https://sputnikglobe.com/20240126/bundeswehr-under-fire-as-auditors-question-new-assault-rifles-ability-to-shoot-straight-1116415751.html
Bundeswehr Under Fire as Auditors Question New Assault Rifle’s Ability to Shoot Straight
Bundeswehr Under Fire as Auditors Question New Assault Rifle’s Ability to Shoot Straight
Sputnik International
The calamity threatens to put a major damper on Germany’s ambitious €100 billion rearmament plan, and undermine Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’s loose talk of the need to rearm in preparation for a direct Russia-NATO clash.
2024-01-26T18:41+0000
2024-01-26T18:41+0000
2024-01-26T18:50+0000
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The new assault rifle picked by the German government to replace the troubled Heckler & Koch G36 has a problem: questionable accuracy under real-world conditions.The H&K G95A1, selected in 2021 after years of concerns over the G36’s poor performance at ranges beyond 100 meters due to overheating, appears to suffer from similar problems, with procurement officials reportedly agreeing to a series of conditions set by the manufacturer to ease testing requirements to cover up potential issues.According to a confidential report by federal auditors to Germany’s parliament seen by Bild and Spiegel, the new rifle was tested using ‘special civilian ammunition’ instead of military-grade ammo, with testing allowing for six second breaks between bursts of fire instead of the prescribed three seconds, and NATO-standard targets allowed to be replaced with ones provided by the manufacturer. What’s more, testing reportedly took place at a facility with a room temperature of a comfortable 21 degrees Celsius, leaving it unclear if the rifle can operate efficiently in -30 to +52 degree temperatures as required. Use of an add-on sniper scope was also permitted during testing.Testers reportedly fought Heckler & Kotch over the loosened testing requirements, but superiors ultimately rammed them through in January 2023 amid the rush to get the rifle approved and out the door due to pressure from the government.German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who took up his post the same month, ended up sacking defense procurement agency chief Gabriele Korb in the spring of 2023 over the slow pace of adoption of new weaponry. “The time factor is the highest priority and, from now on, the determining factor in all ongoing and new armaments projects,” the defense minister’s office said in a directive issued at the time, noting that the main goal was to make procured weapons “usable for the Bundeswehr as quickly as possible.”The G95A1 has already been delivered to elements of Germany’s Special Forces Command and the Rapid Forces Division, and has been exported to France. The military planned to purchase enough of the €5,050 euro ($5,490 US) apiece rifles (€2,200 euros for the base model plus €1,650 for a laser sight and €1,200 for optics) for the entire 180,000 troop-strong military by 2025.Germany kicked off a massive, €100 billion rearmament campaign of a scale and intensity unseen since the Second World War in early 2022 after the crisis in the Donbass escalated into a full-scale proxy war between Russia and NATO in Ukraine. Berlin also committed more than €17 billion ($18.57 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine – more than any other NATO country besides the US. Chancellor Scholz’s government has vowed to further ramp up support for Kiev in in 2024 amid the ongoing deadlock in Washington over an additional $61 billion in Ukraine funding proposed by the Biden administration.Pistorius announced earlier this week that Germany should prepare for a possible military conflict with Russia sometime in the next three to five years, saying the Bundeswehr must become a “credible deterrent” and that a new “fully-combat ready” combat brigade must be deployed in the Baltics by 2027.German opposition politicians have lambasted Pistorius and Scholz over their military policy and warmongering against Russia, saying the country is in the middle of its most serious economic crisis since the Second World War and can’t afford rearmament amid the loss of favorable energy contracts with Moscow, and an economy riddled with inflation, a lack of qualified labor, bureaucracy and high taxation.“In my view, Germany is in no fit state economically and financially to embark upon a massive rearmament program,” AfD MEP Gunnar Beck told Sputnik this week. “If the German government seriously did so, the consequence would be a further significant worsening of the economic crisis,” he said.
