Germans are planning to build up about 40k of these troops for international intervention. Small units are being deployed in Afghanistan already. What I read sounds promising. They want to participate after all...

more pics...

found 2 more...

Interesting. Know any more about this, i.e. what's the quality of training like, are they all drawn from existing Bundeswehr regiments etc etc. I imagine a lot of these men would come from the fallschimjager division.

Mobile rapid response forces is the way to go at the moment. The prominence of the 55-60 tonne MBT will begin to wane as nations seek to develop and deploy air portable armor more and more.

How good is the Bundeswehr these days? When I was in the British Territorial Army some 10 years ago they were getting to be of a very good standard again.

I'm very curious myself. There is more for me to read and people to talk to. I'll let you know what I dig up.

Yup, all the Western armies are going the route of the small, light and mobile unit... mostly assembled in Brigades.
The US Army's hope lies in the Stryker brigades being assembled. The USMC has always had a flexible deployment scheme so not much changing around there.

They look like some tough troopers.

Germans are very good soldiers. Always have been.

Looks really hightech and as Sherman says, german soldiers are very good and well trained!

A start:

Squads of ten. Everyone individually specialized on an aspect of infantry warfare. Currently only few new units, composed of selected individuals out of the whole German infantry. I believe they want to build up new SF. Special training in Hammelburg. It’s either confidential or just not publicly known what methods are used. A friend of mine has personal contacts though and will inform me soon.

The gear is modular and currently available in its basic form. All components are under constant development.

The units are coordinated by the FAUST (“fist”) system by a commander on the ground, who is linked with headquaters. He has a constantly updated (information and orders) digital map at his disposal, with enemy movement, topography, GPS coordinated positioning, etc... Individual data of his unit is monitored by headquaters (sensory equipment is supposed to be integrated in the combat armour).

Some pics to that:




There's a small movie, hope it works this way:

http://www.geocities.com/bratwurst1978/faust_03.mpeg

I'll tell you more about the training and the gear as soon as I have the time to translate.