Sense and nonsense of the German draft

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...702665,00.html

If one types the words "Bundeswehr" and "Langeweile" ("boredom") into the video platform YouTube, the scope of the great void becomes even clearer. The videos that appear depict German recruits doing battle with their biggest enemy: boredom.
In one video, a soldier wearing a camouflage uniform and a gas mask dances to techno music, using a broom as his dancing partner. In another film, soldiers play the game of "bed tipping," which involves tipping one of their comrades off his mattress. There is the Bundeswehr Twist, in which recruits in camouflage, steel helmets and gas masks dance the day away, and then there is the film in which men sitting in their room use tape to remove body hair from each other's thighs.
In another video, soldiers strap steel helmets to their elbows and knees and hop around on all fours across the linoleum floor, performing a "turtle race." In another, men stuff themselves into military-issue sleeping bags, like fat caterpillars, and then roll across the barracks floor -- to the applause of their comrades.
One three-minute video shows a soldier sitting on a chair. He is so tired that he can hardly keep his eyes open. He is a comic and sad-looking figure, but also a wonderful allegory for the complete absurdity of compulsory military service. Naturally, there are also plenty of videos that show soldiers drinking and vomiting.

But our wonderful, sensible, close-to-reality politicians still insist on the system being a great melting pot for different mentalities of young men from various parts and states of Germany and how idealistic and great and wonderful it all is, this draft system.

[Betonov]

blitzkrieg on boredom

He went to his supervisor's office, where he filed a retroactive petition as a conscientious objector. He now performs community service for a nursing agency.

damn, I'd rather see the trenches than change old people diapers

[Schroeder]

I don't think the draft is the problem, it's the finances again.
If the armed forces have to recruit tons of people then they must be given the means to keep them busy.

BTW. I didn't read the entire article but it seems to me to be a worst case scenario in that logistics battalion. When I was with the mechanized infantry we sure as hell had something to do during basic training. After that I got transferred to a company's office and usually we had something to do there too. I don't know what the combat sections did all day but from time to time we could see them picking up their gear and heading out for the training ground. However you can only send people to the training grounds when you have the money to replace worn equipment, to buy (blank) ammo, keep your infantry fighting vehicles fuelled and operational and (if necessary) to transport food from the kitchen to the units location in the field. Without that there is nothing the Bundeswehr can do with it's recruits. The article definitely wants to paint an all dark picture of everything but, sorry, a lot there is also just whining.
There are four beds in one room omg oh noez!!!
When I was in the army we had six beds in one room. So?
Soldiers have to store there stuff in the attic omg oh noez!!!
Excuse me???? Every soldier gets exactly ONE locker for him and his stuff (and it is big enough btw.). If you need more room you definitely brought along too much personal stuff! This isn't a problem of the Bundeswehr, it's a problem of the soldier!
BTW. our trainers were highly motivated (to kick our behinds) during basic training. There were hardly any free minutes and the drill went on from 6:30 am till 4:30 pm (and sometimes beyond that). After some months we had one big exercise for two weeks at a "Gefechtsübungszentrum" (battle training centre) were the combat units practised fighting together with tanks and AAA units against the local units of the battle training centre.
Before that they practised stuff on a smaller scale on our own training grounds.
It isn't the Bundeswehr's fault nor the drafts fault. It's a financial problem. Less money + more misisons in foreign countries = no material for doing anything with draftees.
We have no idea what will be in 20 years, just because we don't need a big army right now (and a draft with it's reservists is the only way to guarantee to have one quickly when needed) it doesn't mean we won't need it in the future.
This is typical manager thinking: Success for the short term no matter the consequences for the long term.
I agree that the system needs to become more just (a lot of possible draftees don't get drafted while others get their behinds kicked in basic training) and that more money needs to be spend to do proper things with the draftees (hey, how many billions did we have left for Greece?). But I wouldn't let it go altogether.

BTW. you can nicely see how well informed the writer of the article is. There are no gas-masks at the Bundeswehr. They are called ABC-Schutzmasken (NBC [Nuclear, Biological, Chemical]-Protection Masks) and steel helmets have long been replaced with Kevlar.
So this wasn't written by someone who knows something about it.

