Watching the 10 o'clock News on BBC they said the Germans won't fly at night due to Health & Saftey . Is this true?
I don't know for sure, but it is completely consistent with the German Army's refusal to engage the Taliban or other enemy forces in battle, except in defense. If they won't fight the enemy, then why bother to fly at night?
I can just imagine a Taliban mortar attack at night on a German camp. Wounded need to be cas-evaced but the answer comes back, "Nien, Es tut mir leid. Es ist sehr gefährlich, es ist nacht." As Adam once said Hitler really did emasculate the Germans armed forces did't he? Support for the German deployment has sharply dropped at home too. ISN Security Watch - Germany's growing Afghan dilemma A recent poll conducted by the German Allensbach Institute found that only 29 percent of the German population still supports the deployment of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, in contrast to 51 percent five years ago.
I heard something very similar on newsnight a couple of months back,although it wasnt just flying it was any form of operation. Just adds more to the old story that the germans really are afraid of the dark,the soviets found this one out sharpish.
In INTOPS there will always be issues on what different countries will or won't do. I remember that the 'Spagetti Airlines' were quite difficult to work with in Lebanon. Lots of medivacs were done by the Israeli Air Force. The British in the Balkans prefered our (norwegian) pilots because they are mad. (and somewhat used to the mountain terrain) They even landed in unchecked areas. Our lads in Afganistan is not supposed to be deployed in the South due to the higher risk down there. Our mandate says so.
I guess I am old school. What is the point of having soldiers if they won't, or are not allowed to soldier?
Ah the wonders of politics. The way I see it is that we have lost our common platform that we had during the cold war era. Every nation for itself does not work in large alliances such as NATO or the UN. The latter organisation has lost its weight and direction since there are too many players who are just polishing their reputation. The only upside with the UN at present is their civillian projects such as food and development. The post cold war era has taken away our ability to 'police' in the world. There is simply not enogh boots to do the job. To top that every nation write their own clauses for deployment, making operational command impossible. What the leaders of such operations should do is to say full commitment or stay home. It would be the fair thing to do. If nations feel that this is an operation we don't want to support, then stay out of it period.
It always seems that certain countries are always willing to sent troops, whilst others stay behind, NATO then should say, oke you don't send troops, then you will pay the millions spend by those countries who will
Whingeing German troops too soft to fight Taliban Roger Boyes | June 17, 2009 Article from: Time Online THEY have a beer ration of up to a litre a day, and wurst for dinner. Taliban or no Taliban, Germans take a little bit of home with them when they serve in trouble spots. Even their carefully-sorted rubbish gets dumped in wheelie bins before being sent from Afghanistan to Germany for recycling. Now Germany's most senior officer has warned soldiers not to get too cosy or become too soft. "We cannot guarantee soldiers that they will have an all-round feel-good experience," said General Wolfgang Schneiderhan. His outburst follows complaints made by German soldiers to the official ombudsman about their tours abroad. Some have grumbled about unsuitable sleeping bags for their Congo peace-keeping mission - "there is no reason why this issue should have come before parliament" said General Schneiderhan - while others moaned about the long hours, a lack of childcare for their families at home and poor medical care. Army doctors in particular say that they are on the brink of leaving because pay and conditions are so bad. So many have returned to civilian life that there is a shortage of medics in the field. "We have to tell a professional soldier who complains about his third tour of overseas duty that he has to get a grip - this is his profession," said General Schneiderhan. "Perhaps the problem is down to the general tendency in society to delegate responsibility to someone else, or perhaps it is the stress associated with change," he told several hundred army officers and politicians at an official reception. It is a far cry from Germany's old military traditions - the Prussian officers who helped to defeat Napoleon or the tactical flair of Rommel, the Desert Fox, but the troops' reluctance will not come as a surprise to the country's allies in combat zones such as Afghanistan, where German participation is limited by a host of caveats. German Medevac helicopters have to be back at base by dusk. German Tornado aircraft are restricted to unarmed reconaissance. Der Spiegel magazine highlighted the case recently of a Taliban commander - nicknamed the Baghlan Bomber because of his role in blowing up a sugar factory in that northwestern province - who was cornered by the KSK German special service unit but allowed to escape. The KSK are not authorised to kill, under the terms of engagement imposed by the German parliament, unless they are under attack. Although the north of Afghanistan is not as quiet as it used to be - about 30 German soldiers have been killed since 2001 - other members of the ISAF force have voiced dissatisfaction about Germany's contribution. The reports of soldiers' complaints made to parliament by Reinhold Robbe, the ombudsman, paint a picture of a force that is concentrating more on its own wellbeing than on the peace-keeping mission. In 2007 German forces in Afghanistan consumed about 90,000 bottles of wine in addition to 1.7million pints of beer; that figure has stayed constant. British and US bases by contrast have an alcohol ban. The diet is heavy on carbohydrates, low on fruit and a higher proportion of soldiers are overweight than in the civilian population of Germany. Mr Robbe admitted that too many soldiers had a "passive lifestyle". In short the soldiers are fat, they drink too much and spend a great deal of time moaning. There are 3,500 German soldiers in Afghanistan. German troops also take part in missions in Kosovo, Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For much of the postwar period Germans were constitutionally banned from serving on foreign missions. Deployment still requires a parliamentary mandate and this gives complaining soldiers some clout. If they moan loud enough they can usually secure improvements but they continue to suffer equipment shortages, like their British counterparts, and officers complain of insufficient training.
The balls have been chopped off the German Army. The defeat of Hitler made that country lose it's war-like urges. I remember Mollusc getting VERY irrate at how wet Germans had become.
Reading that they sound no different to any other army.....A good soldier isn't a soldier unless he's moaning about something. It's a speciality of the British Army
The rules of engagement can also be restrictive when operating against an irregular force and an ongoing issue when civilian casualties and a "hearts and minds" approach. This goes back to the Vietnam era and onwards. The troops feel restricted in responding to offensive action.
The balls have been chopped off the German Army. The defeat of Hitler made that country lose it's war-like urges. I remember Mollusc getting VERY irrate at how wet Germans had become. I knew there was a joke in here somewhere! I bet theirs a French joke somewhere here as well!
I knew there was a joke in here somewhere! I bet theirs a French joke somewhere here as well! What about the Franco-German Brigade. In February 2009 a German Battalion was moving to France as part of the Franco-German Brigade.
The balls have been chopped off the German Army. The defeat of Hitler made that country lose it's war-like urges. I remember Mollusc getting VERY irrate at how wet Germans had become. in the populous as a whole that is... since 1945 (and at least until the mid 1990's) there have been some VERY warlike German soldiers (some of them have been warlike to the verge of psychosis!!!). Problem is, they've had to fight for other people's armies to quell their urges. Not being allowed to take part in operations outside of their homeland for over 50 years sort of dumbs down a nation, I suppose (though there was the case of the German Lieutnant who blew the brains out of a Serbian about 10/15 years ago because he (probably) looked at him wrong... bet grandad would have been proud of him! Dave.
I knew there was a joke in here somewhere! I bet theirs a French joke somewhere here as well! I don't think the performance of the French troops in the Western Desert, on Europe after 1944, etc, etc, were much of joke material. And this French Joke Idea was invented only after the French gave Bush the finger about Iraq II, there wasn't much complaining about the French intervention in Iraq I as far as anyone knows. An intelligent mind would THINK a bit before shooting his mouth off. Freedom Fries? You can stuff them.