When people think of Germany, it is easy to think of the powerful army that swept through Europe during World War II, and even today, Germany spends on military expenses, military establishments, and the weapons and equipment it possesses. On paper, at least, Germany is the military power of Europe today.
The German military spent $44 billion last year, ranking ninth in the global military rankings, but how effective is it? According to the Observer Network, the Luftwaffe recently released a picture of 18 Typhoon fighters walking "elephant walk". However, the seemingly mighty and majestic momentum has been complained about by the media because of the suspicion of posing.
The so-called "elephant walk" is a manifestation of the air combat strength of the air force of a major country, which refers to the use of a smallest interval distance and a dense formation of end-to-end connection on the runway of a number of fighters of the same type, with the purpose of taking off all fighters intensively in the shortest possible time to achieve the highest combat effectiveness.
Germany is a military power, and its air force scholar, the United States, plays the "elephant walk" shape, which is understandable. However, the Germans not only played a mess this time, but also became the laughing stock of the global media and netizens. What's more, let the outside world see the real situation of the Luftwaffe's vulnerability.
According to foreign media reports. After the Germans published such photos, some professionals quickly found a serious problem in this photo, and the wheel gears on the landing gear of the aircraft could be clearly seen from the front, indicating that the aircraft was stationary rather than taxiing on the runway at the time of shooting.
Even more ironic is that there are no pilots in the cockpits of these 18 advanced fighters. Therefore, some professionals believe that the 18 Typhoon fighters were towed to the runway, and then hung up the wheel gears and lined up to wait for photos. Obviously, at the sensitive moment of the current tension between Russia and Europe, the Germans also learned to scare Russia by "elephant walking", and as a result, people were not frightened, but let themselves be humiliated.
The shame of the Germans does not mean that the Typhoon fighter, who is the protagonist of this scandal, is not good. The aircraft was a European fighter jointly developed by Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy to replace the then backward Tornado fighter.
The Typhoon first flew in 1994 and entered service in 2003. It adopts a delta wing and canard layout. It is a twin-engine, single-seat, highly maneuverable multi-generation four-and-a-half-generation fighter. The length of the aircraft is 15 meters. The wingspan is 10.35 meters and the height is 5.28 meters. The maximum flight speed is Mach 2, the maximum combat radius is about 1400 kilometers, and the instantaneous climb rate is as high as 315 per second. There are 13 pylons that can carry almost all of NATO's air-to-air or air-to-air weapons.
Although the Typhoon fighter does not adopt vector thrust technology similar to that of advanced fighters of the United States and Russia, it relies on the excellent aerodynamic layout of the aircraft and the advanced flight control computer system to give the aircraft a super maneuverability capability comparable to that of advanced fighters of the United States and Russia.
As a new generation of air combat systems in Europe at that time, the Typhoon fighter, whether maneuverable or high-speed, was at that time the world's most advanced four-and-a-half-generation fighter besides the American F-22. Because of its excellent performance, the Typhoon fighter, together with the French Rafale fighter and the Swedish JAS-39 fighter, is known as the European Triumvirate.
Unfortunately, having such a high-performance Typhoon fighter fell into the hands of the Germans, which is a shame in a sense. The Luftwaffe was equipped with a total of 128 Typhoon fighters, but because there was no actual threat after the end of the Cold War, the Germans had the wrong mentality of putting knives and guns into storage, so they neglected to manage weapons and equipment, and only 4 Typhoon fighters had the ability to perform combat tasks at the worst time.
With the exception of the Air Force, the situation of the other branches of the German armed forces was not much better. Of the Army's 200 Leopard-2 tanks, only 46 percent are available. Of the 62 Tiger gunships, only 12 are available. Of the Navy's 13 surface combat ships, only 5 have the ability to perform combat missions, the most tragic of which is the submarine force, all of which were "on vacation" in dry docks in 2017.
The Wehrmacht, which once made all opponents admire and fear, has now become severely strawberrized and its combat effectiveness is worrying. Since the abolition of the compulsory military service system 9 years ago, the German Wehrmacht is a professional soldier, equivalent to the Treatment of German Government Civil Servants, 40 hours of work per week, "nine to five with double rest", overtime also needs to pay overtime pay and compensatory leave to soldiers, even with this treatment, most of the German soldiers also refuse to work overtime, and even on the Afghan battlefield, there have been cases where the battle is halfway through and the point is off work.
At the same time, few young German talents are willing to join the army and find a decent job that is much better than serving in the much-maligned Wehrmacht.
Judging from the bluff of the Luftwaffe with the Typhoon fighter, the German army that once swept through Europe, although it still had huge military expenses and sophisticated equipment, was actually vulnerable. So much so that Der Spiegel once asked a soul torture: Where are our more than $40 billion a year in military spending?!