Germany

[kato]

Maybe Herr Scholz should do if for two years in a row.

The fonds is to be established in a way where money is put in immediately, and the Bundeswehr can continue to draw on it until it's empty or until a deadline sometime in a couple years has passed (unlike the budget, which after all has to be strictly accounted as spent by the end of a given year). How it will/can be used will depend on its precise wording when passed - usually law bills for establishment of such fonds are fairly concise overall and explicit in naming the purpose.

Of course the "100 billion" number itself was mostly chosen for effect, having a nice, big, round number to present.

It's about the amount that the government usually keeps sorta available through budgetary means for special circumstances (crisis-of-the-day), and that it reserves the right to use debts to get (target number for overall federal budget is zero-debt after all). In the last two years it was mostly spent on the pandemic, in 2015/16 for example on the refugee crisis.

 

[mrrosenthal]

What is it that the German military will most likely be looking to buy? What are the top items?

 

[John Fedup]

What is it that the German military will most likely be looking to buy? What are the top items?

Spare parts for existing kit is a good starting point.

 

[kato]

Filling up the depots for full 30-day reserves is first. Spare parts and ammunition. They'll probably actually be reactivating a couple depots too, in particular for the latter. For some of this stuff they can also draw on existing framework contracts, i.e. just ordering deliveries of stuff already contracted for earlier than originally planned if the contracts permit it.

 

[kato]

For those who speak German this podcast may be worthwhile:

https://soundcloud.com/sicherheitshalber%2F54-putins-angriffskrieg-gegen-die-ukraine-zeitenwende-in-der-deutschen-sicherheitspolitik
It basically evaluates and discusses today's announcements from a "professional" side in detail including its repercussions for 40 minutes. There is no English version.

Participants in this regular postcast series are Thomas Wiegold, pretty much the premier German defense journalist; Ulrike Franke, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations thinktank; and Carlo Masala and Frank Sauer, both professors at the Bundeswehr's Munich University, i.e. Military Academy. All four regularly publish articles in the German and international press with regards to security politics and defense.

• Masala in particular at the beginning already points out how Scholz' speech single-handedly "demolishes the pillars of German foreign politics since the Second World War".
• Sauer points out that the 100 billion fonds should not be seen as suddenly having money to spend, but instead effectively "securing" the expansion of the Bundeswehr as planned in its longterm concepts (i.e. providing secure financing for the concept the Bundeswehr wants for 2031/2032).
• Otherwise "filling the depots" is mentioned as the main initial point, with a vague number of anywhere between 15 and 30 billion Euro necessary investment cited.
• There are also hints at a move towards ordering off-the-shelf to speed up procurement. Masala points out that Finance Minister Lindner mentioned that "we'll also have to talk structures" for efficiency purposes.
• Wiegold, quoting active forces in procurement he talked to today, states that there is a move towards switching from a "peacetime mentality" to "wartime mentality" in regard to maintenance and such - i.e. not grounding fleets for minor defects.
• With regard to forces Wiegold points out that in addition to the Battlegroup in Lithuania the Bundeswehr is now deploying a harbor protection element (i.e. an infantry company) to Klaipeda, i.e. securing a port in the Baltics with military means.

A triumph for Russian diplomacy, eh? Together with Germany now giving arms to Ukraine & allowing others who have German weapons to give them to Ukraine, it's a dramatic turnaround.

Franke in the above podcast follows this line of thinking and points out that "Putin has been successful at turning Germany into what over the medium term will be the largest military actor in Europe".

 

[mrrosenthal]

Filling up the depots, can someone be more specific as to what is on the shopping list?, and if 'off the shelf' purchases are made, does that mean orders from Germany mainly or non German suppliers?

 

[ngatimozart]

Filling up the depots, can someone be more specific as to what is on the shopping list?, and if 'off the shelf' purchases are made, does that mean orders from Germany mainly or non German suppliers?

The announcement was made, what, 24 hours ago. Nobody will have a real idea at the moment on how and what it will be spent on down to the last euro. Give Bundeswehr and Defence Ministry a chance to work out where the money will go. I am sure that if you ask politely they will email you their decision and ask you for your permission.

 

[swerve]

Filling up the depots, can someone be more specific as to what is on the shopping list?, and if 'off the shelf' purchases are made, does that mean orders from Germany mainly or non German suppliers?

More specific? Apart from spares & munitions? Would you like part numbers & quantities?

 

[mrrosenthal]

Germany just announced it plans to lead Europe in this new era. I don't think filling up the 'depots' is the true vision of this new, ambitious leader. I always read German's army is lacking, so what exactly is Germany's CONOPS(does it even have one) and therefore what would be on a speculative shopping list.

 

[kato]

Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, has announced that he has made the government an offer of a comprehensive ammunition, weapons and vehicle package worth 42 billion Euro with prospective deliveries starting - depending on type - within between 6 and 24 months. The company claims to have put together this office after talking to Bundeswehr procurement in the last few days since the beginning of the invasion to discern possible demand. The company claims to be able to deliver such from existing factories, announcing the possibility of up to tripling their output.

Rheinmetall's traded stock went up +29% today, Hensoldt +41%.

 

[kato]

what exactly is Germany's CONOPS(does it even have one)

What you're looking for is the 2018 Capability Profile of the Bundeswehr, with implementation until 2032, laying out unit numbers, broad equipment types and how specific capability sets can be implemented.