[XabbaRus]

Have none of the journalists stopped to think that they are making these videos in their spare time and they are set up.

Jeez I hate journalists sometimes.

[TLAM Strike]

Troops are bored? Simple solution... two letters: P T...

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Have none of the journalists stopped to think that they are making these videos in their spare time and they are set up.

Jeez I hate journalists sometimes.

God forbid they get their hands on some of the videos floating around of US troopers in their spare time, who knows what they might do with that

I once ran into German conscientious objectors who were performing their military service volunteering abroad? I don't know if I understood them correctly, I wonder if anyone knows more about this.

Edit. They weren't draft dodgers.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Far be it form me to say I know best about German domestic policy, but I disagree with Schroeder. If the state of the US military is any indication, more funding does not lead to less screwing around.

Like Schroeder, I see as being one of the soldier. Soldiers in the US are typically drawn from the ranks of those who have nowhere else to go, though there is a nice fraction that is in the service because they want to be in the service. The pay is lousy, and there really isn't much in the way of incentive for the common soldier i.e. little chance for meaningful advancement. It doesn't matter if you're the best soldier in your grade or not, you can't be promoted simply because of ability except in rare circumstances (due to billets for ranks and MOS) The whole system is entirely too stratified, IMO.

However, I also see the problem as being one that conscription policy has created. The US has an all-volunteer force, so presumably the recruits have at least some desire to perform to start with. Not so with a conscription system, unless a wave of nationalist euphoria is sweeping Germany (not meant as a Nazi jab).

I won't bother bringing up privatizing part of the military as a solution since it is such an apparently unpopular idea, but I think a move from conscription to an all-volunteer force would be good for the Bundeswehr. It would cut down on unecessary troops and reduce the number of people who don't want to serve in the first place, leading to a general increase in morale and performance, even if still hamstrung by rigid military structure (not familiar with Bundeswehr organizational structure)

Originally Posted by Schroeder

So this wasn't written by someone who knows something about it.

Perhaps not, but does the author really need to know what the helmets are made of or what the proper term for NBC equipment is? Screwing around is screwing around. We used to play tag with the guy was "it" in full MOPP gear. Call it a hazmat suit if you want but we're still playing tag.

More worrisome is the insidious screwing around that I'm sure goes on. BSing officers, purposely pencil-frakking maintenance and inventory to get it overwith, walking around with clipboards just to look busy, etc.. If the Bundeswehr has time for sleeping-bag races, I can't imagine the level of unseen crap that is going on.

One last thing I will mention is this:

Less money + more misisons in foreign countries = no material for doing anything with draftees.

Presumably, the draftees are already being payed and already have equipment, so I'm sure there is plenty that they could be doing. The Marine Corps is terribly underfunded and they still have a massive ongoing effort to place the entire Mojave desert into little burlap bags, apparently. You just have to be careful with make-work like that. Troops can smell busywork a mile away, and it is bad for morale. If nothing else, they could be training, training, training, and when they get done they can go train some more. There is absolutely no reason why every conscript in the Bundeswehr should not be a crack shot(even if they don't have ammunition), an expert on his specialty, and a capable squad leader.

That's my opinion, anyway.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Troops are bored? Simple solution... two letters: P T...

Two words: Foxtrot Uniform

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Weiss Pinguin

God forbid they get their hands on some of the videos floating around of US troopers in their spare time, who knows what they might do with that

Last time that happened I think they called it "Tailhook"...

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Two words: Foxtrot Uniform

Touche...

[Skybird]

Either you need draftees, or you don'T. If you need them, funding is not tzhe problem, for they will see work enough anyway. If you do not need them, additional funding just leads to "Beschäftigungstherapie" (=ergotherapy?) where they do things that are not needed to get done.

It seems to me that the problem has grown from year to year, coinciding with falling service times (from 15 to 12 then 9 and now 6 months) and financial stress for the defence sector. From all feedback I ever got from people who were in the milutary, not that batallion in the arzicle is the exception from the rule, but Schroeder's experience maybe is. How many years is it that you were there? If it is just 4 or 6 years, that already could make a difference again.

