Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; Over to industry, to develop new environmentally friendly sources of energy which can be used on operational deployments.
Army could phase out fossil fuels to attract ecofriendly recruits, senior general says
Dominic Nicholls, defence and security correspondent
13 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 1:33AM…
Speaking at a defence and security event in London, he said: “The Army is leading defence on sustainable energy solutions, both at home and when deployed overseas. We may be at the inflection point of how we power our next generation of vehicles. Our current equipment programme is possibly the last to be dependent on fossil fuel.”
Calling on British industry to lead the way on developing new sources of energy for the military, he added: “The challenge, and genuine commercial opportunity, is to aim high and lead the world in the development of military equipment which is not only battle-winning but also environmentally sustainable.
“That gives the British Army considerable operational benefits, such as reducing our logistical drag, and also puts the Army … on the right side of the environmental argument, especially in the eyes of that next generation of recruits that increasingly make career decisions based on a prospective employer’s environmental credentials.”
…
Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/13/army-could-phase-fossil-fuels-attract-ecofriendly-recruits-senior/
Fine words, but that new source of energy doesn’t exist.
The US Army invested money into “project dilithium“, a plan to deploy small modular 10MW nuclear reactors to the front line, but there is a lot of skepticism. Those reactors would be very high value targets, if an insurgent attack managed to rupture the core and spray core material all over the base, you’d have to immediately evacuate or die horribly, maybe in the middle of a firefight.
In any case, I don’t think British Gen Sir Mark Carleton-Smith who gave the speech had nuclear power in mind, he wants something renewable and eco friendly.
I see ‘rapid deployment’ solar panels and wind mills becoming part of the British arsenal. Unfortunately, neither the physical items nor the ‘virtue signaling’ will shield a single soldier from any enemy threat.
Wonky ‘sustainable’ green methods are incompatible with the unyielding realities of warfare …. if you want to defeat your enemies and live, that is.
The same chuckle-headed genius that brought us charging machine-gun nests in WWI. The Brits never learn.
But some had revolvers and sticks.
Blackadder: “Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of uour trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?”
Captain Darling: How could you possibly know that Balckadder? It’s classified information.
Oh we did …
We invented the Tank, the creeping barrage and all arms tactics and we kicked those nests in the ass in the 100 days that lead to the German collapse in Nov 1918….
Mike….
You can thank an Australian for combined-arms tactics. John Monash. First used in any scale at the Battle of Hamel….. and when subsequently adopted by the Allies, resulting in the breaking of the German defences in August 1918.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hamel
Not that our military commanders are any better than yours, these days. They are rejecting qualifying male recruits because they don’t meet diversity targets.
Sorry PeterW, but that claim is unfortunately bollocks.
Monash was an engineer. What he brought to the battlefield was a project manager like view of organisation. Rather than just assuming that the various arms were going to work together, he made SURE they were going to work together.
He developed very little that wasn’t already in place. The artillery planning was largely done by a British officer – who’s name stubbornly refuses to submit to either memory or searches at the moment – using methods that had already been developed and established. The battle itself was basically Bite and Hold, which was pretty much the accepted tactic by this stage of the war as from painful experience it was nearly impossible to achieve breakthrough in an offensive.
(By this stage of the war the ‘front’ was about 9 miles deep. The trenches closest to the enemy were usually relatively lightly manned, because if you put too many troops that close to the enemy they only ended up being slow shelled and gassed to pieces. Normally there were three dedicated lines of defences. To reach the green fields beyond you first had to get through the mud and blood of these defenses and to suppress the enemy you needed to use literally hundreds of guns at a time, not only to shell the trenches you were trying to capture, but also the enemy guns to suppress them during the battle, the flanks, and the expected path of advance for any counter attack. Artillery was a science. It was also range dependent and if you tried to advance faster than your guns could redeploy you got mauled.)
Bite and Hold was the idea that you picked a spot, attacked with overwhelming force, captured it and then stopped advancing. The Germans would either then be forced to counter attack (which was factored into the plan of the attack by ensuring there were enough guns to counter this) or yield ground. Both were good results from the allied point of view as by this stage of the war allied forces were regularly taking less casualties attacking relative to what they were inflicting. (Still taking casualties. The fact you were talking ‘less’ was no doubt wonderful news to the soldiers that actually were those casualties…) Part of the reason the Germans were forced into the Kaiserschlacht offensives was they could not afford to be slowly ground down defending against constant Bite and Hold attacks. (WW1 was very pragmatically brutal. The idea that ‘they’ would run out of troops first was actually completely valid. Brutal, but valid.)
In real terms Hamel was not a big battle (division sized attack) and developed no new revolutionary tactics. What it DID do was, via Monash’s ‘project management’ skill, do everything VERY well.
