October 2003
 

Wiesel from Afghanistan in good shape

RLS in Unterluess: maintenance and repair an important mainstay

The last mission has left its mark on the four vehicles showing obvious signs of wear on the entire chassis area including the track shoe pad. These Wiesel 1 vehicles of the German Army have traveled a long way from Afghanistan back to Rheinmetall Landsyseme GmbH (RLS) in Unterluess (Lower Saxony) to be put back into shape. "This is much more efficient that having maintenance and repair work carried out in situ in Kabul. The cost of material and manpower would be far too expensive and the logistics would be exceptionally difficult – not to mention the cost," explains Jürgen Werner, head of the production department at RLS in Unterluess.

Wolfgang Träger, Wiesel production team leader at RLS in Lower Saxony adds: "The extreme mission conditions in and around Kabul where the ISAF troops are based are harsh on the material. Obviously more repair and maintenance is needed there than when a Wiesel is operated at the Bundeswehr site in Lüneburg, Germany." Engineer Werner points out: "Now that tighter security measures are in place following the bomb attack on a Bundeswehr bus in Afghanistan on June 7, 2003, armoured Wiesel vehicles – and other systems – are subject to a changed operation profile. In terms of the air-transportable Wiesel, this means the vehicles are now being used more extensively for security journeys, as a result of which they clock up considerable mileage within a very short period of time. Material wear is correspondingly high."
 

Keeping the peace in Afghanistan: Since mid January 2002, German troops have been stationed in Kabul as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) tasked by the UN with helping to reconstruct and stabilise the impoverished, warn-torn country, ravaged by two decades of conflict. Among other items of equipment, the peacekeepers rely on the airportable Wiesel tracked vehicle.

In a first lot earlier this year, eight Wiesel vehicles – of which four were equipped with a RH 202 machine gun and night-sight unit and four others with an American TOW anti-tank missile were transported from Afghanistan to Unterluess. A further contingency of four Wiesel TOW systems has also been sent to RLS for maintenance and repair.

Foreign missions by the German military – be it within the framework of the UN peacekeeping mission KFOR (Kosovo Forces) in Kosovo, SFOR (Stabilization Force) for peace and order in Macedonia or ISAF (in Afghanistan) generally raise the demand for additional equipment to meet the respective mission profile. In view of this, RLS received an order from the German contracting authorities (BWB) in Koblenz at the end of 2002 to upgrade sixteen Wiesel 1 TOW vehicles. The order for this work is worth around ten million euros.
 

The extremely difficult operating conditions in and around Kabul, where the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is based, mean that the Bundeswehr's Wiesel vehicles take a terrific pounding. The tracked vehicles are whipped back into shape at RLS in Unterluess.

51 year-old Träger explains: "The order mainly concerns a retrofit of the existing system to provide a new "reconnaissance" variant. For this, the vehicle is equipped with a night-sight unit and a machine gun mount as secondary weapon system. Moreover, operation under extreme conditions like in Afghanistan has shown the energy balance to be worthy of improvement. In other words: the existing power generator is too weak to cater for the high energy requirements. The reconnaissance vehicle will therefore be equipped with generators allowing an efficiency improvement from previously 30 to 60 percent."

RLS experts hope that the new energy system will be generally accepted in the Bundeswehr. Engineer Werner points out: "Once an innovation has been accepted, it is generally introduced in an entire system family. We naturally hope that the other 340 Wiesel 1 vehicles will be equipped with the much more efficient generator type and that we will receive the order for this."

Alongside the Wiesel, numerous other systems and units of the Bundeswehr and other armed forces are serviced and repaired at the production and maintenance facility of the Rheinmetall experts. For example, the turrets of the Luchs reconnaissance vehicles and the Marder 1-A5 armoured infantry vehicles. The latter is being equipped with a highly efficient mine protection system.

"35 percent of our production capacities involve maintenance work. So far this year, we have overhauled approx. 23 vehicles completely. Vehicles like the Wiesel 1 that have undergone a check-up are in top shape and fully comparable to a new system," says Werner.

"In the past, maintenance and service of larger and smaller military systems were not considered as important as they are now," recalls Träger. "In fact, maintenance used to be considered rather a tedious job involving a lot of work and little profit. Only two to three percent of production capacities used to be available for this kind of work. Yet, over the years, this activity has become increasingly important. To make sure things stay this way it is essential that highly qualified staff produce top-quality work. To succeed against our competitors, we are developing new ideas and improvements for our customers to help them use their military material more efficiently."
 

