History UsefulNotes / WeAreNotTheWehrmacht

* Creator/MichaelBay wanted to have Bundeswehr troops appear as part of NEST in the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' sequel. The Bundeswehr was supposedly eager to do it too, but the German government shot down the idea.
** Damn you, [[StopHavingFunGuys Berlin!]]

The following list includes most combat equipment in active service, as well as selected items that were decommissioned after 2000. Since most of the man-portable weapons are extensively covered under CoolGuns; this Useful Note focusses on which branch they are used at and the Bundeswehr peculiarities in fielding them.

During peacetime, command of the Bundeswehr falls to the ''Bundesverteidigungsminister'' (secretary of defence), as of 2022, that is Christine Lambrecht. As a rule, German secretaries of defence do not remain in office for very long, it is plagued with personal and administrative scandals ranging from the absurd to the very serious.

* '''Leopard 2''' The pride of the army, which, for some reason, is very dedicated to tank warfare. Like the M1 Abrams, the ''Leo Zwo'' is descended from the aborted MBT-70 project and usually listed among the best main battle tanks of the world. Newer versions are optimized for mine-resistance and urban operations and have been proven to be worth their money by the Canadian army. Living proof that the German military has some traditions it is very, very good at.

At the height of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr was the second largest [=NATO=] military, with nearly half a million people under arms and a heavy focus on mechanized combat. Like their East German counterpart, they spent most of their time waiting for World War III and, occasionally, doing some humanitarian relief.

* '''Panther KF51''' Following the lessons shown in recent wars with the advent of drones and powerful ATGMs, and in response to new Russian T-14 and British Challenger 3 tanks the Panther is a new tank currently in development, incorporating all the next-generation technologies seen in its foreign counterparts. Named after a cute cat and nothing else.

* '''G11''' This [[Main/RareGuns unusual gun]] was supposed to be the [=G3's=] successor and was the worlds' first assault rifle with caseless ammunition. While the technical issues were mostly solved, it was too expensive to procure after the unification, and less than a thousand were actually fielded. They are still mothballed in a few places; whether there is any ammunition for them is another question.

[[caption-width-right:300:Well, they still made it [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror further east]] than their [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fathers]] or [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI grandfathers]]]]...

[[caption-width-right:300:Well, they still made it [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror further east]] than their [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fathers]] or [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI grandfathers]]...

[[caption-width-right:300:Well, they still made it [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror further east]] than their [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fathers]] or [[grandfathersUsefulNotes/WorldWarI grandfathers]]...

[[caption-width-right:300:Well, they still made it [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror further east]] than their [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fathers or grandfathers]]...]]

As a reaction to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the Bundeswehr would receive an additional 100 Billion Euro and that from now on Germany would spend each year at least 2% of its GDP on the Bundeswehr to make it ready to defend Germany again, tripling its budget and reaching a 4% of GDP. This puts Germany as the world's third largest military spending, after Russia and India.