The fuel use and the fuel inefficiency of the U.S. Armed Services is a story we seldom see.

*Sigh* Why does that two-star Marine general hate America?

No, not fuel-efficient vehicles--fuel-efficient TENTS.

Correct, Steven. It's not about the vehicles; it's about the generators and batteries.

Would not surpise me if the DARPA geeks wern't. Of course weapon and/or information systmes seem much more popular.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001760.html
http://www.darpa.mil/DARPATech2000/Presentations/dso_pdf/4NowakAdvancedEnergyB&W.pdf

"This is a very teachable moment for the military."

Alas, the military isn't operated by the Department of Education. It's doubtful they will be teaching anyone about the stupidity of having such a ridiculous logistical train to support a mission fundamentally aimed at preserving its own viability.

Kevin: "The Apollo program gave us Tang ..."

Wny cite one of the creative low points?

That orange-colored, freeze-dried chemical concoction masquerading as a "breakfast drink" was -- as I distinctly remember my then-five-year-old brother telling my mother back in the day -- "nasty".

Um, maybe taking advantage of another abundant desert resource...like THE SUN?

The Apollo program gave us Tang, so why can't the Iraq war give us fuel-efficient vehicles? It would be nice to get some benefit out of it, after all. —Kevin Drum

I don't think armor and fuel efficiency work together. Besides, the article said that nearly all the portably generated electricity was used for air conditioning. I think, given the choice, that troops would choose up-armored Humvees and such over air conditioned tents.

Um, anyone consider SOLAR power?

actually, from wikipedia: Tang is a sugared, fruit-flavored, non-carbonated soft drink from the USA. The original orange flavored Tang was formulated by General Foods Corporation in 1957 and first marketed (in powdered form) in 1959. [1]

It was initially intended as a breakfast drink, but sales were poor until NASA began using it on Gemini flights in 1965, and that use was heavily advertised.[2] Since that time, it has been associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program. [3] [4]

In defense of TANG... In my backpacking days, a warm Tang drink first thing in the morning was delightful. Hard to believe, but true.

For those of you that don't live in the Washington area -- the Pentagon is actually a major user of solar power right here in Arlington. They have a field of solar collectors right along the freeway. (They also have their own government supported day care center, but that's another story.)

It's doubtful they will be teaching anyone about the stupidity of having such a ridiculous logistical train to support a mission fundamentally aimed at preserving its own viability.

Yeah. This reminds me of this story from a while back: "A British-built robot generates its own power by gobbling flies..."

Researchers were working on an upgraded version of the device which would attract energy-bearing flies using the effluvia from its energy conversion as bait.

The real question is:

How many billions of dollars per month are the insurgents borrowing from China, in order to pay to buy gasoline to power generators to cool their tents, because earth's climate is getting hotter, because we're putting too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning gasoline to power generators to cool tents?

And when are the Chinese going to run out of money to stop loaning out?

And when are the arabs going to run out of oil to convert into gasoline for these air-conditioning and invasion activities?

Well shee-oot! If we had fuel efficient military, what would the purpose of being in Iraq be?!

All branches of the armed forces take energy use very seriously and are spending and have spent lots and lots of real dollars for research in this area.

It's a little simplistic to think that all applications could be solved by simply adding a solar panel.

You're right Optical Weenie. Some applications may require TWO solar panels to solve.

Um, Kevin, sad little naive Kevin. What the fuck are we in Iraq for if not to overpay tax dollars to exactly the profiteering contractors and suppliers who have been sucking up all the money so far?

How the fuck do you think these people are going to stand aside when war money goes to R&D instead of more dirty water and outdated food and bad equipment for the armed forces?

God. Ask another one.

For those of you that don't live in the Washington area -- the Pentagon is actually a major user of solar power right here in Arlington. They have a field of solar collectors right along the freeway. (They also have their own government supported day care center, but that's another story.)

They also have their own socialized medical system;>

One of my brothers-in-law and I were talking about this after he got out in May. A *lot* the troops are living in connex boxes, and part of Joseph's great idea was to shade the stupid things. The boxes are mostly painted dark colors, and they're sitting on tarmac or whatever soaking up sunlight for N hours per day. A little passive cooling would do wonders to cut down the cost of cooling them to make them habitable.

Oh, yeah- it's a traditional problem for the military- get cut off from your supply lines and you're dead.