And next question to be asked: what military competences could be trained in just 6 months (some even want 4 months now...)? Zeitsoldaten (=professionals) tend to look down on draftees anyway, and not taking them too serious. I know two pros of medium and higher ranks personally since many years now, who both have been to the Afghanistan field, who say that they do not know any professional wanting to go into combat mission, (Heer or Marine) with a troops of draftees serving for 6 months, nor that they would want to do that themselves.

This draft system must go, even more since it is very injust now, because only a small faction of every year's young men get drafted anyway. and for a modern mission-oriented intervention army that the Bundeswehr is de facto being turned into, you do not want and do not need draftees, but professionals with some more training and experience. 6 months, or maybe even 4, simply is a foul compromise doing nothing good for anybody.

Some days ago, a paper got leaked with inernal plannings by the Bundeswehr for the future size of the german forces. The scenario with the smallest number of personell saw cuts in the navy to less than 9000 (all in all!), combat troops not more than 29,000, and a massive reduction from the current overall personell (all weapons branches, combat as well as supply units) level of 250,000 to something below 150,000. Up to 4 billion should be saved that way.

I undersztand and agree that with debt levels as we have them in the West, we cannot act anymore as if we can spend as before and just making more and more debts, if we cannot afford the size of the military we currently have, then we have to accept that. But what they plan in personell reduction now, is too much. Training and technology can compensate for numerical inferiority only to a certain level - and not more. we better cut expensive hightech systems (becasue a highteczh enemy is not in sight for us), but maintain a basic personell level and a sufficient logistic capacity that ensures that combat operations on the ground and via drones can be maintained, becasue our main enemy in the present and forseeable future will be an enemy fighting asymmetric wars with relatively "primitive" weapons that he buys cheap and in masses. the problem of modern hightech armies is that they have become too expensive, needing higher and higher investements to acchieve smaller and smaller amounts of superiority - if not only: compansation . That islamic terror and guerilaly-style enemies force us to make these investements for less and lesser gains in effect is what founds their military, economical, financial success. compared by the ivestements we make and they make, we are loosing all of the latest wars, and we loose them by a huge margin. we need to make the fighting cheaper, and the killing of enemies available on a less-technology-intensive basis. Else we end up with launching one killer satellite per enemy guerilla fighter with a pre-WWII rifle in his hand and an RPG in his rucksack.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Like Schroeder, I see as being one of the soldier. Soldiers in the US are typically drawn from the ranks of those who have nowhere else to go, though there is a nice fraction that is in the service because they want to be in the service. The pay is lousy, and there really isn't much in the way of incentive for the common soldier i.e. little chance for meaningful advancement. It doesn't matter if you're the best soldier in your grade or not, you can't be promoted simply because of ability except in rare circumstances (due to billets for ranks and MOS) The whole system is entirely too stratified, IMO.

However, I also see the problem as being one that conscription policy has created. The US has an all-volunteer force, so presumably the recruits have at least some desire to perform to start with.

Yep, as you said , a lot have no where else to go. From what I've heard even criminals are now taken in the US army because you can't fill your ranks with other volunteers (I'm not sure whether that is true, but I believe I've read something about that a couple of years back). Those are exactly not the people I want in the armed forces.

Not so with a conscription system, unless a wave of nationalist euphoria is sweeping Germany (not meant as a Nazi jab).

See above. In Germany you don't have to join the military if you don't want to. You can do an alternative civil service. So everyone who joins the armed forces could choose and chose the military.

but I think a move from conscription to an all-volunteer force would be good for the Bundeswehr.

From what I hear (boy, a lot of hearing but no real sources) all armies that went away from conscription have issues to fill their ranks, right? Even with conscription the Bundeswehr is short on GOOD people who want to become professional soldiers. A lot of the professional ones decided to become professionals during their draft time. Remove the draft and you remove also those people who would otherwise not have gotten into contact with the armed forces. You can guess how many good people they will get then.

It would cut down on unecessary troops and reduce the number of people who don't want to serve in the first place, leading to a general increase in morale and performance, even if still hamstrung by rigid military structure (not familiar with Bundeswehr organizational structure)

See above.

