"Belgian military - case study in NATO decline" Topic

I think of all the militaries in NATO, Belgium's represents the greatest example of how defanged NATO forces have become.

Belgian Army 1989/91

2 armoured divisions (1 was called an infantry division but was an armoured division with 111 tanks ) with full spectrum of capabilities (armour, artillery, anti-tank, recce etc).

3 independent armoured reconnaissance regiments (includes Leopard 1s as well as British Scorpion/Scimitar)

3 independent artillery regiments with armoured SPH (155mm and 203mm)

2 air defence battalions with MIM-23
1 air defence battalion with Gepard SPAAG

Light aviation battalion equipped with Alouette II, which were being replaced by 46 A-109s of which some had AT capability.

1 regiment equipped with MGM-52 Lance tactical nuclear ballistic missile

Major Equipment
334 Leopard I MBT
701 CVRT including Scimitar, Scorpion etc
514 AIFV – various variants
80 Kanonenjagdpanzer
127 M109 155mm SPH
12 M110 203mm SPH
55 Gepard SPAAG
48 MIM-23 SAM launchers
Some number of M113s from 500+ delivered still in service.

50-ish SA313/318 helicopters being replaced by 46 A-109.

Belgian Army 2021

1 motorised brigade with 5 infantry battalions. Artillery battalion has 1 battery of 120mm mortars and 1 battery of towed 105mm guns.

1 special forces regiment.

Helos were transferred to air force (Air Component) but included here for consistencies sake.

Major Equipment
138 Piranha II 8-wheeled AFV/APC (including 20 with 90mm cannon and 20 with 30mm cannon, rest are APC, Command, Ambulance etc). Fire support versions to be replaced by 60 EBRC Jaguar with 40mm cannon.

59 Pandur 6-wheeled APC

218 Dingo – 4 wheeled MRAP

All Pandur, Dingo and Piranha APCs to be replaced by 417 Griffon 6- wheeled MRAPs.

14 LG1 Mark II 105mm howitzer

12 A109 utility helicopters (future is unclear
4 x NH90 transport helicopters (to be retired to save money even those these are new)

Belgian Air Force 1989-91

136 F-16 (160 delivered, 24 lost 1980-1989!)
50 Mirage V

More F-16s were to be ordered as attrition but this never occurred with last deliveries in 1991)

11 C-130H

Full spectrum of training from ab initio to full fledged fighter pilot.

4 squadrons of MIM-14 Nike Hercules SAM deactivated in 1989.

Belgian Air Force 2021

51 F-16A/B – to be replaced by 34 F-35A by 2030.
7 A400 being delivered (+1 Luxembourg owned aircraft)

Training – ab initio only following retirement of Alpha Jet in 2020 with no replacement

Belgian Navy 1989-91
4 x ASW frigate (Wielingen-class)
6 x ocean going MCM (ancient Agile class)
13 x coastal MCM (10 modern Tripartite plus 5 ancient Adjutant class)
8 inshore minesweepers

Belgian Navy 2021
2 x ASW frigate (Karel Doorman-class) – these are actually ex-Dutch ships dating from mid-1980s!
6 x coastal MCM (same Tripartite class that had entered service in 1980s). 1 is non operational and possibly is to be transferred to Pakistan

EDIT To be honest it gets far worse when you look at Eastern European NATO partners which have regressed even further!.

If the Europeans refuse to defend theirselves, why is the USA still there?

This is not too uncommon across the board, except for a few countries such as the U.S., China, etc., who invest heavily in their armed forces. The main reason, at least for Belgium and other NATO countries is that while Russia is a definite threat, their combat power has been reduced as well.

The other thing it points out is that future wars, if there are any, will be short and brutal. The main reason for that is there won't be any replacements coming! With the long lead times on ships, complex assemblies for aircraft and armored vehicles, etc., not many replacements will get to the front by the end of the war. Most wars will probably only be a few weeks at most.

… and everyone will be home by Christmas…

The future short and brutal war story, I heard of in 1914, over by xmas….😉
The real invasion is already inside and it disarmed the minds, just after the soukl has been lost.
There are very few able and willing to fight, any fight.

