Ein a wide stretch of heather near Munster, blue sky, birds chirping. A military column consisting of tanks and rocket launchers is said to be located about two and a half kilometers away. You can’t see them because the column is only drawn on a training map. However, if it really existed, it would be destroyed in a few seconds. German artillerymen have them on their screens. And now they make sure that the birds fall silent and the piece of heath further back disappears in black smoke and flickering lightning. Where the enemy column would have been, shells exploded, fired from self-propelled howitzers ten kilometers away on the edge of a forest.
What the Bundeswehr is demonstrating here is the tremendous destructive power of its 155mm ammunition. She slips away from the heaviest weapon the army possesses. A Panzerhaubitze 2000 weighs 57,000 kilograms and has 60 shots on board. The manual says ten a minute. “We can do twelve,” says Sergeant Major Martin M., head of a platoon of four vehicles. After being able to inspect the effect, the bus takes half an hour through the heathland of the largest German military training area, Bergen/Munster, north of Hanover. That’s where the fire came from. But you can’t see anything. That’s how it should be.