Belgian Army History Pt 3: Cold War 

Dude has just casually, from memory, dumped like 4 centuries of Belgian military history in a few episodes. If he hasn’t committed this all to paper as a book, someone please do so for him.

"The country everybody knows." My guy!😅 I sincerely enjoyed his sense of humor o7

Very interesting to listen how our southern neighborhoods dealt with the change to a volunteer army. The struggle that came with it. Very similar as in the Netherlands. That corporal-chef spoke truly with emotion. Like that guy.

Mr. Testaert is a great interviewee, a lot of knowledge there. I hope that he and those of his experience will be consulted if and when the Belgian Army returns to a more "heavy" force structure. Institutional knowledge is incredibly important, and quite difficult to regain once lost.

"Why do we need tanks" - politicians eh.

All of this is just flowing out of this gentleman's brain in his non-native language. He probably should be on the general staff.

Spent time with the Belgian Army during Reforger 1984 while serving with the 3rd Armor Division

🇦🇺 Good to hear a current, honest opinion from a European/NATO viewpoint. Best part of the video!

So many people in the tank world who are great talkers. Seems we have found another one in this Belgian 🎉gentleman. Great stuff

learned more about our army than when I did my my military service back in 76 with the 6t bn TTR in Lüdenscheid. Have a drink on me with Mr Testaert. You could try a tripel hop Duvel.

Your best interview ever. I love how candid he was.

This historian is beyond belief. He knows more about Belgium military than I know about my genealogy. MAMa!

What a treasure this man is, excellent.

As a Belgian born Australian, I found the challenge of recruiting from only 2 locations in Belgium, a country that fits 250 times in Australia, somewhat perplexing, all the while reminded that 150k (distance fron Brussel to German border) seemed far when I was Belgian.

These videos are great. Mr. Testaert is a very compelling speaker.

Some body brought up the classic "Don't mention the war" sketch in the live stream.. RU-vid : Will you stop talking about the war? John Cleese : Me? You started it. Mr. Putin : We did not start it! John Cleese : Yes, you did. You invaded [insert any of several country names here]. Choose from following list : 1991, 1992, 1993 Several conflicts in Caucaus and a border incident by the Moldova-Ukraine border. 1992_97 Tajkistan 1994_96 Chechnya (Which they lost) 1999 Dagestan 1999_2009 Chechnya again (Persistent bugger this Putin chap.) 2008 Georgia 2014 Ukraine 2015 Syria 2018 Central African Republic 2021 Mali

Belgium's Motto for the Cold War/WWIII: Everybody that tried to use us as a speed bump didn't live to regret it.

" Hard to have defence in depth when your country is the size of a handkerchief " Brezhnev (Possibly)

Monsieur Testaert does is country proud; very impressive talk.

that talk about belgian current events so to speak was actually pretty fascinating.

This was a very enjoyable series to watch. I appreciate all the insights William provided, hope to see more of his thoughts on other Belgian vehicles and perhaps NATO topics as a whole.

Thanks for all 3, LtC Moran. Looking forward to the rest of your euro-tour.

Very informative and interesting interview. Thank you chief...

Very good comments and analysis. Keep up the good work.

super series!! love the take on organization and modern times

Nick genuinely thanks for a truly fabulous interview there with your belgian counterpart. Fascinating and wonderfully rich while also concise. Top work

Very enlightening and informative episode

What a knowledgeable host you had. Just an excellent Q&A with all the props.

Bam ! New content from the Guru of all things TANKS!

Excellent interview.

Thank you Mr Moran and Mr Testaert. This video series is one of the best military history series that I have watched in quite a while.

Very informative!

This gentleman is brilliant. Very interesting interview with a knowledgeable man.

An excellent series! I do hope we get inside the hatch videos on the Gepard and Bergepanzer!

I like his direct frankness.

I like Mr. Testeart! A very informative perspective on the Cold War. Thank you!

I knew an Army recruiter in the late 80s, whp related this story. His unit was the aggressor in NATO exercises. While passing thru the Ardennes, first the front tank was "hit" , then the last tank in the column was "hit". Following until every tank was "hit". Only then the Belgian, or Luxembourger defenders revealed themselves on a wooded hill by the road. They had not been spotted during the entire "attack".

Chieftain show, always great.

Very interesting talk, Voila et merci!

educational and entertaining I o longer watch tv , both of you were great.

