Software problems, trouble with Greece, long delivery times: How difficult it is for the promised heavy weapons from Germany

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  1. The supply of heavy weapons from Germany seems to be further delayed – and could thus become a fiasco: According to research by Business Insider, there are massive problems with almost all weapon systems promised by the federal government in recent weeks.

    **Air defense system Iris-T**: After weeks of pressure, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced last week in the Bundestag that Ukraine should get the Iris-T air defense system. He didn’t give details. According to information from Business Insider, the news apparently came as a surprise not only for the Ministry of Defense, but also for Egypt. Because the Egyptian government had ordered several systems in Germany, one of which it should now do without in favor of Ukraine. But government circles say that the Iris T system should not be operational for Ukraine until November or even December.

    **Marder armored armor**: A week ago, Scholz had also announced a so-called ring exchange with Greece: For Soviet tanks of the type BPM, which are to send Athens to Ukraine, Greece receives marten shooting tanks from Germany in return. The deal talks about almost 50 tanks.

    But the Greeks are also said to have been surprised by the Chancellor’s announcement, so there is a lot of trouble behind the scenes right now. Because the BPM tanks are mainly stationed on the Greek islands. The government in Athens fears that Turkey could regard an exchange with modern marten vehicles as an affront in foreign policy – and thus the next military conflict in Europe will arise.

    From German government circles, it is said that the Greeks therefore only want to give up their Soviet tanks when all 50 German martens are delivered ready for use. But this should last until autumn or winter. In addition, manufacturer Rheinmetall itself was surprised by the ring exchange, which actually wanted to sell the martens directly to Ukraine. So whether the group will go along at all is open. Rheinmetall does not respond to inquiries from us about this.

    **Multiple rocket launcher Mars II**: Scholz had also announced multiple rocket launchers in his Bundestag speech. You can hit destinations 40 kilometers away.

    Later it was said that the Bundeswehr would hand over four Mars II systems – if possible by the end of June. However, this was not confirmed. The problem: According to information from Business Insider, less than half of the almost 40 German vehicles are currently operational at all. Even giving away four is said to have caused head shaking behind the scenes among the German military. In addition, the software of the rocket launchers must first be reprogrammed, because the German vehicles have not yet been able to shoot ammunition from the USA or Great Britain. But it is precisely these types of ammunition that are present in larger quantities in Ukraine. Solving the software problems should at worst also take months, it is said, as this is much more complicated than with the Panzerhaubitze.

    At the moment, it does not look like heavy weapons will be delivered from Germany to Ukraine in the short term. According to information from Business Insider, the federal government has not supplied any military material to Ukraine in the past two weeks. A corresponding status was communicated to foreign and security politicians in the Bundestag at the beginning of the week. Remarkable: For the current week, the Ministry of Defense even announced that it would not deposit an updated list of “Material delivery to the UKR” in the intelligence office of the Bundestag as usual – because simply nothing is delivered. A new list is not to be made available until next week Thursday.

    The bottom line is that insiders within the federal government do not expect concrete deliveries of Iris-T, Mars II or martens before September or October. Only the delivery of 15 cheetah anti-aircraft tanks in mid-July and 15 others by the end of August seems to be planned so far. However, there are no more than 59,000 rounds of ammunition. The promised seven German tank howitzers are also to be ready for delivery at the end of June. Previously, they had to be extensively reprogrammed to the needs of Ukraine. In addition, the five Dutch howitzers had yet to be repaired.

    But Iris-T and Mars II in particular are considered systems that would bring Ukraine a real advantage. The fact that these can apparently only be delivered so late in autumn or winter is particularly delicate because many experts now see August as a decisive month in the Ukraine war. At the latest then it could be decided whether Russia’s offensive is particularly successful in eastern Ukraine. Then the modern weapons announced by Scholz would simply come too late.

  2. Defence equipment is held together with tape, glue and hope. Some of it is pretty good but others are the definition of sunk cost fallacy.

  3. It is so embarrassing and the German sub /r/de is completely ignoring this (since they like 2/3 parties in the government). In the last 2 weeks almost no weapons have been dilvered from Germany to Ukraine and heavy weapons overall have been sparse since the start of the conflict.

    The Anti Air system was always going to take a while though, that was known. But the rest is still quite embarrassing..

    At this point, it feels on purpose, or the state of the German army has been actively sabotaged if this is the best they can do.

  4. Excuses, excuses, excuses: how Germany tries to wiggle out of supplying heavy equipment.

    EDIT: if it’s not clear, let me spell it out for you. This is done on purpose. Germany is Russias biatch.

  6. just take this as a moment to appreciate how lucky we are to have the USA as an ally, or we would be relying on these fucking idiots to shoulder a lions share of defense capabilities for the continent

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