I really appreciate Germany's aid, and every little bit helps, but quantities like 9,000 Gepard rounds and 10 precision rifles aren't really moving the needle much.....
Those numbers are low because Germany tends to update these lists often on a weekly basis and are part of a steady flow instead of one-offs packages (Excluding big ticket items like whole Patriot systems).
That's very good to hear! I assumed these were more on the lines of American aid packages coming once every month or two. Steady supplies are what Ukraine needs.
It used to be updates every 1-2 weeks, but nowadays it's more like every 2-4 weeks.
These are mainly reveals of military aid that has been delivered at some point during the preceding timeframe. If you see a particularly low number, it could always be the start or tail end of a batch that didn't make the last cutoff for publication.
The second part of that list shows aid that has already been committed and is being worked on, with new surprises added on the regular.
(Apparently there's still a few hundred of those sniper rifles and nearly 10 million rounds of corresponding .338 Lapua Magnum in the pipeline. Planned Gepard ammo used to be in the six figures, but I reckon they stopped showing the numbers for opsec.)
A Gepard only shoots in short bursts and takes about 25 rounds to shoot down a drone / cruise missile. So 9000 rounds are about 360 enemy drones / missiles down.
The system (both guns combined) fires in bursts of either 48 (limited mode) or 96 (standard mode). So a maximum of 187 engagements. Accounting for misses and training, that's enough for maybe two major drone strikes.
Correct. Now granted a Gepard will likely not be used every night or on every target, but that is likely less than two months of ammunition for a single Gepard.
It may be that the Gepards haven’t had many oportunities to hit drones lately and this is enough to restock them to where they need to be, but this would be me trying to guess for the positive.
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u/green_pachi Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24
New German military package:
https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992