Why German Troops Don't Trust Their Weapons
A survey of German soldiers has found that an overwhelming majority have doubts about the reliability of their weapons. More than half rated their weapons as unreliable, with less than ten percent expressing confidence in their army-issued G36 rifles. The news comes as the German military prepares to deploy troops to the Baltics to counter an aggressive Russia.
The poll, conducted by the Bundeswehr (German Army) research center and reported by the German Bild newspaper, was carried out during the Trident Junction 2015 wargames. Forty-three percent of respondents said that their weapons were "rather not reliable" or "not reliable at all." Twenty-eight percent said they could "partly" trust their weapons. Only eight percent said they could fully trust their weapons. By contrast, 80 percent of U.S. Army troops reported they were confident in the reliability of their issue weapon, the M-4 carbine, when they were asked in 2006.
The Bundeswehr has known of reliability problems with its G36 assault rifle since at least 2012. German troops returning from Afghanistan have complained the rifles lose accuracy after sustained firing in hot environments. An investigation by the German Defense Ministry revealed that the polymer channel in which the barrel sits heats up and softens with sustained firing, losing its shape and throwing the barrel out of alignment. The rifle's manufacturer, Heckler and Koch, claims the rifles are fine, and supporters say the rifles are being fired more often than was originally planned. Regardless, the Defense Ministry plans to start replacing the G36 in 2019 with 167,000 rifles of a different design.
A more surprising revelation revealed by the poll was that German troops also did not trust their heavy weapons systems. Thirty-six percent of soldiers claimed their heavy machine guns, anti-tank missiles, and other crew-served weapons were not reliable at all, with another 30 percent saying the weapons were only partly unreliable.
One of the weapons in question was likely the MG3 machine gun. Although is has been an excellent weapon, the German Army's MG3 inventory should have been retired long ago and is only now being replaced with the MG4. The German Army is also operating the MILAN anti-tank missile past its prime, a missile being replaced with the Israeli SPIKE.
The German military, long underfunded, has been suffering a very public readiness crisis. Germany spends just 1.2 percent of GDP on defense, far short of the 2 percent NATO nations are expected to spend. In 2014, German mechanized infantrymen participating in an exercise in Norway didn't have enough MG3 machine guns and were forced to simulate them with broomsticks. Last year, less than half of the German Air Force's Typhoon fighters and none of the navy's Sea Lynx helicopters were airworthy.
Last week, news outlets reported that German Army will man one of four mechanized battalions in the Baltics as a way to prop up NATO's eastern frontier against an aggressive Russia. Let's hope they figure out some better weapons, and fast.
Via Bild.
