Retired US generals think 44 German tanks could defeat ‘superior Russian army’

Retired American generals Philip Breedlove and Ben Hodges have claimed that a tiny German force in Lithuania could defend the country against a large-scale Russian invasion, citing opaque “war games” conducted in Washington.

Breedlove and Hodges recently took part in a computer simulation commissioned by ‘Strong Together,’ a Lithuanian think tank, and run by the Washington-based Center for the Study of New Generation Warfare. Speaking to German tabloid Bild on Saturday, they said that the simulation pitted 4,800 German soldiers and 44 Leopard tanks against a Russian force of nearly 30,000 attacking Lithuania through Latvia and from Belarus.

There are currently 800 German soldiers stationed in Lithuania, a number set to swell to 4,800 by 2027.

In the simulation, the Lithuanian military was used to hold back the Russian advance for four days, before the 44 German tanks somehow outflanked and defeated the Russian contingent invading from Latvia in a “brilliant maneuver.” By the tenth day, Breedlove and Hodges claimed, the Germans and Lithuanians would have lost 17 tanks, 145 armored vehicles and 3,650 troops.

Russia would somehow have lost 411 tanks, 1,019 armored vehicles and 11,420 men in the same timeframe, the former American generals professed, without explaining further.

A separate assessment of the war game published by Lithuania’s LRT news site claimed that a Russian advance could be halted short of Vilnius in time for NATO reinforcements to arrive, but only if the country invested €10 billion ($10.8 billion) in its military over the next four years, almost doubling its current defense spending.

Such a favorable outcome would also depend on Lithuania being given attack helicopters and long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia, Gintaras Azubalis, a retired colonel of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, told LRT.

Azubalis told Bild that while he believes the 4,800 Germans could “defeat the Russian division coming from Latvia,” Lithuania would nevertheless be left “devastated and partially occupied” within two weeks of fighting.

Hodges and Breedlove have a history of outlandish predictions. Hodges once claimed that Western weapons would enable Ukraine to seize Crimea by last year, and declared in March 2022 that Russia was “ten days away” from running out of missiles and artillery shells. Breedlove claimed earlier this year that Ukraine can seize Crimea if given enough Western weapons, an assessment not shared by the Pentagon.