When I first saw this information come up on my Google News feed, I was kind of groggy and thought maybe Germany was willing to help the Ukrainian war effort with some kind of uber military working dog. Then I actually read the article and saw that in the German military, a “Dingo” is a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle or MRAP. They are armored personnel carriers (APC).

 

No, they are not sending these dingos. These are Australian and known to eat babies. Image credit: Jarrod Amoore and Wikimedia Commons 

According to Politico, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said this past Thursday that her nation would be sending 50 of the above-mentioned armored vehicles to Kyiv in support of their ongoing efforts to push the invading Russians out of their country. During an annual conference of the German military (aka the Bundeswehr), she announced, “It is encouraging to see the successes that Ukraine has been able to achieve, especially in recent days, also with the help of German weapons.”

This is a Czech KMW Dingo 2 APC. The photo was taken at the US Army’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, as the vehicle was being prepped to participate in Allied Spirit II, a multinational training exercise. US Army photo by Spc. Tyler Kingsbury via DVIDS.

In addition to the 50 MRAPs, Germany has also pledged to send two MARS (Medium Artillery Rocket Systems)  to add to the three they have already shipped. Yeah, that makes a grand total of five. Come on, Germany, you a world power, you can do better than that. To be fair, they are also sending 200 rounds for the MARS. I had to laugh a little bit at that one because MARS is a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) with 12 launch tubes capable of firing  12 rockets in approximately 60 seconds. At that rate of fire, they’ll burn through all 200 rounds in less than half an hour. When that happens, all they have left is a really expensive truck.