View Single Post
  #30  
Old 07-23-2009, 02:03 PM
Raellus's Avatar
Raellus Raellus is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Southern AZ
Posts: 4,184
Default

Creating and maintaining ammo commonality is a really good point, Web.

I was thinking, though, that the reunified German army would stay segregated for a while, with former E. German army units keeping their Soviet-Bloc weapons and vehicles. It wouldn't be too hard to keep such homogenous units supplied. Such and such a division gets 125mm tank shells, 7.62mm S ammo, 122mm arty rounds, etc. while the other ones get standard NATO.

I don't see the Germans scrapping all of the former E. German army's Soviet made artillery tubes, rocket launchers, trucks, etc. for the sake of creating ammo commonality as it would take time and money to replace it all with standard NATO gear. It just seems that the war moves too fast (up to '98 or so) for that to happen. Those T-72s would be needed at the front.

Later in the war, as attrition mandates blending of W. and former E. German units, supply would become more of an issue. Perhaps there would be time and the facilities needed to retrofit NATO guns to Soviet-made tanks shortly before the TDM. After that, it would probably be too late to manage such a large scale refitting.

The Israelis are a good model/exemplar but it should be kept in mind that they had months if not years to upgun and re-engine their captured Soviet-made tanks before having to use them operationally.

Also, many Israeli commando units (Sayeret Golani, for example) used AKs captured during the '67 war during the '73 war. Israeli rifle squads customarily included an RPG gunner as late as the '82 war in Lebanon. This, of course, in addition to their western and locally made weapons. If the Israelis could handle the supply and identification issues, I'm sure the Bundeswher could too.
__________________
Author of Twilight 2000 adventure modules, Rook's Gambit and The Poisoned Chalice, the campaign sourcebook, Korean Peninsula, the gear-book, Baltic Boats, and the co-author of Tara Romaneasca, a campaign sourcebook for Romania, all available for purchase on DriveThruRPG:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...--Rooks-Gambit
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...ula-Sourcebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...nia-Sourcebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...liate_id=61048
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/...-waters-module
Reply With Quote