Germany affords the most expensive infantry fighting vehicle in the world. The Puma fails again and again because it is too complicated. This is also the fault of those who are now complaining to the armaments industry: politicians and the Bundeswehr leadership.
The question of how the Puma is supposed to survive a tough battle has been posed for a long time.
Four days before the German Bundeswehr once again became a breakdown army on December 16, General Björn Schulz tried to hold out slogans. The commander of the armored personnel carrier school in Munster sat with soldiers and pondered the most expensive infantry fighting vehicle in the world. The Puma, said Schulz, has its shortcomings. But they let themselves be controlled. The tank is ready for action and fit for war, everything will be fine. That’s what soldiers say.
The day after, at a firing range a few kilometers away, three more armored personnel carriers took part in an exercise, three of 18 that had begun final preparations for their deployment in the NATO Rapid Reaction Force (VJTF) in Lithuania from January on Wednesday. The company commander was sitting in one of the three Pumas when suddenly a short circuit created an arc and fire broke out in the engine compartment. 24 hours later, the crews of the remaining two Pumas also reported a defect. After a week of shooting training, all 18 Pumas were out.
The general’s slogans in Munster fit the pattern of the German army’s handling of the Puma. Twenty years ago, together with politicians and the armaments companies Rheinmetall and Kraus-Maffei Wegmann, they wanted to build the “Formula 1 car among infantry fighting vehicles”: light, fast, precise and well protected like no other. The result is a complicated, trouble-prone, expensive vehicle. The version for the NATO intervention force costs 17 million euros.
The tank had to fit into the new Airbus
Like no other, the history of the Puma symbolizes the errors in German armaments procurement over the past three decades. It begins in December 1999 when the EU heads of state and government decided to set up a rapid reaction force by 2003. This should also include armored combat troops as “medium forces” that had to be deployable by plane over at least a thousand kilometers.
At that time, the federal government had to decide on two major armaments projects. On the one hand, a transport aircraft should be bought to replace the “Transall”. That was the Airbus A400 M. On the other hand, the army needed a successor to the “Marder” infantry fighting vehicle introduced in 1971. That was the cougar. The federal government decided that there would only be a new infantry fighting vehicle if it could be transported with the A400 M. She made the maximum transport weight of the A400 M the decisive design feature for the new tank.
The Puma was not allowed to weigh more than the A400 M can transport: 31.4 tons. For comparison: The “Marder” 1A5 weighs 38 tons. There were even more specifications for the Puma, this time from the Bundeswehr: It should have endurance and mobility similar to the Leopard 2 main battle tank and be able to fight armored targets and targets behind cover. For this he needed a powerful engine and a large caliber machine cannon. It should offer the soldiers a high level of security against mines, booby traps and rocket-propelled grenade fire. For this he needed strong armor and a modern protection system. And finally, he should be able to fend off main battle tanks. For that he needed a guided missile system.
At the edge of what is technically feasible
The Puma should be an all-rounder. But the military specifications on the one hand and the weight limit on the other were tantamount to squaring the circle. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall wanted to build it anyway. They needed the assignment. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German state pocketed the peace dividend and hardly ever gave the armaments industry any large orders. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall announced that they would deliver the first Puma within six years. This contradicted all experience in tank construction, the development of the “Marder”, for example, had taken eleven years. It soon became apparent that they had promised too much. The Puma required numerous new and often highly complex solutions on the edge of what was technically feasible.
A new engine had to be developed that was only half as big and half as heavy as that of the “Leopard 2” but had a similar performance. He was supposed to accelerate the heavy vehicle to 70 km/h within a short time. Other demanding assemblies were added. For example, a running gear with hydropneumatic suspension that was decoupled from the hull was developed. It ensures that the noise of the crawler gear is no longer transmitted to the inside of the tank. This protects the ears of the soldiers.
Weight also had to be saved on the turret. This is only possible with thinner armor. For the commander and the gunner, who worked in the turret of the Puma’s predecessor “Marder”, that would have meant less protection. The army saw this as an unacceptable threat, which is why the commander and gunner were placed in the hull of the Puma. As a result, all functions of the turret, the weapons and optics, had to be controlled remotely and monitored by numerous sensors.
A computer on chains
There lies one of the main problems. From the Puma’s tower, 179 cables and cable strands lead into the interior via a slip ring. Electric currents and signals from numerous sensors run across it, such as those of the target and observation devices in the turret and the aiming drives for the turret and cannon. Connected to a dozen computers whose software required a million lines of code to be written, that’s thousands of potential sources of error. The Puma is a computer on tracks, beyond repair for a classic tank mechanic. Today, the Bundeswehr needs mechatronics engineers and IT experts to fix errors and defects.
Most of these people don’t work in the military. This is the next reason for the disastrous shooting exercise in Bergen-Hohne in mid-December. Most tanks failed due to problems with electronics and sensors. Experts would have been needed to remedy the deficiencies. But they weren’t there. This wasn’t the first time this happened. Soldiers repeatedly complained that they would not be able to remedy many of the Puma’s deficiencies without the industry. Therefore, since the tank’s introduction in 2016, the question has been how to survive in a tough and demanding battle. To date, the answer is: not at all.
The high degree of automation makes the Puma vulnerable. Unlike in previous tanks, there is no longer a manual emergency mode for important functions. In the event of failures in the vehicle electrical system, the only hope left for the soldiers is to be able to get out of the vehicle before it is hit. However, if the Puma works correctly, then, according to soldiers, it is unrivaled. No infantry fighting vehicle in the world is better protected and hits more precisely.
A disaster for the Bundeswehr
This is also why the total loss of Bergen-Hohne is a disaster for the German army. But what use is the best tank on paper if it fails too often in practice? Army inspector Alfons Mais had already declared weeks ago that he wanted to buy a wheeled armored vehicle instead of more Pumas, which is not yet available. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) has put the further modernization of the 350 Puma and the planned purchase of another 50 armored personnel carriers on hold. Industry, she said, must finally get the problems under control. Before that there is no more money.
But the question is whether the causes of the problems facing the armored infantry company from Regen actually lay solely with industry. Soldiers report that the Panzergrenadierbataillon 33 from Luttmersen held a two-week exercise in Bergen-Hohne this year without significant failures of its 38 Pumas. Members of the Bundestag told the NZZ that “the Puma thing” was exaggerated by the Ministry of Defence. The problems were not serious, only spare parts, tools and repair personnel were missing.
The total failure of the 18 tanks in Bergen-Hohne has now led to the Puma not being used in NATO’s rapid reaction force for the time being. When the German combat units leave for Lithuania in January, they will have the more than 50-year-old Marder infantry fighting vehicle with them. Meanwhile, the Pumas are being repaired – and so far have not been transported once in an Airbus A400 M.