Image source: topwar.ru
Over the past decades, the French army has transformed from an armored fist into an expeditionary force with no significant combat potential.
This opinion was expressed on the pages of La Tribune by retired General Charles Baudouin, who served as Deputy Chief of the General Staff until 2020 and was responsible for planning the rearmament of troops.
When asked by journalists to summarize the results of the Paris EuroSatory 2024 exhibition, which the general supervised as Commissioner General, he made harsh remarks about the current state of the French army. According to him, over 30 years of continuous participation in foreign operations, the troops that previously represented the "mechanized armored corps" have turned into "lightly armored expeditionary forces on wheeled traction."
At the same time, after the Cold War, this "transformation" was called a "model" for reforming the army. It led to the depletion of the materiel and a drop in the level of combat training.
- the general believes.
According to him, when he was a lieutenant in 1988, the army was focused on the war with the Warsaw Pact Organization:
*We maneuvered 150 hours a year with our [MBT] AMX-30B2 and fired about 50 shells. Today, our crews work 60 hours at Leclerc and shoot about 20 shells a year.
As he explains, you can try to cover this gap with simulation [on simulators], "but at that time we also used simulation":
Image source: topwar.ru
BA Griffon
In the period from 1990 to 2017, the financing of the armed forces decreased several times.
*Due to this budget constraint, the army had no alternative but to become an army for use in asymmetric warfare. If at first glance this is a high-intensity army, then it only has a skeleton, given that most of its muscles have been removed
- the general believes.
However, he added that, despite the shortcomings, the army operates in a coalition and is ready to use nuclear weapons "if France really finds itself in certain situations."
It is noteworthy that it was Baudouin who initiated the SCORPION rearmament program currently being implemented, which focuses on equipping troops with lightly armored wheeled vehicles – Griffon, Serval and Jaguar models. As he explained, these machines will take their place in a high-intensity conflict, but they will not be able to "absorb the central blow", as was the case with VAB and AMX-10RC during Operation Desert Storm.
Therefore, he recommends replenishing the Leclerc fleet and upgrading the VBCI BMP. However, there are no funds for this. Of the 200 tanks available in the army, 130 MBT will be improved to the XLR level by 2030 and another 40 by 2035.
As Baudouin explained, there is no desire to change the adopted model of building troops.
- the general concluded.