Absolutely excellent series. This corporal is more knowledgeable than most officers. Kudos to him and LTC Moran.

Cool I actually clicked on this before it stated... Got to listen to 20 seconds of elevator music.

I did a training deployment to Jordan along with some Belgian AF guys and their F-16’s. Good bunch who managed to bring beer.

A great series - different from your takes on the British, French, etc., but extremely entertaining, as well as informative! For a small country, with a relatively small army, they are extremely active!

Very interesting. William speaks well.

Bedankt

What a hoot, "The country everybody knows".

I worked for a city and good old Low Bid you really had to make your specifications right or junk you got. I loved his point they bought off State Bid.

what a good video

I like the real take of this channel...

Any chance you could do a follow up on the war in Ukraine, thought's and observations as there's lots of information to consider

I never hear of the Belgian military. TY for this piece

I like this guy

I appreciate alot the honesty of m.Testaert he's not an ass licker for sure he say things like they are I HOPE the country involved listen !

Very,very good and interresting story how it go's in Belgium ,as a Belgian I can say his guy tell the truth .

Excellent Video. From a german tank nerds point of view with a littel envy, because there are a lot of vehicles in that hall that the german tank museum lacks :) Would be nice to have a Chieftain. After all it spend a good deal of its time not far from the Panzermuseum.

22:14…Santaannderrr, eres tierraaa del maaarrr… buen homenaje de nicholas moran a jorge Sepúlveda 👏👍

It gives a very good overview of most Western Europe armament programs since WW2. Getting new tanks can be an issue now, but Rheinmetall finished new production plants in Hungary and Germany is buying some Boxer made in Australia by Rheinmetall. I think some Abrams are better than nothing or get a small number of K2 from Poland (or their Leo2 or Abrams, when the K2 arrives).

Never knew had such a large army

Maybe the new M10 Booker would make a great fit for the Belgium plans

He took a while to warm up, but when he did there was no stopping him (other than naming “the country that everyone knows”).

There is one M46 at Gunfire Brasschaat (not shown in the footage - it's located outside in front of the hangar where the video was shot). Formerly on Gunfire scrap yard. Moved to front of hangar I27 in June 2022. Belgian Army had 10 of these as training tanks to convert crews from M26 to M47. They were briefly slated to be used by the short lived NATO JTTC (Joint Tank Training Center) at Leopoldsburg. The JTTC would be training Belgian, Dutch and Danish tank crews on the M47. The US needed the M47's for their own army due to the Korean War, therefore the Dutch and Danes were supplied with Centurion tanks (bought by the US from the UK under the MDAP). This meant there was no longer a need for a JTTC. This particular M46 at the museum was later used for C.R.A.C Combat Rapproché Anti-Char training.

Have you had a chance to look at the AIFV and the AIFV-25? I really like those vehicles They're the benelux discount Bradleys

Suddenly nobody found the spare parts 😂

Lol, the guy is straight out of unhappy town. The attempt of making a joke was classic.😅

Well, bad times in economy do indeed bring in a lot of new guys enrolling into professional service, BUT at the same time budget cuts may force some already serving and more experienced soldiers to look for better pay in French Foreign Legion, Australia or some PMCs, this to some degree happened here in Latvia in 2008-2009.

Jaeger Cannonen looks like a hetzer. And as we all know, hetzers gonna hetz! ^-^ Please don't kill me, i just wanted to say "hetzers gonna hetz" because i find it hilarious.

4:08 this guy is realy smart and funny whit out trying

I wonder if the design of the M75 influenced the British FV432? Very similar in shape.

More of the little testy caporal plz :)

Well Uncle Sugar has around 3700 M1 tanks in storage depots. I guess we could possibly spare a few for a few gallons of Belgium beer or hard cider. We drive a hard bargain these days.

love the Belgians, they punch well above their weight, especially in the Korean war.

Text at the start of the video says "Testaert William ", but the reverse is said aloud and is in the description. He has a LinkedIn account under both names!

The one good thing out of the story that shouldn't be mentioned is that the country that everyone knows is using decent material. During the second decade of this century the lack of ready available infantry battalions to police the country has already been shown up. Any future for the Belgian Army is once again the regional attachment of large enough units to specific regions or towns, and thus also the maintenance of decent enough overal armament. Perhaps more permament militia based and spreading the tanks around a bit then too

I would be very much interested to hear Monsieur Testaert talk about the challenges the Belgian Armed Forces face that originate in the trilingual nature of Belgium.

