Germany will send another 15 Marder infantry fighting vehicles to northern Afghanistan, where Germany has nearly 5,000 troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. In addition, the Bundeswehr troops will receive Panzerschnellbruecke 2 vehicle-launched bridges and Dachs engineer tanks, German Defense Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg said this month.

"We are not engineering a general arms buildup, but we are reacting to the necessities on the ground," he told German news magazine Focus.

The plans will be costly, putting pressure on an already overstretched German federal budget.

Guttenberg said he was willing to look at long-term spending programs but urged his government not to cut back on short-term arms expenditures.

"We have to spend the necessary amount to protect our troops on mission," he told the magazine.

In mid-April, Guttenberg had already dispatched to Afghanistan two models of the Panzerhaubitze 2000, a world-leading self-propelled artillery weapon developed by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall. Dutch forces had used the howitzers with a target range of up to 37 miles for years, while the Germans until last month were doing without them.

The German troops also received TOW anti-tank guided missiles and additional Marder infantry fighting vehicles.

The boost of firepower was a major policy reversal for Berlin, which had shied from deploying heavy attack equipment into Afghanistan out of fear it would point to a war-like mission -- highly unpopular in largely pacifist Germany.

Yet in the face of several large-scale battles with Taliban forces in April that killed seven German troops, it was clear that the Bundeswehr needed greater firepower in Afghanistan.

German officials called for transport planes, helicopters, mortar and heavy armored vehicles to be deployed to Afghanistan.

Some experts have even called for the Leopard 2 tank, produced by Germany's Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, a 60-ton war machine already used by Canadian and Dutch troops.

Repeating their April statements, Bundeswehr officials this month ruled out deploying Leopard 2 tanks, Defensenews.com reports.

Germany is Europe's largest weapons exporter. Its domestic industry is building world-class armored vehicles, artillery and submarines.

It is involved in several large multinational defense projects, such as the Eurofighter jet, the Airbus A400M military transporter and the multipurpose NH90 helicopter developed and built by Eurocopter daughter NHIndustries.

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