Perhaps not, but does the author really need to know what the helmets are made of or what the proper term for NBC equipment is? Screwing around is screwing around. We used to play tag with the guy was "it" in full MOPP gear. Call it a hazmat suit if you want but we're still playing tag.

No, but it indicates that the author is not an insider and so one should take everything he writes with a grain of salt.

If the Bundeswehr has time for sleeping-bag races, I can't imagine the level of unseen crap that is going on.

Oh come on, even my grandfather told me about some stupid things they have done when he was a soldier during WWII. Soldiers do stupid things in their spare time.

Presumably, the draftees are already being payed and already have equipment, so I'm sure there is plenty that they could be doing.

Yes, they have their personal equipment. But your rifle has to last for roughly 35-40 years before it gets replaced.
We were lucky to be the first ones getting G36 rifles. The guys before us had 35 years old G3s. You see, if your stuff has to last longer than a nightmare of Bill Clinton in your bed, then you are reluctant to send your troops out for extra exercising (our Marder IFV are about 35 years old by now too btw. They will get replaced in a few years though...if anything works according to plan....which actually said that they should have been replaced two years ago...).

If nothing else, they could be training, training, training, and when they get done they can go train some more. There is absolutely no reason why every conscript in the Bundeswehr should not be a crack shot(even if they don't have ammunition), an expert on his specialty, and a capable squad leader.

I'm afraid I don't know what a crack shot is but you can forget about becoming a squad leader in 9 months in the Bundeswehr. An expert in his speciality? How do you become an expert in aiming a mortar if you can't fire the damn thing a few times? How do you become an expert in driving an IFV if you don't get fuel for driving it frequently? Etc.

Physical fitness is the only thing I can see them getting for free (even the Bundeswehr can afford new sport shoes).

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Either you need draftees, or you don'T. If you need them, funding is not tzhe problem, for they will see work enough anyway. If you do not need them, additional funding just leads to "Beschäftigungstherapie" (=ergotherapy?) where they do things that are not needed to get done.

I think in my unit the professionals would have loved to do more with the recruits but there was always the "too expensive" argument.

From all feedback I ever got from people who were in the milutary, not that batallion in the arzicle is the exception from the rule, but Schroeder's experience maybe is.

This might be the case. I've been in one of the very few units were recruits still got kicked in the rear (not literally) if they didn't perform well. Something I've never heard of in any other unit (my brother in law was with the "Heeresflieger" (I believe they are called army aviators in English) and his basic training was a kindergarten compared to ours.)
The unit I was in doesn't even exist anymore (not that I'm too unhappy about that).

How many years is it that you were there? If it is just 4 or 6 years, that already could make a difference again.

8 years.

And next question to be asked: what military competences could be trained in just 6 months (some even want 4 months now...)?

One exact answer would be: Nothing!
That's why I'm strongly against reducing the time to six months as it will really render the draft completely useless (but I think that's the plan anyway and then they can say: "See, told ya so. Completely useless , now let's abolish the whole thing altogether."

Zeitsoldaten (=professionals) tend to look down on draftees anyway, and not taking them too serious. I know two pros of medium and higher ranks personally since many years now, who both have been to the Afghanistan field, who say that they do not know any professional wanting to go into combat mission, (Heer or Marine) with a troops of draftees serving for 6 months, nor that they would want to do that themselves.

Of course not. Draftees are needed to have reserves in case of a war. Ask your friends whether they would rather face an enemy with draftees and therefore in equal numbers, or all alone.

This draft system must go, even more since it is very injust now, because only a small faction of every year's young men get drafted anyway. and for a modern mission-oriented intervention army that the Bundeswehr is de facto being turned into, you do not want and do not need draftees, but professionals with some more training and experience.

It is unjust for sure and definitely needs to be worked over. Can you look into the future? I can't. If you abolish the draft you will likely never be able to reinstall it. What will be in 20 years? Will Iran be peaceful, will Turkey still be an ally? Will the Balkan stay stable? Will Belarus and Ukraine stay stable? Could we handle any threat of those with only a handful of professional soldiers without the means to increase the size of the army quickly or compensate possible losses?