Jürgen Werner	Wolfgang Träger

 
 

RLS Customer Service Team in Camp Warehouse

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in November 2001, Germany's Bundeswehr has played a central role in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), whose mission it is to bring security and stability to Kabul, the Afghan capital. That this operation is not without hazards can be seen in media reports almost daily. Nor does the rising number of foreign commitments of the Germany Army pose a challenge merely to the troops on the ground: the extreme operating conditions in the Hindu Kush – including sand storms and terrible terrain – mean that vehicles and equipment have to be serviced far more intensively and more often than is the case in more moderate climate zones.
 

  Otmar Schultheis

For the Customer Service Department of Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH this has had far-reaching effects: "Wherever the Bundeswehr or the armed force of our allies are deployed, you'll often RLS Customer Service people too – at least temporarily. Among other things, the job of our technicians is to repair damaged vehicles and gun systems as well as to familiarise the troops with new equipment – and that goes for Afghanistan, too, declares Otmar Schultheis, a long-serving member of the RLS Customer Service team based in Unterluess in northern Germany.

Schultheis knows what he's talking about. From May 18th to June 11th 2003, he and his colleague Kai Kähler performed maintenance work as well as serving as RLS points of contact during trials of the Bundeswehr's new Wolf ESK all-terrain vehicles for special operations forces, which were put through their paces by German paratroopers deployed in Kabul.

"Our main job was to keep the vehicles in top form as well as carrying out technical modifications requested by the German Army's Materiel Command. For instance, the vehicles were supposed to be mounted with machineguns at short notice. Since there weren't any gun mounts, we designed these on the spot and constructed them from locally available materials," recounts Schultheis.

"Another one of our main tasks was to instruct the maintenance and repair personnel, as well as accompanying the vehicles on patrols in the ISAF area of operations, which includes Kabul and the surrounding mountains", explains Schultheis, going on to explain the advantages of operating in this way: "We were able to intervene immediately if operating problems cropped up with one of the many system components, and were even able to carry out minor modifications on the vehicles."

That Afghanistan still has a long way to go before permanent peace is established was made abundantly clear to the 49-year-old former soldier during his tour of duty in Kabul: "Remember the bomb attack on the Bundeswehr bus on June 7th? We were just 600 meters away from the scene when it happened. Those guys were on their way home to Germany. You don't forget an experience like that – you can't just go back to business as usual." The terror attack left four soldiers dead and wounded 29 others, many of them seriously.

After that attack, the security measures were tightened up even further. "Since then" as the former Bundeswehr officer recalls: "when the troops are rotated, they have to make the trip to the airport from Camp Warehouse – the base camp in Kabul for ISAF troops from 15 nations – in armoured vehicles."

"For us civilians", reports Schultheis, "the tighter security posture meant that we had to be even more careful during the daily patrols than we had already been. This was especially true of private trips into town. The Bundeswehr left it up to us to decide if such excursions were worth the risk. To be sure, though, we spent most of our free time in the camp. Not that there was much to do. In the recreation centre at the base camp you could play table tennis, drink a beer or watch TV – but that was about it."

The Customer Service representatives from Unterluess were housed the same way as the soldiers: in tents. "We spent the night in sleeping bags on simple camp beds", says Schultheis, adding that "it wasn't exactly comfortable. You really start to miss your own bed at home after a while."

Despite the obvious lack of creature comforts, the RLS expert – whose travels so far have taken him everywhere but Africa and Australia – genuinely enjoys these missions: "Each operation – whether on behalf of the Bundeswehr or other armies – represents a challenge. After all, you're mostly on your own, since urgently needed spare parts often aren't available or would have to be flown in at great expense. In such cases good ideas are what count most."

"Along with the technical challenges", declares Schutheis, "there's also the human factor to consider, since different cultures and mentalities are usually involved. It makes a big difference if you're operating in a Western or an Islamic country, for instance. You have to show a lot of tact when interacting with others. Believe me, this kind of work isn't just for everybody."

Schultheis, who has been with the RLS Customer Service Department for nearly twenty years, expects more rather than less work in future: "The Bundeswehr is concentrating increasingly on purely military activities as well as on foreign operations within a Nato or UN framework. This means that maintenance and repair contracts are sure to keep growing in future."