[UKDefenseJournal] "It’s a real disaster for the Navy, it’s the first time in history that there will not be any submarine operating for months," warns the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Parliament, Hans-Peter Bartels, in an interview published on Sunday in the Berlin weekly Bild am Sonntag.The problem, he explained, has worsened over time due to the German military not replacing out of date equipment.
The German Navy lost its last submarine in October, as the rudder of its last Type 212A was severely damaged in a collision with a rock off the Norwegian coast while the rest of the fleet was out of service.
It is also understood that none of the new frigates, the Type 125s, are able to enter into operational service due to defects and a similar situation is faced by auxiliary ships, Berlin and Bonn, which were sent to dry dock for a year and a half of repairs.
In 2015, it was revealed that only 29 of Germany’s 66 Tornado jets are airworthy. Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen then stressed that only six of the operational Tornado jets would be needed for the proposed German mission in Syria. German chief of staff General Volker Wieker said:
They're saving money by not spending on defense. And who can blame them? They have a sucker to pay it for them. They live in a socialist paradise and they get to criticize the Americans who protect them as baby-killing fascist warmongers.
Of course the freeloading world is upset that the good old American all-you-can-eat buffet of handouts is coming to an end. Pulling their own weight is something strange and new to them. I'm not interested in the US military being the world's police or some other countries' mercenary army.