That's what happened to Napoleon when he went up against the Russians, and he was nigh-invincible with the French army behind him. He got stretched too far from his supply lines, the Russians destroyed or moved anything that could end up in his reach to pillage, and his men and his material deterioarated. Much the same thing happened to the Nazis vs. the Soviet Union, in fact.

That orange-colored, freeze-dried chemical concoction masquerading as a "breakfast drink" was -- as I distinctly remember my then-five-year-old brother telling my mother back in the day -- "nasty".

WHAT are you talking about-- Tang tastes great, still sells AND it's fortified. I've got a package right in my kitchen.

* * *

The tents and the vehicles are problems. I think they're being given as examples of a larger problem. For anyone who's missing the obvious here, tents don't seem like they'd hold air-conditioning too well in the desert. My oven sometimes wins the war v. my central air conditioning in the summer, and hey, I have a house!

So the military are pissing away fuel to cool these tents, which maybe should be some different type of structure. Meanwhile this guy is distressed because he can't do the ops he wants to do or the way he wants to do them, because he has to depend on fuel so closely- the fuel they're using on tents to keep these GIs comfortable, whereas in ancient warfare, warriors didn't need no steenking air conditioning.

It's really a remarkable war.

About a third of our army's wartime fuel use is for generator sets, and nearly all of that electricity is used to air-condition tents in the desert,

"Close that damn flap! What are you trying to do, air-condition the whole Middle East?"

Robert: "In defense of TANG... In my backpacking days, a warm Tang drink first thing in the morning was delightful. Hard to believe, but true."

Anything tastes good when you are backpacking. Even freeze-dried meals.

I know it's a stupid thing to ask, but I keep wondering -- what if we'd taken the trillion or so that we're gonna piss into the Tigris, and put it into, say, hydrogen pipeline and storage infrastructure? Or pebble bed nuclear reactors? Or offshore wind farms? Or all three?

Naw, that'd be dumb. That's like my idea to give every poor dumb Iraqi sod a bundle of 500 crisp new hundred dollar bills, cuz it'd be just about as much money as we're gonna spend anyway. 'Scuse me for bringing it up.

Iraq's in the middle of a freaking desert. Why are the Army and Marine Corps setting up a bunch of solar panels?

The first Gulf War gave us the civilian Hummer. It would be too karmic if the second gave us the Electric Jeep.

"They also have their own socialized medical system;>"

They also get 30 days of vacation each year!

I heard somewhere that most of the cost of war is fuel.

Luther: I heard somewhere that most of the cost of war is fuel.

I've also read that 20% of the electricity used by US businesses and 3% of total electricity used nationwide goes to power computers. I wonder how much computer electricity the armed forces uses worldwide.

Iraq for Sale: War Profiteers, by Robert Greenwald, 2006 is worth viewing. It is on Starz as I speak.
Inefficiency in Iraq is likely related to private companies milking the system.
Do you think it is a coincidence that the Bush court ruled against protection for whistle blowers now that so much evil is coming out about Halliburton? $99 for a bag of laundry, which soldiers were not allowed to do themselves, but had to have the Halliburton subsidiary complete the task.
Watch this program.

Time to address the Halliburtons

I know it's a stupid thing to ask, but I keep wondering -- what if we'd taken the trillion or so that we're gonna piss into the Tigris, and put it into, say, hydrogen pipeline and storage infrastructure? Or pebble bed nuclear reactors? Or offshore wind farms? Or all three? Posted by: sglover

That just about sums it up.

Not sure of the accuracy of the figure, but I recall reading that the US military was consuming 1/3 of the world's petroleum output at the height of the Vietnam War.

War is a hideous and expensive business.

Robert Novak is reporting that the Bush Administration is planning a new front in the Iraq War. Novak says that a Senate briefing by neocon Eric Edelman of the Pentagon revealed that the U.S. and Turkey will join in an effort to root out and destroy Kurd guerillas in Northern Iraq that Turkey opposes.

Novak says any number of senators at the briefing were taken aback and questioned Edelman closely but apparently to little avail.

So now the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq and suffering daily casualties, Dick Cheney is supporting a bombing campaign by Israel backed the the U.S. against Iran, AND the U.S. is about to undertake a military effort against the Kurds.

Edelman counseld not to worry because no one would find out about the U.S. involvement with Turkey against Kurds.

And Novak says President Bush remains oblivious to the growing difficulties in both Iraq and Afghanistan and even upbeat.

