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BERLIN – Maybe it’s a good thing that Germany refused to send tanks to Ukraine after all.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht called an emergency meeting with her generals on Monday to discuss the latest crisis hitting Germany’s besieged military: broken tanks.
The emergency meeting follows a commander-in-chief’s leaked email to the head of the Bundeswehr, in which he complained about the desolate condition of his division’s armored personnel carriers.
“Even with the best preparation, the question of the operational readiness of the vehicles has become a lottery game,” Major General Ruprecht von Butler wrote to his boss, according to a copy of the e-mail quoted by Der Spiegel at the weekend.
During an exercise this month to prepare a Bundeswehr armored brigade for integration into NATO’s “high readiness” task force, all 18 modern German armored personnel carriers were out of action, von Butler wrote.
Known as Pumas, the tanks suffered a variety of malfunctions, from electronic failures to “turret failures”. Soldiers had to abandon one of the tanks after its wiring caught fire.
Designed to move troops across the battlefield, Pumas are armed with a variety of weapon systems, including a 30mm cannon capable of (in theory, at least) firing hundreds of rounds per minute.
Due to the problems, the Bundeswehr has no choice but to rely on the Puma’s progenitor, the Marder from the 1970s – one of the tank models that Ukraine was keen to buy from Germany but that Berlin was unwilling to sell.
Germany’s Leopard II main battle tank also took part in the most recent exercises and performed significantly better, the general reported. (Also Chancellor Olaf Scholz has blocked the transfer of Leopards to Ukraine, arguing that the US has also withheld sending main battle tanks.)
Lambrecht commented on Monday afternoon – and outlined the results of the crisis meeting.
“Until the vehicle proves stable, there will be no second batch. The criticism from Parliament is completely justified,” she said, putting the planned replacement of the combat vehicle on hold.
Johann Wadephul, deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, complained about the state of the Bundeswehr. “The problems with the Puma have also been known for a long time. However, both the industry and the army said over a year ago that the basic problems are all fixed,” he told POLITICO.
The Bundeswehr’s equipment problems are not new. In fact, the German army’s shoddy equipment has made them the laughing stock of NATO. Nevertheless, the fight of the military with its most modern tanks underlines the systemic nature of the problems.
Germany’s Leopard II main battle tank fared significantly better in recent military exercises | Leon Neal/Getty Images
It has been almost a year since Scholz declared a turning point in Germany’s strategic perspective triggered by Russia’s brutal all-out attack on Ukraine. As part of Germany’s transition, the government created a €100 billion “special fund” to upgrade the Bundeswehr’s equipment.
The Department of Defense signed initial contracts last week, including an order for US F-35 fighters. Delivery of this equipment is years away.