But we can play what ifs… ambush alley in Molenbeek.

JcFrog – very true.

It turns out serving even in this tokenn military is not very appealing for Belgian millenials.

link

I suspect it is similar in rest of west. Kind of like Romans no longer wanting to serve in the legions.

The "over by Christmas" comments just shows how out of touch most gamers are with modern warfare. This isn't the Eastern and Western fronts of WW2 with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, massive reserves to be called up, and endless smart munitions/missiles to be used. Wars will be fought and won with much smaller formations than in the past and there won't be factories working round the clock turning out tanks, trucks, fighters, etc., each day to replace losses. They're just now ramping up to produce 14 F-35s per month, which would hardly make a dent in replacing losses in an intense air war, even if only for a few weeks.

NATO appears to becoming Not even a Paper Tiger …

Wars will be fought and won with much smaller formations than in the past and there won't be factories working round the clock turning out tanks, trucks, fighters, etc., each day to replace losses.

Agreed. Time needed to manufacture an F16 or F-35 is 2-3 years on average from initial order to first flight. And that doesn't include items that might have been ordered even earlier.

Hence the need to maintain a larger force in the first place.

And larger or more capable European forces create something more important – deterrence.

Remove America out of the European equation and Putin could drive his tanks to Berlin and maybe even Brussels without a problem (this includes Poland whose larger military recently came to the conclusion they would last barely a week or two).

The "over by Christmas" comments just shows how out of touch most gamers are with modern warfare.

Ok, so there won't be as much equipment being cranked out as in previous wars but time of conflict isn't always tied to equipment production.

Striker,

The big issue is you simply can't replace any extensive losses in any time.

If little Belgium (34 F-35s) or large Poland (32 F-35s + 48 F-16s) loses a couple of dozen jets in a week against Russians (and Poland did conclude in mass exercises their air force won't survive a Russian onslaught) they will have to wait years for replacements as well as pilot training.

The production capability/capacity simply isn't there.

The USN doesn't have access to sufficient shipyards to build or fix new ships any faster than what it is doing. Most US commercial yards are long gone and ships are produced in China. South Korea and Japan so dual purpose civilian facilities aren't available.

Even the F-35 program is struggling to maintain spare parts production to keep aircraft serviceable and that's the world's biggest fighter program. It doesn't help these aircraft are built with parts across the world!

Even large countries are losing ability to manufacture such rudimentary things as small arms (eg French new main rifle is German M4 derivative built by HK).

The west has spent 50 years slowly deindustrialising.

Let's say Putin does drive to Brussels. What does he do with it once he's there? How does he control those places? Russia can barely handle the Ukraine right now and their showing in Syria was far less than optimal. Half their equipment would probably break down before making it across Poland, even with no fighting whatsoever.

To me, as a military professional, Belgium looks like it has a nice, tight, adequately equipped force to contribute to NATO.

And if the west has spent 50 years deindustrializing, the situation in Russia certainly isn't any better. Belgium seems to have cut it's forces to less than 1/5th their late 1980s size.

Back then, the USSR had some 200 combat divisions on the books, twenty of which were parked in East Germany. Today they have no divisions in East Germany. And what's the division equivalent of their military power? Less than twenty. That's 1/10th of what the old Soviets had. Seems to me that the Belgians are pretty accurately assessing the situation.

I am sorry, fellas, but if you want to play your mega tank battle apocalypses, they are going to have to be set in the 1980s.

PatriotGrunt,

Never said Putin would drive to Brussels, merely highlighting how bad NATO defenses are.

The real goal would be the Baltics which would be smashed with ease. NATO recognises this fact and its recognised NATO forces in the Baltics are trip wire forces and not capable of stopping any Russian offensive!

And as a military professional what great capability do you think can be offered with Belgium's 5 under supported battalions of motorised infantry (noting they can maybe deploy 1-2 a at most)?

Denmark has a single brigade. If it deploys the whole thing and it suffers heavy casualties, Denmark no longer has an army!