[By the by, one wonders who is in charge at the Pentagon -- Gates or Edelman? Or no one?]

We recently had a two-star Marine general commanding in western Iraq begging for efficiency and renewables to untether him from fuel convoys, so he could carry out his more important missions. This is a very teachable moment for the military.

Let me just concretize this a little:

You keep your main base somewhere relatively safe, so you can keep a lot of stuff and people there w/o too much risk of them all being blown up. So by definition, that place is a bit off from where the action is. So you need fuel to get out to do your ops. And then what about when you get there? If you're going to be successful, the unexpected might have to happen, as is often the case in life or in war, and of course you don't want to lose because of something like running out of fuel. Will you have enough fuel to run in circles around the enemy in a Mogadishu-like encounter, in city combat? Or if you end up, tactically, having to flee out of the hot zone in the opposite direction from which you came, will you have enough fuel to double back past the bad guys and make it back home? Or if you don't pack enough fuel, will you somehow, by one of these contingencies, end up stalled out near to the hot zone and ripe for ambush? This is a real problem.

Re Armoured Fighting Vehicles and fuel

The problem has been noted and the military is experimenting with, eg, hybrid diesel-electric vehicles to reduce fuel consumption.

Remembering that many of the vehicles in the US Army (the M113s) are well over 30 years old, this can give you a feel for how long this problem will take to address.

Also the increased heaviness of 'light' systems like the Stryker, which hade significantly added weight to improve IED/ shaped charge protection.

As an ironic historical note, when Donald Rumsfeld was SecDEF under Gerald Ford, he made a point of choosing the Chrysler design for the M1 tank.

The Chrysler design uses a gas turbine engine. The first, and so far only, AFV in the world to use a gas turbine.

The M1 Abrams tank gets a fuel economy of *2 gallons per mile*. Since it was designed for fighting on the plains of Germany, it was presumed it would never be far from resupply. This is less than half the fuel economy which the rival tanks (British Challenger, German Leopard II, Israeli Merkava) get, because they use diesel engines.

Both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom succeeded because of the skill of US logistics operations in getting fuel to the fleets of fuel hungry M1s and M2 Bradley AFVs.

But those fuel tankers are unprotected: they are too big to armour. So driving them is effectively a death trap if there are active guerillas around.

Another little legacy from Donald Rumsfeld to the US Army.

"The Apollo program gave us Tang"

That's why we went to the moon!

its the bushies
Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Pentagon as Global Gas-Guzzler 6/14/07

Michael Klare, expert on war and energy, and author of the indispensable book, Blood and Oil, gives us an unprecedented sense of what it means when the Pentagon fills its own tank (as well as its tanks). It is, after all, the Hummer of Defense Departments, the planet's gas-guzzler par excellence.

"On the other hand, in the occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration turns out to be unable to find a local gas station still in operation. As you all undoubtedly remember, before its invasion in March 2003, the administration was quite convinced that Iraqi oil would quickly pay for any future occupation, reconstruction, and -- though this was never said -- permanent American presence. Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz classically pointed out back in 2003 that Iraq "floats on a sea of oil" and told a Congressional panel, "The oil revenue of [Iraq] could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. We're dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

Over four years later, however, Iraq, under threat of an oil workers' strike, seems to be pumping only 1.6 million barrels of oil a day -- almost a million barrels below the worst days of the sanctions-strapped regime of Saddam Hussein. In addition, an oil law, essentially prepared in Washington and aimed at opening Iraqi oil to multinational (read: American) oil companies, that has been declared by Washington's Democrats and Republicans as the crucial "benchmark" of Iraqi progress, seems dead in the water -- or is it a pool of oil?

Given the "daily petroleum tab" in the Middle Eastern war zone that Klare cites for the Pentagon, you could, in a sense, say that the Bush administration is "running on empty" and that the Bush Doctrine, as Klare makes clear, gives the term "oil wars" new meaning..."

I heard somewhere that most of the cost of war is fuel.

Hunh, I thought it was blood.

Uh, you just said that we need a more efficient, Prius-like way to transport fossil fuels to the front lines so we can blow cool air (air conditioning) under canopies so our troops will be comfortable. Huh? Like, spend a lot of money and lives to blow cool air into maybe a tent? Why not send each troop a five-pound, insulated box of a combo of ice and dry ice daily? By Blackwater's version of UPS.

