Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Bofferbrauer2]

Qwark said:

Farsala said:

Looks like Germany gave more military aid than all countries combined aside from the Us. And its amount is almost half of the Us in terms of military aid. And this being a largely demilitarized economy. And as seen with today's announcement, that contribution is only growing.

France and Belgium don't pull their weight if you see this. Poland (isn't that rich and also builds a good army), Japan (other side of the planet), Denmark (quite small and not that big of an economy) and Canada do a lot.

France does more than it seems in pure financial terms. They deliver lots of artillery and AA (30 Ceasar SP Artillery pieces out of a total stock of 76, plus all of their 155mm towed howitzers and lots of different shells, rockets and rocket systems). However, the really expensive stuff, like tanks and IFVs, aren't sent by France since they don't have the tooling and no replacement in sight for the Leclerc tank while the VBCI IFV is wheeled and thus not really appropriate for the Ukrainian theatre.

Also, their equipment tends to be cheaper by design (Their new APC is contractually obliged to cost less than 1M, the Bradley by contrast already cost much than that in the 80's), so the monetary value of what they are sending is lower, too.

Edit: Belgium, on the other hand, is well-known to massively underfund the military and rely on their neighbours and NATO partners for their defence, so even if they wanted, they simply don't have anything to send. Until recently they barely sent more than Luxembourg, a country with an "Army" of a grand total of less than 800 soldiers (We always joke that if Germany wants to conquer us again, they'd send the firefighters from Trier this time around).

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 23 November 2023