At the end of December 2018, the tender for the Bundeswehr's new Battle Management System (BMS) was published. As a result, there was an intensive discussion in expert circles over the years about what should actually be made of the criteria required. The flood of applications for the contract came quickly and unsurprisingly, it could upend the entire schedule. A company better known as a tank forge may come to the rescue.
Describing the entire process could fill books, so this article starts almost a year ago, when the actual hot phase of equipment for the currently ongoing VJTF 2019 began. However, this phase was not that hot because the necessary procurement had neither begun nor initiated. Originally, the VJTF 2019 was supposed to have modern digital equipment. Only: Without a tender there is no contract and without a contract there is no digitalization.
The most urgent purchases were - and still are - Software Defined Radios (SDR) for the secure transmission of voice and data, display devices in the vehicles, the integration of the systems and a comprehensive battle management system. Two deficits resulting from this deficiency are particularly serious: encryption and networking.
Encryption
The SEM radios in the Bundeswehr cannot encrypt. This was neither technically feasible nor necessary at the time these radios were purchased, as the Cold War scenario provided hardly any surprising theaters of war and tactics. Nowadays, however, it can be assumed that even militias now have inexpensive interception techniques and may also understand German, but certainly English.
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