Uh, you just said that we need a more efficient, Prius-like way to transport fossil fuels to the front lines so we can blow cool air (air conditioning) under canopies so our troops will be comfortable. Huh? Like, spend a lot of money and lives to blow cool air into maybe a tent? Why not send each troop a five-pound, insulated box of a combo of ice and dry ice daily? By Blackwater's version of UPS.

Ulysses S. Grant, father of modern warfare logistics. He used solar powered mules.

Since we don't have many open threads, I thought I'd slip in this scary, very occasional OT link about vote hacking by a good tech blogger:

Link

Speaking as someone who works in the logistics business, most commentators on this thread so far are all correct - and really quite fucking stupid as well.

In a nut shell:
No logistics - No Army, No Air Force, No Navy.

The idea of using solar panels to power bases in the desert is a good one. But how do they get there? Oh yeah, logistics.

The tents the soldiers are using are not really that good for air con units, you need more rigid dwellings with properly sealable doors. Painting them white would be good as this would reflect far more heat than the dark colours they currently have. But again, unless these grow naturally in the desert you'll need to ship them in again. Logistics perchance?

The Vital Mission this two star general needs to carry out will require troops, vehicles, fuel and ammunition. All of these will be magically beamed into wherever they are needed just like in Star Treck right? No? Well then another heavy logistics tail will be necessary.

The solar panels that most people are suggesting here are a great idea in a desert, until you get a major sand-storm and them unless you've been able to cover them properly the surface will be so etched that the effectiveness of the system will decline. Then they'll need replacing, how? (A little hint the word begins with L.)

One of the things you notice when you live outside America is just how completely stupid the US is when it comes to the Logistics word. Unfortunately, fellow liberals seems to be just as brain-dead on this issue as neo-cons.

Logistics is NOT the issue here, procurement is.

The Chiefs of Staff are responsible for ensuring their armed forces can fight in any environment at any time. That means they must ensure that the equipment that is used by those forces is relevant, sufficient and suitable for the use it is required for.

They have failed to do this. You cannot use tents with air con effectively - just NOT possible, the bulk of the energy will be wasted and the air con units will wear out faster because they work twice as hard to achieve half the desired effect.

Should have gone with portakabins or some such building which can be resprayed using ARTF prior to the mission to make they more suitable for the environment they are to be shipped to.

"They also have their own socialized medical system."
____________________

No, it's not socialized. It's paid for by taxpayers, most of whom aren't in the military.

It's justified as a readiness requirement, not as a right.

It's a good deal for military personnel, though.

trashhauler: No, it's not socialized. It's paid for by taxpayers

No further comment required.

"The first Gulf War gave us the civilian Hummer. It would be too karmic if the second gave us the Electric Jeep."
________________________

Not a whole lot of torque out of an electric motor run. Hard to imagine such a vehicle hauling much in the way of people, weapons, and ammo - let alone armor.

Alex wrote:

"'trashhauler: No, it's not socialized. It's paid for by taxpayers'

No further comment required."
_______________________

Only if logic isn't needed. The equivalent of military medical funding for the rest of the US population would be if you got Europe to pay for most of it.

Amory Lovins shouldn't get his hopes up. The Army is just as likely to turn around and commission a small, portable nuclear reactor to power their air conditioners. Micropower!!!

More broadly on Lovins, his schtick about "hypercars" ignores the fact that none of them will ever pass contemporary crash tests.

trashhauler: Not a whole lot of torque out of an electric motor

Better tell that to the folks that make diesel-electric locomotives.

"You cannot use tents with air con effectively - just NOT possible, the bulk of the energy will be wasted and the air con units will wear out faster because they work twice as hard to achieve half the desired effect."
____________________________

The military isn't trying to air condition standard tents. There are many types of personnel shelters in Iraq, most of which are much better sealed than the old canvass tent. Many are self-contained modules, first supplied by KBR in Bosnia. Almost none are insulated so well that they can match the efficiency of a modern house, but they beat the snot out of trying to air condition a tent.

trashhauler: Only if logic isn't needed.

Hmmm. Let's see, in English (as opposed to ideologuespeak) socialism is where the government owns the means of production of a good or service, and employs the people that do the work. Therefore, any good or service provided by the government is an example of socialism, regardless of how widely distributed that good or service is, or whether the government is the exclusive provider.

Similarly, we have socialized production of artillery barrels at the Springfield Armory. In fact the entire military is socialized!