6 months, or maybe even 4, simply is a foul compromise doing nothing good for anybody.

Agreed.

Some days ago, a paper got leaked with inernal plannings by the Bundeswehr for the future size of the german forces. The scenario with the smallest number of personell saw cuts in the navy to less than 9000 (all in all!), combat troops not more than 29,000, and a massive reduction from the current overall personell (all weapons branches, combat as well as supply units) level of 250,000 to something below 150,000. Up to 4 billion should be saved that way.

Read my manager comment in my previous post.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Yep, as you said , a lot have no where else to go. From what I've heard even criminals are now taken in the US army because you can't fill your ranks with other volunteers (I'm not sure whether that is true, but I believe I've read something about that a couple of years back). Those are exactly not the people I want in the armed forces.

Well you have to read into it a little more than that. The standards in the US military are low so they can fill the ranks (not much of a problem, aside from a few occassions). If the standards, training, and pay were higher, they'd attract better volunteers. This is one of the reasons I so heavily favor private involvement in the military. I don't care which contractor you're talking about, they all have the best gear, training, pay, and people.

See above. In Germany you don't have to join the military if you don't want to. You can do an alternative civil service. So everyone who joins the armed forces could choose and chose the military.

Doesn't seem like much of a choice to me. How well does the civil service do? Do they have the same problems? Are they efficient? My guess would be no, but I'd like to find out.

Even with conscription the Bundeswehr is short on GOOD people who want to become professional soldiers. A lot of the professional ones decided to become professionals during their draft time. Remove the draft and you remove also those people who would otherwise not have gotten into contact with the armed forces. You can guess how many good people they will get then.

Or you can look at it from the opposite way and say that if Germany had a more professional fighting force they would attract more non-conscripts. Few things motivate people like money, even Germans. Throw in a dash of Prussian pride in military excellence and you're well on your way to having an elite fighting force.

That's something I forgot to mention. There's a little secret I will tell you Y'know what makes the US Marines so reknowned as a fighting force? It isn't gear or funding or the recruits we get, it's pride. Soldiers who are proud of their service will train, fight, and work many times harder than any otherwise equivalent conscript.

I hope you and Sky don't mind me mentioning it, but I think that this irrational sense of permanent guilt that Germany feels over WW2 has undermined what should be a very proud military tradition. The Wehrmacht was so formidable in WW2 that the US continues to use their tactics and even their gear to this day. Even the new marpat cammies and helmets make us look like Waffen-SS. We don't have a problem with it, why do you?

No, but it indicates that the author is not an insider and so one should take everything he writes with a grain of salt.

Well,I'm an insider and I can totally see this kind of ridiculous behavior going on.

Oh come on, even my grandfather told me about some stupid things they have done when he was a soldier during WWII. Soldiers do stupid things in their spare time.

Which is fine, until they start doing stupid things with important things. That's what I'm talking about. If discipline is lax enough that these kinds of silly games go on, what kind of maintenance is the gear getting? Is everything accounted for? Do we even know what gear we have and where it is?

Yes, they have their personal equipment. But your rifle has to last for roughly 35-40 years before it gets replaced.

And? My old unit still has radios that are fifty years old and they still work.
I've been issued M16's with handguards that fall off and loose magazine catches. My combat M249 had a loose sear pin that almost caused me to shoot my foot off! None of those problems were an excuse for failure. If your weapon is broken, you fix it. If you can't fix it, you figure out something else. It's a mess, but it can't stand in the way of mission accomplishment.

I'm afraid I don't know what a crack shot is

Elite shooter. Expert rifleman. Olympic-class marksman. "Crack" in that context in English means "elite of the elite"

is but you can forget about becoming a squad leader in 9 months in the Bundeswehr.

Stratification problem?

An expert in his speciality? How do you become an expert in aiming a mortar if you can't fire the damn thing a few times? How do you become an expert in driving an IFV if you don't get fuel for driving it frequently? Etc.

