|
Politico: “Germany approves tank sales to Ukraine, bowing to pressure”
Did Germany really decide to deliver tanks to the Ukraine?
The German government said Tuesday it will deliver anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine after facing strong pressure at home and abroad to abandon its reluctance to supply heavy weapons to Kyiv.
The decision to provide the “Gepard” tanks, which come from German defense industry stocks, was made at a closed-door government meeting on Monday, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told reporters at a Ukraine security conference at a U.S. airbase in Ramstein, Germany. There was no immediate information on how many tanks Germany would deliver.
The announcement marks a notable shift for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who as recently as last week was still ruling out sending German tanks to Ukraine, insisting it would make more sense for Eastern NATO countries to give Kyiv old Soviet-era tanks already familiar to the Ukrainian military. Scholz promised Germany would then send those countries replacement German tanks.
I find it amusing how many misunderstand this move. First off – the Gepard (Cheetah) is not a tank as the turret has very little protective armor.
bigger
It is a short range (5 km / 3 miles) anti-air system on a tank chassis useful against helicopters, drones and low flying planes.
That Scholz decided to offer these, instead of real tanks or armored infantry carriers as the U.S. and the camouflage-Green party demanded, is a nice way out. It guarantees that the Ukrainians will not be able to use them before the war is over.
The Gepard system with its two 35mm cannons is more than 50 years old but has been upgraded two or three times. The Germany army retired their last one of these in 2010. They have since been held in storage.
I remember them well from my time in the Bundeswehr. While my primary training was as a gunner on a real tank, the Leopard 1A3, two people I knew were trained as gunners for the Gepard. There was a huge difference though. It took 6 months of training to become a reasonably good tank gunner. It took 12 month, including hundreds of hours in a simulator, to become a gunner on a Gepard. The commander role required even more training.
The system was excellent for its time but also really complicate. The two radars have various modes for different purposes. One would better use the right one or risk to attract explosive countermeasures. The startup of the turret systems and the handling of their various error modes that could occur were not easy to handle. The tank chassis is also more complicate than the original one. It has an additional motor which powers five electric generators, two Metadyne rotary transformers and a flywheel to handle the extraordinary fast movements of the turret (2.5 sec for a 360°turn).
There are probably less than ten people in the current Bundeswehr who still know how to operate and maintain a Gepard. There is thus little chance to find German crews for them.
If the Ukrainians really want to use these outdated systems they will have to train fresh crews for at least a year. Otherwise those guns will be ineffective and of little use.
My hunch though is that none of these will ever be delivered. The Swiss, who manufactured the cannons and their ammunition, have seen to that:
Neutral Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft tanks that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said on Tuesday.
Germany earlier announced its first delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off Russian attacks following weeks of pressure at home and abroad to do so.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) confirmed a report by broadcaster SRF that it had blocked Germany from sending munitions for the Gepard tank to Ukraine.
Chancellor Scholz likely knew all that. The offer of Gepards is a safe way to relieve the pressure put onto him to send arms to Ukraine. It is an offer of a system that can not be used within the timeframe of the war and for which he can not deliver the necessary specialized ammunition.
Are there still some Lockheed F-104 Starfighter in German storage? If so those flying coffins should be offered next.
Kim@140
Nemesis objects to the criticism of fascist groups-such as the Grey Wolves. He believes that Nationalists and Globalists have diametrically opposed objectives.
He is wrong, the Grey wolves and Turkish nationalists generally are looking greedily at Russian territory, much of which came from the Ottomans in the C18th (it came to them in the C16th), like hyenas. They are praying that the Empire wakens Russia enough that they can start reclaiming the conquered regions that Catherine and other Tsars took from them.
That was the significance of Kazakhstan a few weeks ago. It was what the Azeri-Armenian war was about too.
Most nationalist groups, including the UKrainian fascists, share the perspectives of the Grey Wolves in this respect: they support the imperialists because the Empire promotes chaos. And this political scum wallows in chaos, blood and terror.
Nemesis knows better: we have just seen forty years in which the wahhabi, theoretically opposed to the West in all its works, its religions and its culture, have acted as the shock troops of Empire. Behind their sunni fundamentalism there has always been American money, arms, training, air power.
The problem with ‘right wing’ Nationalists is that their primary loyalty is to the status quo, the capitalist system and the exploitation of the vulnerable.
That is what the history of European Fascism teaches.
Look at today. Here is an excerpt from a new book by David de Jong: Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties.
“…On Monday, February 20, 1933, at 6 p.m., about two dozen of Nazi Germany’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen arrived, on foot or by chauffeured car, to attend a meeting at the official residence of the Reichstag president, Hermann Göring, in the heart of Berlin’s government and business district. The attendees included Günther Quandt, a textile producer turned arms-and-battery tycoon; Friedrich Flick, a steel magnate; Baron August von Finck, a Bavarian finance mogul; Kurt Schmitt, CEO of the insurance behemoth Allianz; executives from the chemicals conglomerate IG Farben and the potash giant Wintershall; and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, chairman-through-marriage of the Krupp steel empire.
“The purpose of that meeting was not to sell big business on anti-semitism, Hitler’s plans for world conquest, or the Holocaust. Hitler’s regime as we now know it was not up for for debate. The purpose of the meeting was to raise money with which to end German democracy.