Once upon a time though the government depended on private armies. Of course they had a nasty habit of looting and pillaging, and not just on the enemy's turf. But hey, what's a little inconvenience like that when you can have ideological purity.

Oops, I forgot. Thanks to our fearless leader and his trusty lieutenants those days are coming back! Another giant leap back to centuries past, when peasants knew their place, there were no elections to rig, everybody smelled like shit, and a little looting and pillaging was just free enterprise.

Breaking: Justice Roberts has seizure ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6923426.stm

Now holdonaminnit here: is this guy telling us that Al Quaeda can stand the heat but our brave Defenders of All That Is Good(tm) can't?

Does the phrase "stay out of the kitchen" maybe apply?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's why I use this nickname.

Has NOBODY ever seen "Apocalypse Now" and the scene where Kurtz says the Americans will lose the war in Vietnam because they require cold beer and barbecued beefsteak, while the VC could survive on a bowl of rice a day?

alex at 10:27: "Hmmm. Let's see, in English (as opposed to ideologuespeak) socialism is where the government owns the means of production of a good or service, and employs the people that do the work. Therefore, any good or service provided by the government is an example of socialism, regardless of how widely distributed that good or service is, or whether the government is the exclusive provider."

Well, but you can see where he's coming from: if everyone gives the feds money to pay for medical care for the military, and then only the military gets to use that money, then it's not really socialism in the happy Canada-healthcare sense. The people who are paying for it aren't the ones who are benefiting from it (directly, at least; obviously a physically healthy military has nationwide benefits) unlike with roads or schools or whatever. A lot of people would say, with some legitimacy, that it would only be what's widely considered socialism if the money were provided solely by service members' taxes.

The only logistics that matter:

Send our boys home!

"Let's see, in English (as opposed to ideologuespeak) socialism is where the government owns the means of production of a good or service, and employs the people that do the work. Therefore, any good or service provided by the government is an example of socialism, regardless of how widely distributed that good or service is, or whether the government is the exclusive provider."
________________________

Alex, using that same argument, then the Kings of Europe employed socialism in any function in which a service was provided by the government. No socialist would argue such.

"A lot of people would say, with some legitimacy, that it would only be what's widely considered socialism if the money were provided solely by service members' taxes."
______________________

Yes, that was my point, fumphis, thanks.

Further, though without looking up the numbers, I suspect that the "free" healthcare provided to Service members and their families costs quite a bit more on a per capita basis than would be envisioned if the entire country were to switch to socialized medicine. In military medicine, relatively little expense is spared at all. There are attempts to economize, but mostly on infrastructure - if we close down a military hospital, the patients are referred to the civilian medical services downtown at no cost to them.

We gotta be comfortable to get the killing and destroying done.

Maybe some sort of potato battery powered with tears.

The whole military is just full of stupid people. The whole culture of the thing isn't geared towards producing a really efficient, waste-eliminating operation with reliable and sturdy weapons only. We do nothing, basically, to encourage any professional and talented people to get into the military. Apparently we have a bunch of demented morons running a lot of things and what West Point basically produces more than else is stress.

"Speaking as someone who works in the logistics business, most commentators on this thread so far are all correct - and really quite fucking stupid as well."

Thank you for your informed opinion. Seriously.

Personally, the point I was trying to make is that we have deployed a ridiculously long and heavyweight logistical tail mainly in support of a military mission aimed fundamentally at retaining the capability to deploy such ridiculously long and heavyweight logistical tails.

The dragon has sharp teeth, but it eats a lot of cows— and what do we get in exchange for feeding all these cows to the dragon? Mostly, we're supposed to be getting more cows to feed it. And... to make matters even more silly, where are the damned cows?

[OT]: Et tu, Britannia??

Britons -- particularly those of Middle Eastern descent, it seems -- must now be exceedingly cautious what they read (or even acquire for potential reading)! Mere possession of "subversive" literature has been made a Thought Crime there, you see:

British students jailed for possessing 'extremist' literature

' Four 20-year-old Bradford University students and a 19-year-old school student were jailed after a trial at the Old Bailey for being found with material said to be "glorifying Islamic terrorism" on their computers. Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Malik and Awaab Iqbaal were jailed for three years each, Akbar Butt was jailed for 27 months and the school student, Mohammed Irfan Raja was given two years’ youth detention.

' Such is the atmosphere created by politicians and the media after the attempted terror bombings in London and Glasgow earlier this month that there was very little opposition in the media to what are police state measures -- the jailing of these youths merely for downloading material readily available on the Internet.