Good troops will find a way. You can become an expert rifleman by practicing with a weapon that has no bullets; tape a laser-pointer to the end of the muzzle and snap-in (dry-fire). No armored cars to drive? Drive a regular car with simulated vision slits. No hand grenades? Take turns using a spent flashbang grenade, or even a rock. No bullets for squad exercises? Yell "BANG" (the Corps loves doing that one)

Physical fitness is the only thing I can see them getting for free (even the Bundeswehr can afford new sport shoes).

They have sport shoes? Why don't they run in their boots!? Then they'll have some money for bullets.


You don't get what you pay for in the military, you get what you invest in. Give me a squad of Bundeswehr conscripts and I'll have them bleeding combat excellence in a month. There is no reason why any man eligible for service should be honing his skills in sleeping bag races unless we're training to assault and consolidate a position from a sleeping bag for some unfathomable reason.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Of course not. Draftees are needed to have reserves in case of a war. Ask your friends whether they would rather face an enemy with draftees and therefore in equal numbers, or all alone.

Against what bordering enemy? Denmark? Poland? Russia? I see chances for conventional wars inEurope - but these will result from social unrest and resulting civil wars. and that is a scenario for more unconventinal infantry-war or asymmetric war again, not hightech wars with fleets of eurofighters battling against waves of Flankers and tanks engage on the ground by the hundreds and thousands.

My grandfather, by the background of his war experiences, used to say - and many other historic example are in his favour- : badly trained novices to war are cannon-fodder. After the war he was a pacifist, but he also said: "if you want to maintain an army, then give them the hardest training possible for people to bear".

And I have a hard time to believe that 6 months of basic training with all the restrictions you just mentioned yourself could be enough for significantly more than just learning to clean your personal firearms, learning the insignias for different ranks, and how to salute. You get my point. You don't get special forces training for civil amateurs from zero to max in 6 months,. No training for radar maintenance. Commanding and maintaining a tank or operating a self propelled Panzerhaubitze. when I started studying in autumn 1989, I became friend with a guy very early on who just had his BW time behind him. He said they were ordered to run around in the forest during a "manouver", yelling "Bam! Bam!", because funding did not allow to train with real or blank cartridges. his grenade training he said they conducted with Coca Cola tin cans that they threw. 80% of the time, he said, they were bored to death.

It is unjust for sure and definitely needs to be worked over. Can you look into the future? I can't. If you abolish the draft you will likely never be able to reinstall it. What will be in 20 years? Will Iran be peaceful, will Turkey still be an ally? Will the Balkan stay stable? Will Belarus and Ukraine stay stable? Could we handle any threat of those with only a handful of professional soldiers without the means to increase the size of the army quickly or compensate possible losses?

then be consistent and train your daftees the way you need to do it. That includes mroe time, and better funding, instead of shopwing them how little they are needed. what is a reaosnable time frame to give basic military training? We used to think that it was 18 months. And regular trainings every one or two years for the next 20 years afterwards, like the Swiss do. but if there are unrests in Belarus or the Ukraine, or a new war on the balkans (it's coming I'm sure), or turkey is no longer an ally (it already isn'T that anymore), ansd iran fires ICBMs at europe, then a swarm of badly-trained draftees hardly can be considered to be the trustworthy defenceline against war coming to Germany. It is no defence against ICBMs, and foreign military invasions haunting german landscapes I really cannot imagine - who would and could do it? BTW, the British have a smaller army already than Germany, by numbers. Still nobody threatens to invade them, at least militarily.

If such a need for drafting would appear again and real war is threatening the heartlands of middle Europe again by foreign invasion, nothing speaks against bringing drafts back. Plus massively increased defence spendings.

Until then, we need to mark priorities that we fincially can afford. the draft is not such a priority. And it only causes costs and produces personell that nowhere is needed and in oversea combat missions is not wanted.

the real reason why the draft is defended is that people fear the conflict about the Zivis and their role in the social service sector.

what do you think is the reason the medical criterions are such that most young men must not go to the military by draft? Because they are not needed - that simple. Draftees currently are a "lästiges Übel" for the BW. Politicians want them, the BW does not need them, they cost money and must get entertained.