As a belgian i'd indeed prefer if we buy european instead of american. We already spend a ton of money on the F-35, which could end up being a massive waste if they decide to elect their annoying orange again

today with LIMA gearing up Belgium could get 50+, but LIMA has around 500 backlog so they could need to wait till 2027 Belgium could get South Korea K2 Main Battle Tank and Plug into Poland system as they are gonna make their own part moving on and PGZ will be making also K9PL variant IF they like 155 with tracks

It's weird listening to these videos. Part of me is proud, another part me rolls my eyes ^^. Thanks for the focus on Belgium. We're a weird country, a political mess but I dare say that we can offer something valuable once in a while even being this dysfunctional and small.

Belgium deserves a light tank line in the tank games, with the Cobra and with belgian versions of these British, german and american tanks (Scorpion, Scimitar, Leopards, M41 bulldog, M47, firefly, etc....)

What kinds of ammo did the Belgian jag panzer use? The Germans pretty much only used HEAT and smoke as far as I know. Would be interesting if the Belgians went about it a bit different.

"we paid for it of course" That's national pride speaking right there. I like it.

Trained and worked with Belgians good lads 😊

How about Polish made Korean K2 tanks? Or Japanese?

Looks like a lot of functional tanks

7:43 bird.

very interesting, you were lucky to get this guy.! about the recruitment problems, the spanish have a nice solution: south americans who join the spanish army,all speaking spanish of course, get a spanish passport after so many years! several years ago i read 30% percent of the spanish soldiers are from south america.

Are you still in Belgium? You're welcome to visit our workshop if you like!

Very good. Who's the company everyone knows? I don't

To describe him as a Corporal Chef in your opener, does him an injustice. The Chef in his title is the belgian for Chief. A corporal is not always a 2 striper. Think. In the british army, A Corporal of horse is a Very Senior Sergeant Major. Guillaume is in regular contact with staff officers all over the world & is a positive force within the WHI.

Leave Belgium alone, we did nothing to you people! :P Enjoyed the vid!

Might need to reach out to Jingles at the Moment 🙁

"We could kick a door at 900m .."

Well Belgium has always been the speed-bump of Europe ❤

I would take a small, well trained, and motivated army over a huge conscripted army any day. Sure, you might get swamped by numbers. But you'll make them pay, and slow them enough to get a conscripted army of your own in place if needed.

It's interesting to me that Canada went into Afghanistan with the idea that we'd get rid of all of our tanks and replace them with wheeled vehicles because why would you need tanks (same thinking as Belgium) but then we deployed some C2 Leopards and discovered, oh hey, tanks are actually really useful maybe we should get more of these and we ended up in a weird hot-potato of lending then trading then buying Leo 2s. Whereas Belgium didn't come to the same conclusion and change their minds, despite operating in the same environment. Interesting how two rational actors in the same environment can come to two different conclusions. There's more than a few parallels between the CAF and Belgium - both small militaries, asked to do a lot by its politicians while being chronically under funded and under manned and also being neighbors to giant arms manufacturers/military powers. Sure Canada has a bit more military manufacturing capability but it's not actually that much (LAV/STRYKER, some Small Arms and supposedly but not really a Naval building capability) neither country is able to meet their own demands domestically outside of small arms meaning they are both required to enter into the murky world of Foreign Military procurements with Governments notorious for not wanting to spend money. The Belgians have probably done a better job integrating into wider defense framework to maximize their capabilities - Canada is still masquerading as an independent full spectrum military power

So what was there job during the Cold War

10:57 "The Americans were very good at doing what we wanted..." Might that be due to the fact the American military has learned MORE by LOSING to our ALLIES than those countries we consider near-peer enemies could ever learn???

What’s wrong with saying Ukraine?

The german army wants to create so called "medium forces" that are all based on wheeled tanks (Boxer as APC,IFV,self propelled Artillery and engineer-vehicles). A MBT-variant like the italian centauro is unfortunately not planned.With the well known speed and efficiency of the german military bureocracy the concept may be outdated before it even started.😂

Aloha; outstanding! Mahalo. Noticed that the Belgian Congo did not come up.