Bundeswehr's Digital Radio Disaster: Millions for Consultants to Fix It

For years, the Bundeswehr has been struggling with equipping the army with digital radios. Not usable for the troops and not combat-ready, have been the bad news for over two years. Internal documents dated July further call into question the schedule for installing digital radio in Bundeswehr vehicles as part of the "Digitalization of Land-Based Operations" (D-LBO) project, which has a total scope of around 20 billion euros. Even the NATO combat force promised by the federal government, Division 2025, will therefore likely "not be fully re-equipped" by the end of 2027.

The start of the serial re-equipment of thousands of vehicles, planned for January 2026, is "questionable" according to the papers, reports ARD. This depiction contradicts the official line of the Ministry of Defense. The department therefore plans, according to the report, to purchase external support services for around 156.7 million euros through the Bundeswehr's IT company (BWI). The contracts are to go to private consulting firms such as Capgemini, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and MSG Systems. In the budget committee, there is talk of daily rates of 1200 euros and more per consultant.

The installation of radios from the manufacturer Rohde & Schwarz in around 200 different vehicle types and equipment variants is considered complex. According to insiders, simple things like cable ducts or suitable alternators are often lacking. For example, installing a radio in a Leopard tank alone is said to keep two technicians busy for about 400 hours. The term "artisanal work" is used, which cannot be done on an assembly line.

Fundamentally New Handling of Digital Technology

The re-equipment of over 16,000 vehicles well into the 2030s has been awarded to a consortium of the arms industry with Rheinmetall and KNDS. In addition to the known hardware problems, there have also been difficulties with the software since early summer 2025, according to ARD. Rheinmetall subsidiary Blackned, among others, is involved in its development.

The ministry of Boris Pistorius (SPD) promises members of the Bundestag a technical interim solution with "mixed operation," including the previous analog and easily locatable radios, as early as November. However, doubts in parliament about the suitability and feasibility of this approach are growing.

According to their D-LBO manager Thomas Arendt, the BWI has taken on the task of assembling the individual devices required for the respective vehicle types "and transporting them to the correct retrofitting location at the right time in the right configuration." This allows the equipment of operational vehicles to be carried out "with the greatest possible efficiency." In addition, specialists are training the armed forces in the "fundamentally new digital handling" of the radios and the background-operating hardened notebooks and servers, which are stored by the Bundeswehr in various depots at different locations.

(vbr)