Also remember that Hamel was 4 July 1918 (date selected deliberately because US troops were included in the planning) and Amiens was launched just over a month later on 8 August.
To claim that a divisional sized attack with limited (realistic – remember, Bite and Hold) objectives was studied, conclusions drawn, conclusions documented, agreed on, distributed, procedures changed and practiced and battle plans modified in 35 days for an offensive 20 times larger than Hamel is… bold…
Monash is – justifiably – very well regarded in Australia with great chunks of the country named after him. Bean (Australian official historian) respected him (and why wouldn’t he? Monash did his job extremely well) and AJP Taylor described him as “the only general of creative originality produced by the First World War.” Jolly good stuff but it also needs to be remembered that Taylor was openly a socialist who spent most of the 30s arguing against British rearmament in case a strong military Britain started picking on the Soviet Union. By promoting Monash he was also by extension smearing the largely conservative British military establishment because they were not marxist enough for him. Being endorsed by Taylor for being better than all the establishment British is like having Greta endorsed by CNN for being Greener than everyone else. Yes it’s an endorsement, but yeah, we expected them to say that.
Monash was good. He wasn’t a god. To claim otherwise fails to understand the topic.
Mike….
You can thank an Australian for combined-arms tactics. John Monash. First used in any scale at the Battle of Hamel….. and when subsequently adopted by the Allies, resulting in the breaking of the German defences in August 1918.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hamel
Not that our military commanders are any better than yours, these days. They are rejecting qualifying male recruits because they don’t meet diversity targets. They spend more time in sensitivity training than on the range.
Every major war has found us under-prepared and we have suffered the consequences. I have far more sympathy for those commanders trying to deal with new modes of warfare and enemy tactics (nobody had an obvious solution to trench warfare ) than those who put their political careers before the lives of soldiers and the security of the nation they are sworn to serve.
Nuts! Totally effing nuts!
Next up will be a fully automatic unicorn fart-firing machine gun which will ‘happy’ the enemy to death. “Tag! You’re it”! What’s next, two-handed touch** warfare?
A country’s armed forces job is to break things and kill the enemy. If the best means of accomplishing that happens to be rolling up a few tankers of oil, flooding the enemy’s position and tossing a Zippo lighter, then that’s what needs to be done.
Bringing ‘green’ into the equation is just nucking futs.
** As kids, we’d play American football in the street with no tackling, so you ‘tackled’ someone by touching them with two hands below the waist and they were ‘down’ at that spot.
By all definitions we are at war. With an enemy:
-Disrespectful of human life to the point of claiming that only 1 billion should populate earth
-With deep penetration in worldwide financial / business
-Running a well organized internal relational communication system
-Able to buy government protection at the highest level
-Untouchable by what it enforces as politically incorrect criticism
-Manages / owns media, worldwide
-Has a deep penetration in scientific circles with enough relational power to control results
-Has first hand Marxism/socialism theoretical & practical knowledge up to the point of weaponizing it against prosperity
-Possesses structures able to provide underground financing/support/payola when and where needed
-That cultivates a strong sense of self-superiority
-Would benefit from the total annihilation of oil extraction and trade and the ensuing reversal of wealth flow patterns
-Has the mindset and ability to monetize generalized poverty
Inefficient armies and disarmed, weapon free masses is just par of the master plan.
It’s just that much easier to abuse someone unable to defend himself.
My post from the army rumour service :
“Looking through some of the advertised material… Electric power offers obvious benefits in military vehicle design
e.g
Max torque at zero revs
Fully independent each wheel drive allowing significant maneuverability gains
Vastly reduced noise
Potentially much lower silhouettes
Potentially better service life and availability
There are still some basic problems
The net Energy density of Batteries is about 1/20th of Gasoline/diesel
Fuel Cells are a crap idea ( Why hydrogen fuel cell cars can’t compete with electric cars )
Recharge times are currently significantly longer than refuel times.
Faster recharge creates issues with accelerated internal resistance increases and heat dissipation
These issues realistically require fundamental breakthroughs in both physical theory and engineering application to solve. At a guesstimate we are a minimum of 20 years away.. It’s simply too soon for the military to be placing any strategic focus on obtaining electric vehicles
One thing he said I found problematic….
“a move toward clean energy would be beneficial logistically ”
If he actually thinks supporting electric vehicles and providing infrastructure in the field is easier than tanking petrol and Diesel then he’s a cretin.”
I’d say imbecile – but we are talking about the same thing
Let him test-fly an electrically powered military grade aircraft equivalent to modern jets ? Report filed, clean-up done, case closed.
Rupert the Bear and friends frolicking in Nutwood??