France has 2 underequipped "heavy" brigades equipped for high intensity war, Britain has 3, also increasingly understrength.

Germany's military is falling apart.

It gets worse in other parts of Eastern Europe including the frontline states.

Do you think Croatia's 4-5 operational MiG-21bis fighters is capable of supporting NATO or that Romania's air force with 17 F-16AM/BM and 26 MiG-21MF (upgraded in 1990s but still an early 1970s vintage MiG-21MF) can stop Russian air forces in the Black Sea? Or it's Navy with its Type 22 frigates with no missile armament whatsoever and one badly designed clunker with 1970s vintage weapons, sensors and poor seakeeping capabilities?

Is the Czech Republic's lone tank "battalion" (30 T-72s, not all operational) actually a battle worthy formation? Is their planned purchase of 8 UH-1Y and 4 AH-1Z going to add much to the alliance (especially when its replacing 16 Mi-35s and several modernised Mi-17Sh)?

Or the Polish Navy with its 1 operational submarine that hasn't been updated since its was commissioned in 1986?

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So the problem with NATO and its primary mission of defending against Russia:

1. Frontline Eastern European states have little or no military capability and are incapable of defending themselves even with the moderate NATO buffs.

2. Western European forces have very little reserves, especially of the conventional variety. This makes it difficult to both stop Russian advances or launch counter offensives to retake lost territory.

3. Whole of European defense is literally based on shipping massive American forces to the continent. And even with some prepositioned equipment, this would take a long time (weeks or even months, noting NATO rapid response forces assume it would take at least a month to mobilise a division level formation).

As a military professional you should know 5 motorised battalions with limited artillery support and no air defence save MANPADS is not an offensive force and only capable of limited defensive action.

By that stage Russian flag is flying over Vilnius.

Russia can barely handle the Ukraine right now

As a military professional, you really should have noted Russia has not allocated its entire military strength to smashing the Ukraine. No air forces, long range missile strikes etc etc. No massive offensives either, merely holding the like.

The war in Ukraine is designed to burn forever, not win an outright victory. The goal is to stop Ukraine joining NATO, not conquer it.

As for Syria I agree the Russian air force is primitive in terms of application and tactics. However it achieved its goal of keeping Assad in power and in charge of most of the country.

A primitive airforce supported by offensive action is still better than token air forces with handful of operational aircraft (which is what most European air forces are).

Somewhere in Northern Greece near Adrianople in 378. Two Roman Generals are arguing about the cost of SHC Cataphract armor and how will the Empire replace it if they all get killed.

The falsehood behind it is that Nato if it is only to defend against Russia (but again and again why Russia would attack? To gain what? Do they really have the capacity to project and sustain far away?) Is irrelevant.
The ennemy is Turkey, and the ongoing invasion within, the hatred bred inside to destroy our nations.
If you have no will to fight, blind yourself to it, then no amount of fat state employees in camo costumes, with a number of toys will do any good.
The full scale fight (the low intensity one has already started) when it comes, will more ressemble Falujah than mech manoeuvre warfare in open fields against masses of BMPs. This is only on game tables.

In Ukr ( post 1954 size) the Russians only did the minimum to keep the enclaves free from Azov bn and the likes, without destabilizing the rest and pushing the US to something.
Funny how the cold war syndrome is still in, sort of missing its binary simplicity.

PatriotGrunt

Hi, Area. Refresh my memory again: what sort of military forces does Russia actually have?

350,000 active troops in the army.

Western and Southern Districts have 6 Armies (about the size of a corps) with 11 divisions, numerous independent brigades. This includes 4 divisions of elite "airborne" units. Central District offers reinforcements of another 3 division sized units.

NATO has acknowledged Russian artillery is far stronger than NATO equivalents.

Russian Airforces include about 1200 combat aircraft (Su-24/-25/-27/-29/-30/-34/-35, MiG-31 and 120 Tu-22/-95/160 heavy bombers (MiG-29 only used as trainer).

