In the Works X

A couple weeks ago I promised a trip to the land of bier and wurst. Then I forgot all about it, possibly because I had a little too much bier and schnitzel myself. The next few posts will make up for that as we take a look at the Bundeswehr from the 1950s through the 70s.

Once the Western Allies accepted the unpleasant idea that Stalin was not actually the kindly uncle allied propaganda had made him out to be and that the American nuclear monopoly was over, NATO’s three goals (the Americans in, the Germans down and the Soviets out) demanded that the Germans pull their share of the load in that last bit. The Soviets and their puppet armies were large, well equipped, and apparently devoted to the idea of making International Socialism fully International whether the rest of the world liked the idea or not. Since Germany was going to be the battlefield, it made sense for them to fight on it. On the other hand, absolutely no-one wanted the Germans to get any clever ideas about trying for another rematch, and since the only people available to build the new German military had been in the old German military, the rest of Europe as well as the Americans took that possibility seriously. Accordingly, the governments of Europe spent the rest of the Cold War in a foreign policy dance that would have be farcical had the stakes not been so serious: everyone else wanted the German military just strong enough to present the Soviets with a credible deterrent, but not so strong that no future Austrian watercolor artist might start getting ambitious. The Germans were, at least officially, consumed with the idea of applying for re-admission to the human race, rebuilding their utterly devastated and suddenly much smaller country, and making a few marks in the process which didn’t leave much room for raising a large army.

While the new Bundeswehr was initially equipped with leftover American equipment, much of it was badly outdated and often thoroughly worn out by the last war. Much of the rest was not to German tastes. The M47 was a bad job all around, the M41 was too big for a light tank and too lightly armed and armored to do anything else, and the M48’s development was an ongoing nightmare. Attempts to buy Centurions failed to pan out and most of the Euro-x consortium projects ended badly. German industry wasn’t interested, as it was illegal for West Germany to export arms in the 50s and 60s, France and Britain having wised up to certain shenanigans of the the 20s and 30s, and that combined with the certainty of relatively small orders for a Bundeswehr that was meant to be just big enough that there wasn’t enough money in weapons to make up for the costs.

We talked about the Leopard 1 and the disastrous HS.30 earlier. Today we’re going to look at some of the German attempts to apply the lessons of World War 2 to the Cold War.

The many German turretless tank destroyers and assault guns had performed quite well despite their short comings. Lacking turrets made them much cheaper to build and shorter as well, which made them easier to conceal and harder to hit. Even better, everyone knew that such vehicles were ill suited to the attack, which might calm nervous European politicians and angry German pacifists.

Development of a low, relatively light at 27 tons, derivative of the Jagdpanzer IV began in 1960. By 1966 the Bundeswehr had settled on the Kanonenjagdpanzer. Armed with a 90mm gun firing HEAT, HESH and HE, the KJPz followed the logic of the Leopard 1 defensively. With no more than 50mm of steel sloped at 51 degrees, crews relied on the low profile to help find hidden firing positions and a good turn of speed to run to the next position after firing a few shots.

Unfortunately the gun quickly became obsolete. While the KJPz could have been re-armed with an L7 105mm, the Bundeswehr decided the better route was the anti-tank missile and the Kanonenjagdpanzer became the Raketenjagdpanzer. As the available anti-tank missiles improved, a series of Jaguars were introduced. First off was the French SS-11 wire-guided manual command missile. Lethal out to 3000 meters, it had the distinct disadvantage of having to flown to the target like a model airplane. Still, it was one of the first really successful ATGMs and much better than most of its contemporaries.

Franco-German puissance

The Euromissile Haut subsonique Optiquement Téléguidé Tiré d'un Tube, usually just called HOT, was one of the rare Euro-x consortium projects to actually work, albeit after 14 years of development and 5 years after TOW entered service. It found it’s way on to the Jaguar 1 alongside TOW. Slightly longer ranged than TOW and with more penetration, at least initially, it was also a bit slower and didn’t come with thermal imaging. The two missiles have remained roughly equal over the years, with TOW doing a bit better in foreign sales because Uncle Sam bought a lot of TOWs at a relatively high production rate, allowing economies of scale to bring the price per missile and per launcher down.

It’s a hot cat.

Jaguar 2 with TOW

Back on Monday with more Germans.