s for the basic rocket.
Most ordinary Europeans are decent people.
Their leadership is often worse than ours.
My grandfather was gassed as well. He lived to be 99.
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