“Private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy,” the forty-three-year-old chancellor said. “It is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality. Everything positive, good and valuable, which has been achieved in the world in the field of economics and culture, is solely attributable to the importance of personality.”
What Hitler and his movement needed was money with which to win the election of March 5 1933. It was to be a decisive vote.
“the last election,” according to Hitler. One way or another, democracy would fall. Germany’s new chancellor intended to dissolve it entirely and replace it with a dictatorship. “Regardless of the outcome,” he warned, “there would be no retreat . . . There are only two possibilities, either to crowd back the opponent on constitutional grounds . . . or a struggle will be conducted with other weapons, which may demand greater sacrifices.” If the election didn’t bring Hitler’s party into control, a civil war between the right and the left would certainly erupt, he intimated. Hitler waxed poetic: “I hope the German people recognize the greatness of the hour. It shall decide the next ten or probably even hundred years.”
What Hitler, Goering and Schacht had in mind was a fund equivalent to $20 million in today’s money with which to win the election and end Germany democracy. They had no problem raising the funds.
The day after the meeting, February 21, 1933, thirty-five-year-old Joseph Goebbels, who led the Nazi propaganda machine from Berlin as the capital’s Gauleiter (regional leader), wrote in his diary: “Göring brings the joyful news that 3 million is available for the election. Great thing! I immediately alert the whole propaganda department. And one hour later, the machines rattle. Now we will turn on an election campaign . . . Today the work is fun. The money is there.”
Hitler summed up the essence of ‘right wing nationalism’ very succinctly
“Private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy,” the forty-three-year-old chancellor said.”
Posted by: bevin | Apr 27 2022 19:48 utc | 147
Matthew Ehret opines that there’s still time for the West to make amends with Russia:
“But time is ticking away, and the doors to a bright future of cooperation close faster with every passing minute. It is thus important to take the opportunity of the anniversary of Elbe Day (April 25) to recall and revive the spirit of U.S.-Russian brotherhood that jointly put down the Nazi machine in WWII and whose joint sacrifices created the possibility for an age of cooperation and brotherhood that even at this late stage may possibly be revived.”
That union was only “brotherhood” for the line soldiers that took part. US Military and much of the government were still very much against Russia thanks to the propaganda aimed at smearing it and making people fear for their material goods. Ehret is too good of an historian to miss the overall context, so these sorts of errors he makes are puzzling and hurt his credibility.
Putin and Russia on the other hand are under no such illusions. How do I know this? Well, I read what Putin says, and I also know that there’s solidarity within Russia’s Security Council and the government as a whole. I’m sure many heads were shaking in agreement when Putin said the following in his speech today:
“We also remember how Western states in the early 1990s and 2000s encouraged terrorists and bandits in the North Caucasus, speculated on the problems of our past, on really problematic issues, on the injustices of the past against entire peoples, including the peoples of the Caucasus. But they did not do this in order to make us better, not at all, but they did it in order to transfer the problems of the past into our life today, in order to stimulate separatist sentiments in our country, ultimately to dismember and destroy it. That’s what they did all this for, to drive us into what’s called a bear corner. This is what many at all times have sought to do, to do with regard to Russia.
“They did not achieve their goal, but they did not accept the fact that they could not do it, that we, despite this onslaught, managed to survive then. Therefore, later they embarked on a massive preparation of an economic war against Russia, step by step using all sorts of pretexts, and sometimes simply without any pretexts, they introduced new sanctions restrictions. By the way, today’s plans for ‘economic strangulation’ also failed.
“Along with this, the enemies of our country forced the production of a new ‘geopolitical weapon’ – it is not new in fact, but, of course, gave it new strength, a new impetus – relied on Russophobia and neo-Nazis, from year to year brazenly, unceremoniously turned our neighboring country, Ukraine, into ‘anti-Russia’.”
Then we have Patrushev’s description of the Outlaw US Empire’s actions:
“You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate other people’s lives. Americans are used to walking on scorched earth. Since World War II, entire cities have been razed to the ground by bombing, including nuclear bombing. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed the Serbs with radioactive munitions, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine. I do not think that the lives of Ukrainians are of concern to the United States, which has repeatedly proved its aggressive anti-human nature. As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one.”
Some already know there can only be one positive outcome for the current struggle–NATO’s capitulation and dismantling, which would be contextually similar to Germany’s WW2 defeat. For me, it’s extremely clear that many never bothered to read or listen to Russia or closely examine the West’s behavior since 1989. Current events and Russia’s attitude cannot be understood without knowing that context. Many don’t want to face the reality of their nation’s actions being against their own interests; or even worse, that their nation differs little in actions from Hitlerian Germany; that it actively recruits, trains and deploys a Terrorist Foreign Legion and has done so since 1945. Hollywood got one movie line right: “You can’t handle the truth.”
A very popular rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, back in 1974 wrote what would become a huge hit and its primary claim to fame, “Sweet Home Alabama,” where it asked if Watergate or your conscious bothered you–the answer being no, you shouldn’t care at all or worry about such things. Well, that was one of the most misleading messages of all time, right up there with Gobbelian propaganda.
One of Martyanov’s lines is the fact that few know actual warfare and the nonchalant approach many have to the current crisis and the abject failure to show reality. Too many fail to appreciate this crisis is actually a life or death struggle–not just for Russia, but for the West, and also for humanity.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 27 2022 21:33 utc | 185
|
