👀👀 🙄🙄

BREAKING: German government spokesperson says that there was never a moment when the delivery of Leopard tanks was "linked with the delivery of abrams tanks" - Reuters

The graphics also misses Czechia and Oesterreich.

They probably hadn't declared when he did it, I did point out it was a day or so old.

Allow me to translate.......

"We originally invented a false dependency on the US doing something difficult that would prevent us from supplying tanks. Now that everyone else has ignored us, we look incredibly stupid. We will now supply Leopard tanks and the order with the factory shall be placed in 2024. In the meantime, would you like any more helmets......... or kettles .......or golf clubs ?"

Taken from a drone and presumably not within range of UA forces. Otherwise there would already be a few bodies in that field. I suggest the picture paints a false conclusion!

That "spokesman" was the new Defence Minister - Pistorius. It is just astonishing how these two-faced lying bastards have the nerve to spin 180 in 24 hours and somehow continue to believe that their voters continue to see them as honourable representatives of the nation . Unfortunately, however, the voters know that the other side are just as twisted.

EDIT:

Nutty has given a comprehensive breakdown of new pledges for armaments, but I thought I could add a couple of interesting facts about Ramstein picked up in general reading.

There are 53 000 American personnel stationed there ( that was a hell of a surprise. I would have guessed at 10 000 )
The public ( probably not Russians :O ) can visit the airfield ( unsure what that means exactly ) Monday to Friday at no charge. That must be your tax-dollars at work -tdracer and LoneWolf50 !! Pretty surprising to me though. I have never heard about permanent public access to a military establishment of any sort and Ramstein does have some very important functions.

The problem with that is it may not be so, or at least for German tanks, and you have to listen to your electors.

https://www.anews.com.tr/world/2023/...nks-to-ukraine
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other...ur/ar-AA16vIo6

https://www.defense.gov/News/Release...e-for-ukraine/

So 109 Bradley in total.

When you add it all up it is eye watering, see

https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jan/1...EET-JAN-19.PDF

This guy makes some sensible comments on hitting the transport infrastructure and backs it up with images of key points.

https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA

From the Beeb


So why can they not simply "retain ownership" and loan them to Ukraine for an indefinite time on the agreement they will be returned when Ukraine deems they have finished with the loan?


..

In Ramstein Air Base itself ~9000 US staff are working/stationed.
It is the whole Kaiserlautern area with Kaiserslautern Army Depot,Daenner-casern, Kleber-casern, Tank casern Kaiserslautern, Sembach, Pirmasens and a few more installations where some 50.000 US troops are stationed.

The German excuse appears to be fear of Russian escalation. Russia (without direct external escalation) has continued to escalate itself. (Long range missiles targeting critical infrastructure, mobilisation, energy war against Europe, mass murder of civilians..)

What further escalation is feared?

Nuclear weapons ? Directly attacking a NATO country?

Either would be suicide for Russia, the Russian armed forces know that. Would they obey Putin's order to commit suicide?

A better explanation for Scholz's stalling would be Putinversteher:

👀👀👀👀
More than 170 Hungarian generals and senior military officers have been forced into early retirement in recent days by Hungary's MoD, led by Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

He is a former business partner of Transmashholding, a Russian state-owned company.

A new government decree has allowed the Minister of Defense to unilaterally terminate the service of soldiers who have reached the age of 45 and have at least 25 years of actual service, with two months' notice.

According to @Telexhu, the minister "dismissed members of the Defence Staff en masse. (...) One source said (...) that at least a hundred colonels, generals had been given unilateral dismissals, while another said that 157 (...) with immediate effect."

According to opposition MP Ágnes Vadai, "this means there is a de-NATOisation going on in the Hungarian Defence Forces at the moment", as "the 45-year-old officers and generals are soldiers with international experience, who speak languages and have been socialised in NATO".….

https://telex.hu/belfold/2023/01/20/...galati-viszony

And just watch the Germans stampede to grab sales of the new kit ...

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me…..

Its the reconstruction contracts of the country where the big money will be made.

Those who gave a lot of help will expect a large slice of that pie.

Last estimate I saw was in excess of $6 trillion to build new infrastructure etc.

My understanding is that much of the reluctance to send Abrams tanks is related to the high tech systems (targeting, communication, etc.) falling into the wrong hands. I know that in the Middle East, when an Abrams was disabled and couldn't be recovered, they made a point of destroying it so the 'bad guys' couldn't access anything valuable.
So, how does the tech of the Leopard compare to the Abrams? I'd think they'd be similar - does anyone know?

I can't say that this comes as a surprise. Hungary has been moving away from the ideals of NATO (and the EU for that matter) for a while. What puzzles me is that the views of many Hungarians (perhaps a majority) are at odds with those of Viktor Orbán, yet he remains in power and has been emulating Putin in turning Hungary into an autocracy. Seems strange for a country that suffered when under the thumb of the Soviet Union to put up with this.

A recurring military problem.
Window was subject to agonising appraisal before being used to save Bomber Command lives.
Historically best to "use it when you need it, and be one step ahead for when countermeasures are invented".

Used to be standard to have detonators rigged in anything sensitive. Goes right back to the earliest airborne radars I think. Certainly kit I worked on in the 70's and 80's had the capability to fit detonators for this purpose. No idea if modern kit has the same capability. Be surprised if it didn't, though.