Sign me up now!
“These issues realistically require fundamental breakthroughs in both physical theory and engineering application to solve. ”
Worse than that. If you are thinking of batteries they require changing basic natural law. There simply isn’t any element with enough valence electrons vs. weight to approach the energy density of gasoline.
OK, there may be some completely new way to store or produce electricity, but you are right, it will require some fundamental breakthrough in physics first.
Well, there used to be a lot of vehicles that were powered by “woodgas”, which was obtained from wood by heating the wood just enough to release the gas which is then funneled into the intake of an internal combustion engine.
So, I guess British General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith could rig up one of his battletanks to pull a long trailer which would be filled with wood and the woodgas generator and see how that all worked out in field exercises. One good thing about this method is you should probably have plenty of fuel available. As much as you can chop and split.
No chopping or splitting required by the British troops. Just bring wood chips or pellets from North America as they do to fire the Drax power plant.
“charging machine-gun nests in WWI” .. with bag pipers leading the way.
I love the Pipes!
Nothing but crap, more virtue signaling from someone that doesn’t’ understand what they are talking about.
The problem is many believe this wishful thinking is possible in the near future because it’s coming from people with “authority” yet those people don’t have a clue what they are talking about.
Compost is eco friendly…
Good luck recruits!
Battle strategy now will also include calculating carbon credits.
Well no… if an actual war breaks out peace time greasy poll climbers will be replaced by result deliverer’s hopefully with a tolerable casualty level in between….
Two goldfish are in a tank and one says to the other,”Do you know how to drive this thing?”
Tanks for that.
While the UK and Europe wrestle with such important issues as eco-friendly weapons of war, the US should be busy getting out of NATO so that UK/EU can defend themselves in an appropriate green manner.
Grow up… the US has been rife with military leaders pandering to virtue signalling..
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12897/national-security-implications-of-climate-change-for-us-naval-forces
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/october/war-plan-orange-climate-change
https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/implications-of-climate-change-for-us-army_army-war-college_2019.pdf
http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2019/April%202019/DOD-USAF-Bases-Most-At-Risk-From-Climate-Change-Threats.aspx
Actually, NATO is necessary to U.S. national security. We don’t want to pull out of NATO, we want to improve and streamline NATO.
The EU’s plan for a separate army is a direct threat to NATO. I think its formation is an effort by some in NATO like France and Germany, to separate themselves from the United States. Europe’s enemies, like Russia, will see this as an opening for them to weaken the NATO defenses arrayed against them.
The U.S. will survive with or without NATO. I can’t say the same thing for Europe.
“The U.S. will survive with or without NATO.”
Then it’s not necessary, is it?
NATO is about the US government taking money from poor Americans and spending it on defending Europe and Canada so Europeans and Canadians can spend less on their military and more on their welfare state.
It’s literally a transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to foreign welfare recipients. It’s harmful to Americans and to those countries which have become reliant on US money.
“I don’t think British Gen Sir Mark Carleton-Smith who gave the speech had nuclear power in mind, he wants something renewable and eco friendly.”
To be fair he probably had in mind defending his budget at the next Treasury meeting against Pol’s and civil servants who wouldn’t recognise national interest if it bit them in the ass…
This UK release is just another reason why I think that April 1st is now bobbing up regularly throughout the year these days.
Well the Canadian army is transitioning to LED lighting in armored vehicles. Maybe that would help …
To be fair, LEDs have actual advantages: (1) they are far more durable and longer-lasting than any other lighting technology, (2) draw significantly less energy, (3) are more compact, and (4) are brighter. It is a technology that makes sense because of its utility, with the added side effect of shutting up the eco-communists.
And full of mercury….
LEDs do NOT contain mercury. That is one of the big advantages over the twisty flourescents.
I Thi k “longer lasting” is the biggest advantage for the military. I always joke about the intention is to reduce the carbon footprint.
And missile guidance systems are being designed to home in on the particular wavelength of light emitted by LED’s. ??
No more than any other lighting system.
Horses!
And when they are shot by the enemy, you can eat them!
Plus, of course, we need carbon-free explosives for all those guns and shells and land mines and bombs. What else? Lead-free bullets?. Iron-free steel (get rid of emissions from all those blast furnaces)? Submarines powered by
solarwind? Sustainable (i.e. without uranium) nuclear weapons? Wind-powered fighter aircraft?Battles will be won by making the enemy troops feel such guilt and self-loathing about their carbon footprint that they will
retreatsurrendercommit mass suicide.“Lead-free bullets?”
The EU is talking about banning lead bullets. I don’t know whether that applies to the military too, but if the civilian market goes lead-free they may have trouble finding someone making enough lead bullets for the army.
