> For instance, the cost of German Puma tanks was exploded by regulations requiring them to be able to safely carry pregnant soldiers without exposing their amniotic fluids to munitions fumes.
This sounds like the German version of the bendy bananas lie told to Brits about EU regulations, a lie enveloped around some small fact and overblown to look as ridiculous as possible.
Also, the Greens pushing for money to wean Germany off gas is probably quite good for national security, not directly military related but does help in 2nd order effects (less reliance on fossil fuels saves the German economy from being a hostage to cheap gas as well as helps keeping fuel for the military if the need arises).
Nothing dishonest or overblown about the EU regulating bendy bananas. The EU even admitted its regulation of misshapen fruit was stupid and wasteful in a press release:
You aren't the first HN poster to claim this was some sort of British propaganda, even though the regulations are perfectly readable online and still in effect. You can just search for "eu bendy bananas" and the first hit is a Wikipedia page all about it. Where does this idea that it was British propaganda come from? What are European media telling you about this?
You're misrepresenting what the link says, and it doesn't even apply to bananas.
What is does say is that certain fruits and vegetables don't benefit from "minimum marketing standards" and some misshapen products may be sold if labeled as intended for processing.
What all this is is reasonable efforts to define standards for marketing, but it misrepresented by "British propaganda" as something hysterical, just like you misrepresent the press release for the sake of your straw man argument.
They said they wanted to change the rules to allow that, not that it'd always been that way from the start. The original claims that led to them admitting it was dumb weren't "hysterical" (since when is pointing out regulation even the EU admits is bad hysterical?)
Why don't you address the point instead of prevaricating? The narrative you're describing is not based on any facts but simple hate for the EU. Rejecting the plain facts doesn't help you.
The story about Puma being designed with the rules for pregnant woman in mind is widely circulated, but almost certainly false. The Bundeswehr clarified publicly that a tank is not a workplace as defined in those regulations.
There's certainly huge problems with procurement in the German military. But it's also not an uncommon story in other countries that the per-unit costs get really bad because the order is drastically reduced later.
Almost certainly false? The source is the CEO of the manufacturer who complained about specific requirements in the contracts issued by the Bundeswehr itself.
> For example, one of the more than 100 "relevant documents" for the development contract for the infantry fighting vehicle stipulates that the technical regulations for hazardous substances must also be observed. These stipulate that the carbon monoxide content must not exceed a certain limit, as otherwise there is a risk of "damaging the amniotic fluid" in pregnant soldiers. The air inside the Puma must therefore be so clean that even pregnant women can ride safely.
Another problem in a related vein: the Pumas have fire extinguishers which brick the vehicles by spraying powder into the engines. Normal extinguishers that keep the vehicle operational are banned because the gases aren't friendly enough to the ozone layer. This was admitted to be a problem and never fixed.
Manufacturers want to sell vehicles. They usually don't wish to comply with expensive rules as they do so. If they're complaining about regulations that make manufacturing hard, and doing things like equipping their vehicles with fire extinguishers that break the engines, then at minimum the Bundeswehr has screwed up its acquisitions and communications process so badly that its suppliers are confused about what they should do. More likely the manufacturers are correct and the people writing the rules didn't think through the consequences of what they wrote.
