Edição nº 195 - Exército

AZIMUTE 195 - 27
Concepts and Capabilities Development Center and the
Training Command; some were assumed by the Federal
Office of Bundeswehr Materiel, Information Technology
and Equipment Management, and the Bundeswehr Planning
Office.
The aim of reorganizing the Bundeswehr command and
control structure is to cut the Gordian Knot, that means to end the
armed service’s competition for resources by establishing the Planning
Office where the allocation of scarce resources is tailored to
all armed services and their capabilities and in line with the political
requirements to ensure sustainable and financially feasible capability
development.
The framework conditions mentioned earlier resulted in this
structure of the Army Concepts and Capabilities Development Center.
It is designed for the holistic approach to Army development at
one single stage to be achieved by taking into account the requirements
of the 13 branches and the Special Forces. This design will
help us to realize our goal in developing the “Army System” more
effectively and efficiently. The demand on the Army Concepts and
Capabilities Development Center is to focus its efforts on a holistic
approach to Army development.
New Army Structure “Heer 2011”
Regarding the Infantry, the Army will comprise 5 Light Infantry
Battalions, 3 Mountain Infantry Battalions and 2 Parachute Regiments
and one caderised Light Infantry Battalion.
In previous structures, the Light Infantry almost appeared
like a rarity in an Army mainly consisting of armoured units. In the
new structure, the Light Infantry, together with the Armoured Infantry,
constitutes the core of the majority of contingents.
The German Army in its future structure will be organised
into three Division Headquarters with eight Brigades. The elements
of the “Rapid Response Forces Division” are planned to fulfil specific
tasks, e.g. within the framework of national crisis management,
while the other two commands are composed of forces that are to
sustain defined contingents of different nature and various sizes on
operations all over the world over prolonged periods. The underlying
scenarios are primarily stabilisation operations, but also rapid response
operations of all intensities. Infantry-specific capabilities will be
available in all 8 brigades.
The various agencies will be merged into a Training
Command including the remaining schools and training facilities plus
a centralised Office for Conceptual Planning and Force Development.
This office will combine major elements of the decentralised
agencies that are currently located at the branch schools. All units in
this basic structure are substantiated by the requirements evolving
from the so-called Level of Ambition of specific contingents. It is a
matter-of-course that a certain buffer is provided for to take account
of the experiences regarding mission-ready personnel in the units
and formations.
Light Infantry Battalion
This picture (see picture 1) depicts the structure of a German
Light Infantry Battalion. Company Alpha comprises platoons
providing combat service and command support. Companies Bravo,
Charlie and Delta are Light Infantry Companies with three rifle platoons
and one heavy weapons platoon each. The structure of the
Armoured Infantry Battalions is similar, but they have neither a combat
support company nor a support weapons platoon in the regular
companies. The idea is, that in the armoured infantry the dismounted
elements always have access to the firepower of their fighting vehicle
and need therefore no additional support weapons.
As already mentioned the three Light Infantry Companies in
the battalion comprises three rifle platoons and one heavy weapons
platoon. The heavy weapons platoon of each Company includes 3
sniper teams, 3 Milan Anti-tank teams with guided missiles and 3
teams with automatic grenade launchers. Every Company Commander
has here the feasibility to concentrate his forces as the situation
require. These sections are to complement the platoon’s capabilities
on one side and enable them on the other side to concentrate on
their core tasks especially in those cases, where vehicle-mounted
weapons are not available or higher precision is required that cannot
be delivered by heavy weapons systems.
The fifth company features the battalion’s combat support
assets. They include one subunit with 5 joint fire support teams (4
Joint Fire Support Teams and 1 Joint Fire Support Coordination Team)
whose capability for network enabled operations allows them to
bring close air and fire support to bear. Equipped with Fennek they
will be distributed to the companies. They are joined by one mortar
platoon with 8 x 120mm mortars on Wolf (0, 75 to vehicle) and M113
(able to engage enemy up to a range of 6350 m).
Additional there are in the heavy company available: one
platoon with Wiesel Weapon carrier (6x) to provide the antitank
defence with their TOW antitank missiles (additional one machine
gun each) and the direct fire support by one platoon Wiesel with
machine cannon 20 mm (6x). The Battalion Commander is now able
to form an antitank reserve, or he can for example protect open
flanks…
The commander can also shift the Wiesel to each company
which is in the focus of the enemy attack.
Supplementary the heavy company has the reconnaissance
capacities at tactical level with one platoon Wiesel (6) with AOZ
2000 (Autonomous Optronic Targeting System).
In the Paratroopers Battalion we have: 4 Wiesel TOW in the
antitank platoon instead of 6 and instead 6 Wiesel with machine
cannons we have 3 platoons with 4 Wiesel = 12 MK Wiesel (that