Some small tactical drones are powered by batteries or fuel cells. Armored vehicles, not so much.
Yes. War needs to be sustainable. LOL. We have fallen so much since George Patton.
Obviously Gen Sir Mark Carleton-Smith has been promoted due to expertise at strategic but senseless virtue signalling.
Totally delusional. Any such practical energy solution is so far away that the current batch of eco-warriors will be far beyond recruitment age.
Any of the ecofriendly snowflakes to whom Sir Mark is referring would be totally useless in the field so his afforts are totally useless.
However, it may win him some friends at the next home county garden party where he can snog on cucumber sandwiches with the rest of the cultural elite.
I just hope that they provide enough toilet options so that he can seek relief with confidence.
I like the idea of hand cranked tanks, like the old Model T cars.
Or perhaps giant hamster wheels attached to the side of the tanks, with those “eco friendly” recruits running to make the tank go. The scareder the recruit, the faster the tank runs.
I think the Brit armed forces have entered Monty Python territory…….
Imagine the charge time on a electric tank lol The 2/3 miles per charge it would give verses the weight of the batteries and charge time is utter madness. This “carbon” is killing the planet talk has gone to far now, its scaring people and gives nothing but anxiety to those who do not know the truth (that its a scam)… Finally, I don’t think the uk can afford to convert all tanks, jeeps, planes, helicopters, cars, motor bikes, quad bikes, and other vehicles to electric power, as Afghanistan, Somali etc etc doesn’t have tesla fast chargers LOL
I look forward to the establishment of a new “Green Beret” UK army unit; 1 st ERAR (Extinction Rebellion Armoured Regiment). They will volunteer in droves, glue themselves to the tank interior, after mounting a solar panel on the turret top and filling the fuel tank with algae soup. And if any Greenpeace foot soldier objects to such trivial matters as carbon-assisted production of Chobham armour or steel tracks, they will recycled on the spot, if the crew can get the wind turbine going.
“I look forward to the establishment of a new “Green Beret” UK army unit; 1 st ERAR (Extinction Rebellion Armoured Regiment).”
Lol ! Stop it! Stop it! “Green Beret” is a good one! 🙂
“That gives the British Army considerable operational benefits, such as reducing our logistical drag..’
Which is exactly what the US armed forces have been doing now for a decade: reducing logistical drag by replacing diesel generation with solar units and by installing solar power at fixed bases.
The UK armed forces are in fact following the US military here: finally an area in which the US is actually still setting the technological pace.
https://solarfeeds.com/us-marines-embracing-solar/
Couple of well placed smoke grenades and the base has no power. Brilliant.
yeah plus PV has to be out n exposed
whereas fuel bunkers can be well buried and safe, and hidden
and pv would be useless in a pommy winter with or without snow/ice as well
I note that the article you reference mentions 2 installations both in either permanent locations and expressly does not:
do any cost comparisons between the technology used and alternatives
mention capital expenditure or return on investment
quantify the installation and maintenance effort required
quantify the logistics effort required to move the FOB installation and compare that to the effort required for alternative systems
explain whether the FOB installation is inside or outside the defensible perimeter of the base or whether that perimeter needed to be expanded to accommodate it. i.e whether it increases risk and manning requirements.
whethet the FOB installation has fossil fuel back up for dark windless nights or when the enemy bombs it
Or in short fails to support in any way the things you said in your post.
“in short fails to support in any way the things you said in your post.”
In other words the archetypal Griff post.
Nuclear powered tanks! Awesome, doubly awesome!
Yes. I have often wondered why we have yet been able to scale down nuclear power to produce small sealed units suitable for transport vehicles, home energy etc.
I expect there are very many reasons, including having to get rid of the GreenBlob.
You do realize that in war, tanks get blown into itty bitty pieces ? Do really want radioactive itty bitty pieces ?
Well – you know that in a whole raft of institutes in the UK a ship may no longer be refereed to as “she” ?
Not sure what the navy’s stance on it is though
I’v got about 10 years left on this earth I recon. You are welcome to it. Every day I see so much BS. I lived in good times.
M
“I’v got about 10 years left on this earth I recon. You are welcome to it.”
I wish I had a hundred more lifetimes … to achieve what I’d like to achieve.
For a start, I’d love to be alive in 100 years time to say “I told you so” about global warming. I’d like to see the beginning of the next ice-age … not because the cooling will be fun … but it is one of the biggest questions in climate and we still don’t know what drives the ice-age cycle. I’d like to have the time to unpack & sort out those boxes still in the loft from when we moved here several decades ago.
So, I’d be very happy if you and perhaps a 100 other people with a spare ten years could donate them to me.