This is a video of military armored vehicle currently in service with the German Army. It is quality over quantity when it comes to the modern German Army – a force built primarily with speed in mind. But declining military capabilities of the Bundeswehr served to undermine the credibility of Germany’s determination to act as a reliable partner of the transatlantic alliance. Specifically, the United States was increasingly dissatisfied that Germany had failed to take action and to contribute more to shared global security concerns.
The focus on light and deployable armored infantry vehicles reflected the intent to increase the survivability of rapid deployed first on the scene. The retention of heavy armored mechanized divisions still provides an indispensable flexibility for certain conflicts, which require decisive and overwhelming firepower on the ground. However, it remained to be seen on what scale the drop in defense matters reflected by the decline of the German defense budget impacts the budget devoted to procurement.
The German Army is proposing a EUR5 billion (USD6.2 billion) army equipment plan called Project Land 2023 starting as early as 2019. Under the plan, the German Army would retain its current three divisions, one to be fully modernised and digitised by 2027, followed by the other two by 2032. As an intermediate step, one brigade equivalent is planned to be fully modernised and to reach full readiness by 2023 so it is available for the NATO Response Force’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) when Germany takes over its leadership at the beginning of that year. German Army planners have calculated that Project Land 2023 would have a significant price tag on top of the Bundeswehr’s already ongoing modernisation.