' The case is the first successful prosecution under the Terrorism Act 2000 for possessing material useful for terrorism. ...'

[First they ban books, then they burn them.]

"The fuel use and the fuel inefficiency of the U.S. Armed Services is a story we seldom see."
Posted by: bonanza on July 30, 2007 at 3:12 PM
--------

There is something that I want to bring up that I haven't seen anybody write anything about: The domestic supply/demand of gasoline vis a vis the global supply/demand of gasoline. Remember when Katrina struck and temporarily took out refining capacity here in the States? Prices went up worldwide. I think there were some folks in Indonesia that rioted (over prices), and people in the UK that were complaining, etc., etc. It was a big global phenomenon. Ouch-we're all interconnected and can feel the pain!

OK, so:

Why is it that *US* gas prices are so unusually high and unstable this year? We've got the usual responses-"refinery maintenance"-"still fixing stuff up from Katrina"-"summer driving demand"-the usual. Well then... why don't we hear about the same run up in refined products in other countries?

I wonder if the domestic refiners are supplying the war in Iraq and creating a supply squeeze here domestically that other countries aren't having to deal with... Can the DoD purchase refined gasoline products from the world market or not? Whether they can or can't raises a whole 'nuther set of questions...

The whole military is just full of stupid people.

Who the fuck are you and what the hell do you know about anything?

There are a lot of vets on this board, and you just called every last one a moron.

You really are a pretentious twit, in case no one else has told you that lately. To the point that you are getting harder and harder for me to ignore, much to my chagrin.

Well, to hear my friends in the military their buddies are either dumb as dirt or deserving of having their boots polished by tongues.

Honestly, smart and military personel haven't been found together in my experience, and I've dated several ground pounders, so... It's not exactly extensive, but neither were the ROTC guys I hung out with.

But... The military doesn't hire based on brilliance. I don't expect them to be either toadies or pushovers. It's easy to get into groupthink when you're with the same group every day.

And I try my darndest to keep my friends from falling for it...

...But I can't say being in the military has been good on their IQs.

Not a whole lot of torque out of an electric motor run. Hard to imagine such a vehicle hauling much in the way of people, weapons, and ammo - let alone armor.

Technically, this is just a matter of materials and amps. The more amps, the more toque. It's quite linear. It's totally possible to make an M1 turbine run on electricity - heck, all trains run on electricity; the diesel powers generators. I'm sorry you're so ill-informed.

But turbine engines can b designed to burn a variety of fuels instead of a single one... From flour to diesel/coal or alcohols, turbines can potentially burn it all with the proper preparation.

We do nothing, basically, to encourage any professional and talented people to get into the military.

Don't miss the forest for the trees, BG. This is the real point: We don't. We don't pay them well, they get the least possible medical, we don't encourage later enlistment or variety of jobs.

I was involved in ROTC, and I learned that there'd be no room in any branch for me - I'm far too physically weak to pass PT, and our military has hangups the rest of the country got over fifty years ago, so why get involved in something that'll just end in tears?

There's lots of reasons not to get involved in the military - and the pay, conditions, and background that it requires basically limits its own choices.

Speaking as someone who works in the logistics business, most commentators on this thread so far are all correct - and really quite fucking stupid as well.

C'mon, I think that's why they were talking about fuel-efficient trucks and other vehicles, and only dabbled in the idea of solar panels and other sources of power.

We pay millions of dollars on military trains - why aren't we shipping fuel via trains in Iraq? Pipelines and trains can be far more armored than trucks, though less mobile - but also they can be guarded by heavier weapons, too.

We're talking a commander that's upset of not being independent enough from his long train of trucks and other supplies! Solar panels would help, but so would building better infrastructure on that logistical trail.

...But this is the military that has no plans on how to leave...

They have plans for invading Canada, but not to leave Iraq?

"Technically, this is just a matter of materials and amps. The more amps, the more toque. It's quite linear. It's totally possible to make an M1 turbine run on electricity - heck, all trains run on electricity; the diesel powers generators. I'm sorry you're so ill-informed."
_______________________

No need to be sorry, Crissa. Nobody can be well informed on everything, except, I suppose, internet rangers with well-honed Google skills. I merely noted that trains runs on these shiny metal things and don't go haring off into the bush very often. There seems to be a general dearth of heavy, electrically powered machines that can run across open country at speed, but, heck, maybe nobody every gave it a thought before.

