Faster, more accurate, better networked: The “Puma” should be able to do almost everything and turns out to be a total failure – not just now. Can gun purchases be refocused? It would be good: less fancy, but fit.
18 out of 18 – it’s seldom that thick. It is fatal for one’s own reputation if the failure of the most modern Bundeswehr armored personnel carrier “Puma” can be summarized in such a handy proportion. What the “7 to 1” said about the condition of the Brazilian Seleção at the 2014 World Cup will remain the “18 of 18” for the Bundeswehr for quite a while. The statement “The Bundeswehr is standing there blank” made by Army Inspector Alfons Mais on February 24 of this year, condensed into two numbers.
The oath of disclosure is not unexpected. Anyone who has exchanged views with commanders of the Bundeswehr over the past few months could already guess that the troops would probably not join the “spearhead” of the NATO Response Force, the “Very High Readyness Joint Task Force” (VJTF) with the most technically sophisticated tank in the world. would pull.
In any case, this was openly doubted at the commander level in the army, since the “Puma” had already shown itself in the past to be clearly too vulnerable to withstand such a load. Finally, the Bundeswehr takes over the leadership of the multinational headquarters, which plans and conducts special operations throughout NATO territory.
There are several reasons why there was a total failure within a few days. On the one hand, with a technically highly developed system, there is almost always the problem that it is at the expense of robustness. But when the SPD man Peter Struck ordered the “Puma” as Defense Minister in 2002, other things were in the foreground: Still under the impression of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the new infantry fighting vehicle should definitely be transportable in the air, so that it could theoretically also be transported further distant battles, for example in the Middle East.
However, 13 years after the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, possible war missions in Europe were already being pushed into the background by those responsible. What decides on the battlefield, namely technology that has endurance and on which the troops can rely blindly, played a subordinate role in the decision for the Puma. More decisive was and remained also with Struck’s successors, whether they were called Jung, zu Guttenberg, von der Leyen or Kramp-Karrenbauer, the superlative with which one can score – also externally.
It had to be the most technically advanced infantry fighting vehicle in the world, and then it needed a handful of extra electronic finesse just for the Germans. It is this fundamental requirement that German security policy in 2022 so visibly stumbles over. “We always want gold-rimmed solutions, the best of the best,” says military expert Wolfgang Richter in an interview with ntv.de, but he believes the Bundeswehr is paying a high price for this, on several levels.
Problem one: “That finishing touch, which is above good quality and leads to top quality, often costs three times what a slightly simpler system would cost.” So Germany pays high sums for its weapons – even in the case of the “Puma”, the price has continued to rise over the years due to many conversions, up to about twice the originally estimated budget. In return you get sophisticated technology, but in small quantities.
The small amount is a consequence of problem two: It takes many years of development before such a filigree system really works, and further years in procurement, which then turn into a few years of testing – accompanied by price increases, technical problems, resulting in delays in delivery, renewed price increases, and so on. “If you buy such a high-quality system as the ‘Puma’, it also means that this system has not been tested before,” says Richter, who conducts research for the Science and Politics Foundation. “It will have a number of teething problems before the system can be said to be fully operational.”
There is no question that the requirements for an infantry fighting vehicle are not trivial: off-road, on track, on inclines and declines, and the vehicle also has to be able to cope with water to a certain extent. With speed and turning manoeuvres, the cannon should be as stable as possible. To do this, the infantry fighting vehicle must protect the crew against mines, direct fire and artillery splinters. After all, the tank should drive in a network, in conjunction with other units, which requires a picture of the situation that should be available electronically.
If everything works, a device with enormous capabilities. But at what point the technology is actually ready for use only becomes clear when the tank is in use by the troops. Exactly at the same time 18 out of 18 Pumas fell out. Which leads directly to problem three: the lack of maintenance.
High-quality armament technology offers many skills while at the same time being as simple as possible to use. However, this means that the operator can hardly react if the system fails. You need on-site repairs. However, the Bundeswehr has given up a large part of its logistics for army maintenance to industry. The systems are serviced and repaired there.
This type of logistics works, but only as long as the technology does not actually have to be used. However, over the years, the various department heads in the Ministry of Defense have lost sight of the possibility of a serious combat mission.
“We now have a different world situation,” says security expert Richter. “We now need systems that, with a view to the highest standards, may not achieve 100 percent, but only 95 percent, but which are available with mass and reliably.” That is what decides in battle. The Bundeswehr needs its own repair teams for this, which, when the troops are in the field, repairs broken technology behind the battle lines, and that in the shortest possible time.
Fewer superlatives, less dependency on industry, but a return to competence and logistics in maintenance. And above all, the focus must be on operational readiness in combat: major challenges for the Bundeswehr that require energy and the will to reform. To push all this, a total failure as pithy as last week’s “18 of 18” might not be the worst place to start.
