US Armor Begins Moving from Germany to Strengthen NATO’s Eastern Flank

Poland’s Radio ZET has been reassuring the citizens of the Lubuskie and Greater Poland voivodeships that the marked increase of US military moving east since the end of June is part of a planned operation not a signal of something untoward.

The US Army is currently moving equipment and vehicles from a military storage depot in Mannheim, Germany to warehouses in Powidz near Poznan. The location is adjacent to a military airfield which would allow equipment to be rapidly redeployed by air if necessary.

In total 87 Abrams tanks, around 150 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 18 M109 155mm self-propelled howitzers as well as ammunition and materiel, sufficient to equip a Brigade Combat Team (BCT), will be moved between now and September. The BCT is the US Army’s basic deployable all-arms maneuver formation, with its own dedicated combat support, combat service support and organic artillery units; the latter normally received from a divisional artillery formation (DIVARTY).

The redeployment is part of NATO’s declared intention to strengthen the Alliance’s eastern flank which was restated at the beginning of July. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO has taken measures to enhance its “forward presence” by positioning multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia supported by naval vessels and combat aircraft along NATO’s eastern flank, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.

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Earlier this month the construction of a base for another 1,000 US troops was completed in Świętoszów, Poland which will double as a training base for allied troops as well as rotations of combat-ready forces.

“The base will also be used to quickly collect and receive supplies, configure combat equipment before moving to a tactical assembly area,” according to Polish Brig. Gen. Dariusz Mendrala the Director of NATO’s Investment Department.

NATO needs to prepare for all-out conflict with Russia, Poland’s army chief of staff General Wieslaw Kukula told a press conference on Wednesday, July 10 – a sentiment that was shared by Poland’s president Andrzej Duda in an interview with Wirtualna Polska less than a week later.

Duda warned that if Ukraine loses “the potential for war between Russia and the West would be extremely close.”

He said: “If Russian imperialism is not repulsed and Putin’s cruel blade is not dulled, then this gluttonous monster will attack further and further.”

Asked how much time Poland and NATO would have to prepare for war, Duda replied that the need here is not to count days, but to act.

In May, Poland announced its plans to create the “East Shield,” a 10-billion-zloty ($2.5 billion) program to strengthen physical defenses along its border with Belarus and Russia. In early July, Poland’s deputy defense minister Pawel Bejda said Warsaw was increasing the number of its troops guarding the eastern border from 6,000 to 8,000 supported by a 9,000 troop reserve on 48 hours standby.