“Pistorius missed the problem”The equipment disaster at Bundeswehr radio angered the Green Party
Environmental defense politicians were horrified after the Bundeswehr retested the new digital radio: sending chat messages took almost an hour. They hold Defense Minister Pistorius and the arms industry responsible for the billion-dollar disaster.
Following the Bundeswehr’s latest trial of converting troop vehicles into digital radios at a military training area in Munster, Lower Saxony, the Green Party sharply criticized the troop leadership and Social Democratic Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Defense expert Niklas Wagener, who took part in the trials, told the German editorial network (RND): “We are still far from ready-to-use digital radio. Transmission times for chat messages of 59 minutes and for position sketches of up to 25 minutes are unacceptable. We also know that more than 20 radio participants cannot be connected together stably – so there is no question of group-by-group digitization of an entire brigade.”
Wagener continued: “It is of course reasonable that training and exercises can now be expected to resume. The Inspector General, who first appeared in an active role around a major disaster, is not responsible for training operations, but for the operational readiness of the armed forces. I hope that Minister Pistorius will now take action and draw conclusions from the failure of industry and some managers in his ministry. Given this situation, we will wait until the next test in May 2026 announced today “We cannot accept projects with a volume of more than 11.5 billion euros of tax money.”
Central radio for use in the NATO network
Security policy spokesperson for the Greens parliamentary group, Sara Nanni, told RND: “The problem lies with project management at the Ministry of Defence. But the minister told us in the summer that everything was going according to plan. His energy was being spent downplaying the problem and not solving it.” Nanni added: “Boris Pistorius somehow missed this problem. And so far it is not clear in what direction this problem can be resolved.”
The digitalization of land-based operations (D-LBO) is considered critical to operational capabilities, especially to be able to communicate with each other within the NATO network. This system is also intended to make it difficult for opponents to track you. In the Bundeswehr’s special funds, a total of more than 20 billion euros is allocated for leadership and digitalization.
