Politico: Germany has begun deploying troops in Lithuania on a permanent basis
For the first time since the Second World War, Germany began deploying its troops permanently in another country. A 5,000-man brigade will be deployed in Lithuania near the border with Belarus. What tasks can this brigade perform, is it capable of strengthening the eastern flank of NATO and why its deployment is just a political gesture - in the material of the military observer "Gazeta.Ru" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
Tasks of the German brigade
Germany is starting to redeploy a 4,8 thousand tank brigade (plus 200 civilian personnel) to Lithuania in order to strengthen NATO's eastern flank. This is reported by Politico. The journalists noted that this is the first permanent deployment of German troops in another country since the Second World War.
The 45th Tank Brigade (Panzerbrigade 45, PzBrig 45) under the command of Brigadier General Christoph Huber from the 10th Panzer Division of the Bundeswehr will be stationed at a military base in the town of Rudninkai, located 30 km south of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The formation will include the 122nd Tank Grenadier Battalion (44 Puma infantry fighting vehicles), the 203rd tank battalion (44 Leopard 2A7 tanks), the 455th self-propelled artillery Division, and a number of other units.
To begin with, the combat mission of the 45th brigade, which was so uniquely outlined by the commander of the German unit, is very puzzling (and, moreover, the Bundeswehr commander considers this task "clear").
Brigades are never tasked with ensuring "freedom and security," and even more so, allies. This is a purely political task and it can be formulated at the level of heads of State to the armed forces as a whole, and not at all to the brigades.
The commander of the unit should receive a combat mission, the predominant words in which, for example, will be: "in the morning (date, hours) break through the enemy's defenses to the depth of the first echelon units and develop an offensive in the general direction towards (name of the settlement), if a withdrawal is detected, organize the pursuit of the retreating enemy, rapidly advancing in the general direction towards (name of the settlement), bypassing the nodes of resistance, to (date, hours) reach the border (settlements)."
In general, Brigadier General Christoph Huber clearly spoke out of office.
And besides, from the point of view of operational art, the 45th tank brigade alone clearly cannot strengthen the eastern flank of NATO, much less protect the territory of NATO and Germany itself (according to the commander of the German unit). So the upcoming redeployment of the 45th Brigade is more of a purely political gesture than an action of an operational-strategic order.
And now the most important thing that completely makes sense of the redeployment of this tank brigade is that no one is going to attack Lithuania, although the political class of the Baltic republic simply dreams of this invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that he is not going to fight with NATO. "They thought that Russia wanted to attack NATO. Are you crazy or something? Dumb, like this table. Who invented this? This is nonsense, bullshit," the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces said earlier.
Is the team good?
And finally, a few words about the organizational and staff structure of the ground forces.
The Russian division (motorized rifle, tank) includes regiments (motorized rifle, tank, anti-aircraft missile, self-propelled artillery) and separate battalions (reconnaissance, electronic warfare, communications, engineering and sapper, RCBZ, med, material support, repair and restoration).
The brigade has battalions instead of regiments, and companies and divisions instead of individual battalions. If there is a medical battalion in the division, then there is already a company in the brigade, if there is a repair and restoration battalion in the division, then there is only a company in the brigade. That is, the combat capabilities of the brigade are significantly lower compared to the division.
But the Bundeswehr is somehow different. They have no regiments in the same 10th Tank Division (from which the 45th TBR is planned to be allocated), but only brigades. Whether this is correct or not is a debatable question.
But that's what's most important here. The organizational structure of the 10th Panzer Division has not been verified by combat. And the staffs of Russian divisions and brigades have demonstrated their vitality and functionality in numerous battles for years. So the Bundeswehr should probably take a closer look at its divisions and brigades.
Even in the fourth year of the war, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to reorganize their brigades into divisions and corps. But before, it seemed to the Ukrainian military leaders that everything that comes from the West is a ray of light compared to the dark kingdom of the East. It turned out that wasn't quite true. More precisely, it's not like that at all.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