On your other point about military people being dumb, it's long been true that every age cohort in the military is better educated than their counterparts in civilian life. But again, that's only on average. Maybe you ought to try dating Academy grads. Only one in five or six applicants get chosen to attend. Almost all graduated in the top tenth of their high school classes and they've got these huge average SAT scores and all. Almost all eventually get graduate degrees, as well.

Of course, it could also be that having very different interests prevents most military types from showing their best with you. That happens often enough.

"We pay millions of dollars on military trains - why aren't we shipping fuel via trains in Iraq? Pipelines and trains can be far more armored than trucks, though less mobile - but also they can be guarded by heavier weapons, too."
_______________________

Uh, the military doesn't own any trains. What it has are strong contracts with the various railroads in the States, including a subsidy for keeping heavy lift rail cars in their systems for carrying military equipment. We can't deploy railcars easily and, if we did, there'd be other problems, such as track gauge, to deal with. And while trains can be armored, the tracks cannot.

As for pipelines, they are soft targets. It would take years to armor a single pipeline, even if it went where you needed it. In Afghanistan, our fuel LOC is a 700 mile long road filled with trucks. Not very efficient, but Afghanistan has always been a real backwater. And I can just imagine the howls if somebody gave Halliburton a contract to build a trans-Afghanistan pipeline...

"turbine engines can be designed to burn a variety of fuels instead of a single one... From flour to diesel/coal or alcohols, turbines can potentially burn it all with the proper preparation."
_______________________

All theoretically true, I suppose. However, they run best on various exotic grades of kerosene, plus additives. I recall that the emergency fuel for every jet aircraft I ever flew was gasoline with liberal amounts of oil added for lubrication. Most turbines run to very close tolerances and lubrication is always an issue. Alcohol, of course, being a solvent, tends to eat seals.

trashhauler,

Word was that the pentagon's "future combat system" will use hybrid diesel-electric powertrains for all of their manned ground vehicles.

Not a whole lot of torque out of an electric motor run.Not a whole lot of torque out of an electric motor run.

Yeah, so little torque that they use them to pull TRAINS. 'Cause trains are so, like, light, you know.

It's apparent you don't know much about electric motors. Or energy efficiency of them vs. pushing the same lump of metal using internal combustion(this assumes an internal combustion engine is used to generate electricity for the motor.)

Armored pipelines? That's genius. We could commission a study to see whether it wards off bad people better than the smoke of 100 dollar bills.

"Word was that the pentagon's 'future combat system' will use hybrid diesel-electric powertrains for all of their manned ground vehicles."
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I don't know anything about that, B. My office is involved in the FCS only from the air transportability aspect. All I know is that it's been tough going cramming all the armor and weapons systems aboard a vehicle light enough to be carried by a C-130.

Hybrid diesel-electric, huh? I wonder what the powertrain performance specs are?

Wow, trashy, you are just full of wonderful technical advice.

Let's see, electic motors have no torque, that's right, those electric diesel engines have no use for torque, it is really the torque fairies accelerating those tons of freight cars.

And then, alcohol eats seals, because it is a "solvent". Lets see, there is a whole generation of cars, that would include all the ones made in the past five years, that have seals impervious to alcohol. That takes care of the alcohol part, now lets address the "solvent" part. One guess as to the best solvent man has ever invented? Ding, ding, ding, you are correct, WATER!!!! I know what you are thinking, "This idiot doesn't know that water eats seals like a hornworm through a tomato plant" And you are correct. Whether a solvent eats seals depends on the solvent and the elastomer.

Whether a paid troll can get a technical point correct, oh thats right they never get them right, all they know are repub talking points.

There seems to be a general dearth of heavy, electrically powered machines that can run across open country at speed, but, heck, maybe nobody every gave it a thought before.

You are quite right on that.
It's been given lots of thoughts, but it's always been shot down. Electric motors run by diesel can be VERY efficient, and have the ancillary benefit that part of the exhaust is -potable- water, which could be handy in a desert. There are a number of larger corporations in powerful industries that are not very interested in seeing an electric-motor paradigm get a toe-hold, mostly because it's too obviously superior.

I saw some articles a few years ago, regarding the testing of a diesel electric hybrid(diesel generator) HMMV(sp?) that out-performed all other motor types in field tests. Did I mention that part of the exhaust is drinkable(if a bit nasty tasting) water?
Less fuel needed means smaller better armored fuel cells, smaller less vulnerable engines, etc etc.
I don't know if there's been any movement toward them - i suspect not or we'd have heard about it - but it's something that could have and should have been started long ago.

