The German Military | American Reacts

Willkommen! My name is Sean Huggins, an American living in Germany. Watch as I learn about German culture and life in Europe!

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[pd-zcjf]

to be fair, the benchmarks in the german military are really high. even if a vehicle has only one broken indicator it is marked as not operational.

[maartenbrandao]

people underestimate the German way of doing things. Once there is an agreement within the population to go for something big, Germany will follow this way 1000% - the German military will probably become quite scary for other nations in 10 years. It's not just the amount of money that is spent. The German mindset and work ethic thrives under pressure. It was not really a good idea to make Germany upgrading its military. The outcome will be a lot more powerful than everybody thinks today.

[jaydoubleju]

In 1990, the Bundeswehr had more than 2000 Main Battle Tanks. By the time they took most of them out of service. But they are still there.

[MiPo]

France and Germany together would be unbreakable strong

[lhuras.]

The reason why so many tanks and aircrafts dont work is because of the tüv. Everything has to be controlled after a few years of usage. And because some parts of the ... for example ... eurofighter are only be controlled by certain countries (the Wings of the eurofighter are made in two different countries. I think the left in spain and the right in greek?) They have to wait to get them back after maintenance... and that's with every part.. and same goes to other things... so only half of the eurofighter are able to work at a time...

[BierzeItboxer]

I served in a maintainance unit. Most of the stuff isn't broken at all. We changed old good parts for new good parts, because those are on checklists. As long as the vehicle(SPz Marder in our case) is in our halls, it isn't available in it's original unit, so it is not operational on paper. This shit is totally exaggerated. It just prints money for the industrie. I would say what we did with the marders can be projected to almost everything.
The equipment is usually totally fine and ready for combat, especially by worldwide standarts.
Another thing is, we dump a lot of money in consultants instead of hearing what the actual soldier has to say. Better listen to a conscript than to an consultant who never served.
Actually I think the Bundeswehr is way stronger than media tells. Bad news are selling better than good ones.
Another thing is, we as a maintainance unit, had more combat training than actually repairing things. I served 2004/2005, and at that time, when we still gathered experience from Afghanistan, we learned, you can be attacked everywhere, at any time outside the camp. No safe zone is safe. So everyone has to be capable to fight back. And our superiors don't want to bring their boys back home in a plastic bag. I don't know if every unit acts that way, because i hear storys from guys sitting around and being invisible throughout their service time, but I had action, even without deployment, all the time. I admit, it wasn't the hardest training, but we learned a lot.
I even have a former frigate gunner at work, who learned close combat and how to board an enemy ship. It isn't his task, but better to be capable to do so if necessary.
All in all, by my personal experience, we make the german army worse than it actually is. The nonsense where money is dumped for nothing is another story. And the total chaos when new stuff is introduced, like the puma affair... A400M and so on.

[Xeno]

I gotta chime in here for something real quick: The same is being said about the french and british military as well. Ever read their newspapers? They complain about the same shit. Slow procurement processes, Rafale not flying, the Ajax IFV being a mess (Puma, anyone?), no ammo for a war with russia etc. And something those militaries all have in common: Their soldiers pay is actually kinda nice. Like, 40% of their budgets goes directly into salaries, health insurance, food/board. Only fractions of it are being used for procuring stuff.
And when we say "this plane doesn't fly", it's more like "it's not cleared to fly because of very high safety standards".
The three big european armies are very well equipped, they are simply just quite small armies which didn't get the proper funding they required for the last 30 years. And if you wonder why they didn't get properly funded, check out all those taxes targetting the rich which were abolished at the end of the 80's and in the 90's (high income taxes, wealth taxes, financial transaction taxes, stock exchange taxes etc). There's a reason there weren't any billionaires when those countries still had huge armies (also very strong social security).

[nenia]

Our politicians have cut the Bundeswehr down to size over many years. Almost 50% of the barracks have been closed. Compulsory military service has been abolished. As the military is unfortunately not held in such high esteem here in Germany for the work they do abroad, there is also a shortage of soldiers. For years, the Bundeswehr has been made unattractive and that is why there is a lack of new recruits.
When someone here says “My son is in the army”, the only response you hear is “Holy shit!” But not as admiration, but rather as pity for how you can do something like that.
The attitude of the population has to change, otherwise there won't be a strong Germany. As long as there are parties that consider the Bundeswehr superfluous, the others will have a hard time.

[SecondBoooks]

germany behaving like a capturable videogame boss. Suddenly all attacks and features gone and you ask yourself if youre even gonna use it now.

[Chris-sszt]

We Germans are in standby mode, just a matter of time we wake up. 🤣

[Razor-fvtv]

I am sure that Germany will not invest heavily in the Navy. I mean they are allied with USA, England and France. I think Germany should rather invest in air and ground.
That's the good thing about NATO. You can distribute the tasks.

[nevadawn]

Germany not having much access to the sea? Please look at a map again!

more money doesnt mean more power but german do better with way less than the others because they are organized and disciplened

[PropperNaughtyGeezer]

The problem is theory and reality. The Bundeswehr is in a pitiful condition and has been treated like a stepchild by every government. It is also ironic that Germany is the fourth largest arms exporter in the world and hardly has any of its own and will not have any any time soon.
The superpower, at least on land, in Europe will be Poland. They ordered weapons like it was Christmas. In a few years they will be able to take on Russia alone.

[Rick]

0 ships on Sea? The statistics are utter nonsense, Germany has 11 large Frigates (Brandenburg class, Sachsen class, Baden-Württemberg class). Destroyer are in Euope mostly called Frigates, the term Destroyer is mainly a US ship definition and the German frigates have eg the same missile launcher than the US destroyer of the Arleigh Burke-class.

[reinoldi]

lots of that money is lost in bureaucracy ...

[herrherrman]

I also hope that we stay on the right path. They say all good things come in threes

[herrherrman]

107.000.000.000 das ist die Zahl mal ausgeschriebene falls es jemanden interessieren That's the number written out in case anyone is interested

[jancleve]

1:21 Yeah, we promised to never do that again.
The last time we tried nobody liked it... for very good reasons.

[unknownfs]

ich mag deine videos, bitte mehr reacts :)