Bofferbrauer2 said:
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). |
Sounds like excuses to me. I bet there is something countries like Italy, France and Spain could do. Germany as example is sending their Iris-T systems to Ukraine before they even get them themselves. Brand new equipment. I'm sure the other countries also get some air defense or other equipment which they could send to Ukraine first.
Stuff like the tanks is obviously another story but yeah, right now nobody can tell me that the other big European countries just can't do more...
But it looks really bad for Ukraine now. Wilders won in Netherlands, German politicians can't get their shit together right now to even free money for anything so that money for Ukraine looks even worse. Then what's happening in USA and so on...
Last edited by crissindahouse - on 23 November 2023
