Looks like the much hoped for German re-armament may already be on the rocks:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/world/europe/germany-russia-ukraine-war.html

Archive to bypass paywall:

https://archive.ph/JJhE7

Whole article is good, but this section jumped out:

Of course, this is from an American newspaper, which may be coloring the analysis.

For our German members, hows this stack up with what you guys are hearing / sensing? 

Is re-armament still on, or is it now being questioned?

gatnerd said:

Is re-armament still on, or is it now being questioned?

It was questioned the very second after the words left the Chancellors mouth.
That doesn't mean its canceled though.
Of course there are lots of people who question or oppose the 180 degree change. Basically the entire left of the political spectrum does. Otherwise they would have to admit they made a mistake and where wrong all the last decades. Which is not going to happen.

The celebreties writing a letter is acutally the reasonable part of these people. There are others that openly state that Ukraine just should surrender. Since this would be better for all of "us" and this way the fighting would stop immediatly.
These people have a very special relationship to reality.

My educated guess is the funding and rearmament depend on what is going to happen next. If the political pressure from abroad stays high and Russia continues to escalate it will happen. If not it most likely won't or only in a reduced way.

What a sad story. AMELI could have been a really neat "machine", but program management was directly criminal

It really is a weirdly sad story.

What's even stranger Is the rheinmetal mg60 also failed to catch on too despite being equally compelling.

Personally I really like the Ameli. In my mind it represents the 5.56 belt fed done right.

Now that said, how useful 5.56 belt feds are outside of socom etc use?

That's another question entirely.

roguetechie said:

Personally I really like the Ameli. In my mind it represents the 5.56 belt fed done right.

Now that said, how useful 5.56 belt feds are outside of socom etc use?

Jungle warfare?

A buddy was an M60 gunner in Vietnam. 

He once told me that he would've loved to have had a 5.56 belt-fed.

Another article on German Rearmament:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/business/germany-military-ukraine-russia.html

Archive to bypass paywall:

https://archive.ph/LkavQ

Germany’s Military Industry Gears Up to Restock Its Own Forces

The country’s chancellor has pledged about $100 billion to rebuild its army, but that increase in spending may not be enough to reverse years of neglect, experts say.

Shortages of body armor. Radios so antiquated they are the butt of jokes from other NATO soldiers. A dysfunctional procurement system that takes years just to acquire  shoulder patches.

After decades of budget cuts, the German military is woefully short of basic supplies, whether they’re bullets or backpacks. But galvanized by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to spend 100 billion euros, or $105 billion, to modernize the force, nearly tripling military spending from the previous year.

...

Ralf Ketzel, a former artillery officer who is Krauss-Maffei Wegmann’s chief executive, said it would take no more than two years to begin delivering the several hundred Leopard 2s and Pumas — a kind of combination tank and armored personnel carrier — that Germany’s three combat divisions needed.

“The situation is not as bleak as it is sometimes portrayed,” Mr. Ketzel said.

...

Germany’s procurement system is agonizingly slow. Delivery of a new assault rifle manufactured by Heckler & Koch, which also supplies the U.S. Marine Corps, is seven years behind schedule because of a German law that allows the losing bidder for a defense contract to challenge the decision in court.

Not long after Mr. Scholz announced the increase in spending, the Defense Ministry summoned executives of major contractors to Berlin. One of the messages: Stop suing one another and work as a team, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting. The Defense Ministry declined to comment.

...

A March report to Parliament by Ms. Högl detailed the armed forces’ shortcomings, including shortages of basic equipment like body armor and winter jackets. The system for buying supplies is so dysfunctional that an intelligence unit was waiting to receive uniform insignia it ordered in 2020.

During maneuvers in Lithuania, according to the report, German soldiers were laughed at by soldiers from other NATO armies because they didn’t know how to use the latest communications equipment. The radios they had trained with in Germany were obsolete.

gatnerd said:

Another article on German Rearmament:

The important info is: not a single € has been approved so far.
This is why no serious planning has started yet. We are still in the wish list and pipe dream stage.

That's unfortunately the state of things mostly everywhere right now.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul doesn't begin to describe the unholy cluster fuck we're seeing.

The worst part is once money actually starts flowing in governments are going to be shocked and dismayed when they "find out" that the last 3 decades of approving mergers and "industry consolidation" means that the very few factories and production lines left already have full order books into 2025 or further and physically can't produce more without costly expansion and years of delay In order to rebuild all the production capacity "trimmed off" during the mergers and consolidation.

In a way Ukraine happening is a good thing in this regard since it's a soft wake up call compared to China which has basically scheduled a war with the west in or around the 2030 time period.

roguetechie said:

The worst part is once money actually starts flowing in governments are going to be shocked and dismayed when they "find out" that the last 3 decades of approving mergers and "industry consolidation" means that the very few factories and production lines left already have full order books into 2025 or further and physically can't produce more without costly expansion and years of delay In order to rebuild all the production capacity "trimmed off" during the mergers and consolidation.

Yes all the downsizing and cosolidiation also lead to an oligopoly in the defense sector. In some cases in Germany even a monopoly. Which is a problem.
The main problem we have in Germany is shortage of skilled labour. There is allmost nobody left to ramp up production. In the last two decades most qualified young people moved away from productive and blue collar labour... because of the downsizing and cosolidation. And who could blame them. Now with the aging population and the number of retirees rising there are not enough to replace them. This will be a tough problem to solve. Tougher than setting up new production lines.

At the Commander Salamander site, a guy told me for one subcontractor, one of the critical guys is 70. They literally can't find anyone willing to do his job.