Russia has something too that NATO no longer possesses – standardised equipment. Due to influx of Eastern European states and very small procurement numbers, NATO now has myriads of equipment types, calibres etc).

Eg Following artillery calibres are used by NATO forces – 76mm, 100mm, 105mm, 122mm, 130mm, 152mm, 155mm and some old 203mm.

Or tanks – Leopard 2 is most numerous but available in many different models from old and obsolete 2A4/A5 (Germany, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Norway) to relatively modern 2A6 (Germany, Danish 2A55DK, Spain, Portugal) a small handful of ultramodern 2A7 (Hungary has ordered these).

In fact most of NATO's European tank park is beyond museum pieces compared to Russian T-90s and modernised T-72s (and would appear T-80s have now started to be modernised and returned to service).

Second most numerous tank in Europe is the T-72 in a ton of different variants – T-72A, T-72M, T-72M1, T-72MIZ, T-72M2 T-72M4CZ (30 Czech Republic), M-84D (44 Croatia), PT-91 (Poland). Most were never upgraded since they were delivered in 1980s.

Then you get a whole menagerie of ancient old timers – M-48 (Turkey/Greece) , M-60 (Turkey/Spain), Leopard I (Turkey/Greece) and T-55s (Romania's only tanks are T-55s and a local unreliable version called the TR-85). I think Bulgaria might also still have stores of the garbage T-62s.

Leclercs and Challenger II are the silver bullets fleets. The Brits might be complaining their Challenger II fleet is old but it's absolutely space age compared to the average European Leopard 2A4 or T-72M.

At one stage I did outline tank numbers here – only 23% of European tanks are anything that can be defined as modern(ish) including Leopard 2A6/7, Leclerc, Challenger II and Ariete.

Summarised here:

- 1801 Leopard 2 though 823 (46%) are older 2A4 models proven vulnerable in Syria. Not all are operational.
- 1650 M60 – all obsolete fleet reduced since I typed this up
- 1219 T-72/PT91/M84 – mainly obsolete and about 409 modernised ones approaching obsolescence.
- 1158 M48 – all obsolete fleet reduced since I typed this up
- 898 Leopard I – all obsolete fleet reduced since I typed this up
- 747 T-55/TR85 – all obsolete
- 360 Challenger 2 (48 other converted to Driver Training Tanks which have no combat capability as whole turret is gutted). Only 226 operational – now down to only 148 under new plan
- 406 Leclerc – Only 222 operational
- 200 Ariete

Number of modern tanks – 1944
Modern tanks as % of total tank pool 23%

Or air defence – as we can see countries like Belgium have none.

And most NATO European partner air defence units aren't integrated into any sort of NATO air defence because they are of eastern origin (S75, S125, 2K12 Kub, S-200, 1980s vintage S300, 9K33 Osa). Note other than the S300s the rest were obsolete by 1982!

Even western partners don't necessarily bring much to the party – Belgium, Denmark have nothing, Portugal has MIM-72 Chaparral, Norway has a single NASSAMS battery with 3 launchers!

Most of the smaller new members have no air defence to speak of.

The eastern Europeans do bring MLRS to the party (usually in Soviet 122mm calibre as per Grad) though Romania and Poland are acquiring HIMARS).

Western European MLRS stocks are low:

France – 13 launchers
Germany – 38 launchers (operational)
Greece -152 launchers (36 M270, 116 122mm RM70 (Grad type))
Italy – 21 launchers
Norway – 12 launchers – not operational and in storage
Turkey – 400+ launchers (12 MLRS, rest are licence produced Chinese designs in 107mm and 122mm).
United Kingdom – 35 launchers (operational)

Why do you think America has been complaining about European commitment to defence since Bush Jnr administration?!?

BINGO !

And looks like the US Military will face a large cutback shortly. With funds being sent to other areas, reasons, causes, etc., etc.

Meanwhile … the PRC/CCP is building up like war is coming tomorrow. And IIRC they are forging a "stronger" PRC/CCP-Putin "relationship". Along with Iran as well AFAIK …

So someone is not reading "the tea leaves" correctly in the USA … or ignoring them.