Proposed German Military Use
One of the most fervent supporters of the Davy Crockett was West Germany's defense minister Franz Josef Strauss, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Strauss promoted the idea of equipping German brigades with numbers of the weapon to be supplied by the US, arguing that this would allow German troops to become a much more effective factor in NATO's defense of Germany against a potential Soviet invasion. He argued that a single Davy Crocket could replace 40-50 salvos of a whole divisional artillery park - allowing the funds and troops normally needed for this artillery to be invested into further troops, or simply not having to be spent at all. However, US NATO commanders strongly opposed Strauss' ideas, as they would have made the use of tactical nuclear weapons almost mandatory in case of war, further reducing the ability of NATO to defend itself without resorting to atomic weapons.
Read more about this topic: Davy Crockett (nuclear Device)
Famous quotes containing the words proposed, german and/or military:
“To coöperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coöperate, since one would not operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures.”
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