This document is classified, and the extent of its official public presentation can be summarized in this chart that tells us exactly ... nothing :



Of course there have been leaks to some extent, but their veracity is never confirmed.

By description of the German Reservist Association:

• The Army will field a multinational Corps command and three divisions leading eight German and up to seven allied brigades. After 2032 the number of Geman brigades may grow to ten. Known partner nations for integration are the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Romania.
• The Air Force will field four Air Task Forces capable of a combined 300 sorties per day that in parallel shall be capable of achieving air superiority, nuclear strikes, conventional air-to-ground strikes and providing a contribution to NATINADS.
• The Navy shall field 25 combat ships and 8 submarines for 3-dimensional warfare, also enabling Littoral Sea Warfare, underwater and anti-submarine warfare, and surface warfare including air defense and ballistic missile defense.
• There are intermediate steps in 2023, 2027 and 2031 for the establishment of the above army capability, transforming a brigade, then a division, then the full army.
• The primary growth in unit numbers is to establish the necessary combat support and support units for the division and corps level (artillery, engineers, signals, and primarily logistics), which were fleeced over the last two decades.

The reservist association states a financial need of 55-60 billion annual budget to realize the capability profile as planned, or about 1.6% GDP.

You will not really get anything more specific than that that has been verified to some extent. In particular not equipment numbers or types.

 

[mrrosenthal]

The Army will field a multinational Corps command and three divisions leading eight German and up to seven allied brigades. After 2032 the number of Geman brigades may grow to ten. Known partner nations for integration are the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Romania.

This is the most interest aspect. You can only get interopability, especially in the "glass battlefield" if those 3 armies have similiar communication systems, command and control interopobility. Also, this leads to somewhat of an idea of joint purchase agreements for certain tech.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

This is the most interest aspect. You can only get interopability, especially in the "glass battlefield" if those 3 armies have similiar communication systems, command and control interopobility. Also, this leads to somewhat of an idea of joint purchase agreements for certain tech.

Define "similar". There are western standards, especially STANAG, that define hardware and software interfaces, datalinks, and data formats by which different vendors abide if they wish to sell to a NATO country. It seems some outside NATO are also in on this, seeing as some NATO countries are using Israeli BMS from two or three different vendors.

The BMS can be very different at their core, in their algorithms and functions, but on the top level, the human-machine interface, and some machine-machine interface, they will send data that is recognizable and interpretable by others.

So a solution isn't in joint acquisition programs. These can be very challenging to work with. All sorts of unexpected issues can emerge for which a response will be centralized and thus slow and inefficient.
The solution is industry standards, and for that STANAG needs to be rapidly updated.

 

[kato]

Germany and the Netherlands fully merged their BMS development into a joint project called TEN (Tactical Edge Networking) in 2019. TEN intends to establish a fully operational integrated BMS infrastructure across both militaries by 2030.

 

[mrrosenthal]

Is the BMS provider Sitaware frontline? There was news about that recently. But there was also news about a Glass Battlefield project which to me seem similar. ?

 

[kato]

The overall TEN integrator is Thales. The government-owned Bundeswehr support IT company BWI is heavily involved on the implementation side. TEN is primarily about procuring compatible systems for communications and IT infrastructure for larger-scale number mobile deployment across the battlefield. Notional target is networking 155,000 ground soldiers and 25,000 vehicles into the BMS infrastructure through TEN.

Sitaware Frontline and Sitaware Headquarters are part of the end-user BMS software suite on the Bundeswehr side, and have been fully introduced. Headquarters was actively used during the Pandemic reaction, Frontline is planned to be tactically deployed with VJTF(L) 2023.

The glass battlefield development project is ErzUntGlas and is about integrating swarm-based sensor data from multiple platforms into Sitaware. This is a development system though - ErzUntGlas is planned to reach TRL6 in 2023 and then be defined into a target system.

 

[mrrosenthal]

TEN and BWI is the server system, both hardware and software, Sitaware is the user interface, Glass Battlefield is the underlying AI and software package to organize all the data into useable information for the end users so they know what they are looking at.

Is this a fair comparison?

Fair to say that all future systems must be linked into the AI mainly, as that system will either feed the system data on what is in the zone, or the AI will feed the system attack coordinates. Therefore, getting linked into whatever integrated force Germany has in mind depends on its integration with the glass battlefield AI.

 

[kato]

TEN and BWI is the server system, both hardware and software, Sitaware is the user interface, Glass Battlefield is the underlying AI and software package to organize all the data into useable information for the end users so they know what they are looking at.

TEN is the hardware soldiers use
Sitaware the software soldiers see (well, the main application of sorts)
ErzUntGlas is an application/interface that can integrate sensor data for display in Sitaware.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

Rafael won a tender, IIRC. There is this article from 2019:

Germany hires Rafael and Atos to create a ‘glass battlefield’

What's a "glass battlefield"? Well, it's going to involve drones, vehicles, military forces and an all-encompassing network, if Germany has its way.

www.c4isrnet.com

I believe I saw follow up updates showing it was selected to provide its Fire Weaver system.
Is it still true?

 

[kato]

That's about ErzUntGlas. The software is based on the Atos interface.