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why is bundeswehr in trouble, what is the bundeswehr's standard issue rifle
why is bundeswehr in trouble, what is the bundeswehr's standard issue rifle
Bundeswehr Under Fire as Auditors Question New Assault Rifle’s Ability to Shoot Straight
18:41 GMT 26.01.2024 (Updated: 18:50 GMT 26.01.2024) The calamity threatens to put a major damper on Germany’s ambitious €100 billion rearmament plan, and undermine Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’s loose talk of the need to rearm in preparation for a direct Russia-NATO clash.
The new assault rifle picked by the German government to replace the troubled Heckler & Koch G36 has a problem: questionable accuracy under real-world conditions.
The H&K G95A1, selected in 2021 after years of concerns over the G36’s poor performance at ranges beyond 100 meters due to overheating, appears to suffer from similar problems, with procurement officials reportedly agreeing to a series of conditions set by the manufacturer to ease testing requirements to cover up potential issues.
According to a confidential report by federal auditors to Germany’s parliament seen by
Bild and
Spiegel, the new rifle was tested using ‘special civilian ammunition’ instead of military-grade ammo, with testing allowing for six second breaks between bursts of fire
instead of the prescribed three seconds, and NATO-standard targets allowed to be
replaced with ones provided by the manufacturer. What’s more, testing reportedly took place at a facility with a room temperature of a comfortable 21 degrees Celsius, leaving it unclear if the rifle can operate efficiently in -30 to +52 degree temperatures as required. Use of an add-on sniper scope was also permitted during testing.
The Bundeswehr “needs an assault rifle with sufficient precision under real world conditions and with combat-grade ammunition,” the auditors said, noting that the testing failed to “ensure that the troops’ precision requirements are met.”
Testers reportedly fought Heckler & Kotch over the loosened testing requirements, but superiors ultimately rammed them through in January 2023 amid the rush to get the rifle approved and out the door due to pressure from the government.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who took up his post the same month, ended up sacking defense procurement agency chief Gabriele Korb in the spring of 2023 over the slow pace of adoption of new weaponry. “The time factor is the highest priority and, from now on, the determining factor in all ongoing and new armaments projects,” the defense minister’s office said in a directive issued at the time, noting that the main goal was to make procured weapons “usable for the Bundeswehr as quickly as possible.”
“Wanting to speed up projects is fundamentally understandable, but this must not come at the expense of usability and functionality,” auditors said in their report.
The G95A1 has already been delivered to elements of Germany’s Special Forces Command and the Rapid Forces Division, and has been exported to France. The military planned to purchase enough of the €5,050 euro ($5,490 US) apiece rifles (€2,200 euros for the base model plus €1,650 for a laser sight and €1,200 for optics) for the entire 180,000 troop-strong military by 2025.
Germany kicked off a massive, €100 billion rearmament campaign of a scale and intensity unseen since the Second World War in early 2022 after the crisis in the Donbass escalated into a full-scale proxy war between Russia and NATO in Ukraine. Berlin also committed more than €17 billion ($18.57 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine – more than any other NATO country besides the US. Chancellor Scholz’s government has vowed to further ramp up support for Kiev in in 2024 amid the ongoing deadlock in Washington over an additional $61 billion in Ukraine funding proposed by the Biden administration.
Pistorius announced earlier this week that Germany should prepare for a possible military conflict with Russia sometime in the next three to five years, saying the Bundeswehr must become a “credible deterrent” and that a new “fully-combat ready” combat brigade must be deployed in the Baltics by 2027.
German opposition politicians have lambasted Pistorius and Scholz over their military policy and warmongering against Russia, saying the country is in the middle of its most serious economic crisis since the Second World War and can’t afford rearmament amid the loss of favorable energy contracts with Moscow, and an economy riddled with inflation, a lack of qualified labor, bureaucracy and high taxation.
“In my view, Germany is in no fit state economically and financially to embark upon a massive rearmament program,” AfD MEP Gunnar Beck
told Sputnik this week. “If the German government seriously did so, the consequence would be a further significant worsening of the economic crisis,” he said.