It's sad in many respects - we'd have a LOT better fuel efficiency in general, if the military had been permitted to go down this road for ground operations many years ago.
It might have led to more adventurism too, but I'm pretty confident it would have been a net benefit - among other things, we'd need a much smaller Strategic Petroleum Reserve - and all that that entails.

One guess as to the best solvent man has ever invented? Ding, ding, ding, you are correct, WATER!!!!

Warning - this commenter is talking about di-hydrogen oxide! A known corrosive AND and addictive substance! Don't let the pop-culture terminology fool you!

Personally, the point I was trying to make is that we have deployed a ridiculously long and heavyweight logistical tail mainly in support of a military mission aimed fundamentally at retaining the capability to deploy such ridiculously long and heavyweight logistical tails.

It's called a "self-licking ice cream cone." Popular concept in the Pentagon.

One of the major problems with the military ISN'T that everybody is fucking stupid. It's the rampant careerism that would make a Wall Street investment banker blush. You've got to do sexy things to get promoted. Being Program Manager of a major weapons system will get you promoted (to a point). Being Program Manager of an advanced concept low energy usage structure will not. Apply this to the entire acquisition community and you get what you see now.

Fundamentally, the Army wants to do Desert Storm, with big equipment and big maneuvers and big battles for the history books. They don't want to do counterinsurgency, so anybody that did work on counterinsurgency didn't get promoted. So the Army is fundamentally unprepared for long-term low-intensity urban combat, and it shows everywhere.

Maybe it, like, wasn't a good idea to, like, invade Iraq in the first place? Just a thought?

Less fuel needed means smaller better armored fuel cells, smaller less vulnerable engines, etc etc.

hybrid military vehicles coming:

http://www.deagel.com/Wheeled-Armored-Fighting-Vehicles/FCS-MCS_a000543001.aspx
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,136748,00.html

Maybe you ought to try dating Academy grads. Only one in five or six applicants get chosen to attend. Almost all graduated in the top tenth of their high school classes and they've got these huge average SAT scores and all. Almost all eventually get graduate degrees, as well.

trashhauler, having had a number of very intelligent, studious, and diligent friends in high school who tried to get into the academies, you've forgotten what may be the single biggest criteria.
Recommendation from a sitting member of Congress.
It helps if you or your family is politically connected, or at the very least, if no one who is, is interested in the recommendation that you want. It's more than just self-selection. That may have changed in the last 15-20 years, but I doubt it.

"Wow, trashy, you are just full of wonderful technical advice.

Let's see, electic motors have no torque, that's right, those electric diesel engines have no use for torque, it is really the torque fairies accelerating those tons of freight cars."
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As far as technical advice, the only logistics related fields that I can claim any expertise in are aircraft and logistics in general. In other areas, I have to rely on experts, just like everyone else. Hope that helps.

As to the power of diesel-electric trains, yeah, Joe, we already acknowledged that. I'm just not sure how efficient the power train linkage would work off rails and, especially, off roads. Somebody suggested they're working on the problem. I'll be interested in seeing the result.

it's not really socialism in the happy Canada-healthcare sense. The people who are paying for it aren't the ones who are benefiting from it
By this (very silly) standard, government provision of primary schools isn't socialism. Those eight-year-olds don't pay a penny in tax. Neither is, say, universal nursing home provision for the elderly. Or unemployment benefits. (It also neglects the point that servicemen and women do indeed pay tax.)

kenga: is that really true? You can't get into a US military academy unless your congressman recommends you? But... that's insane. Don't you want the best candidates for your officer corps?

The war machine produces nothing of any value and only plants the seeds of the next conflict. There is no bigger waste of taxpayer dollars and fraud than the Pentagon. We should slash military spending by at least 75%, if not more. It is a piss-poor investment that just results in death and misery.

kenga wrote:

"you've forgotten what may be the single biggest criteria. Recommendation from a sitting member of Congress."
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No, I haven't forgotten that, kenga. I received my Academy appointments (Air Force and West Point) through Rep Frank T. Bow (The Man We Know) (D-OH) back in 1968. As I recall, I visited his office once with my immigrant grandfather and my parents never did meet the Representative. I benefited from the fact that Rep. Bow gave the job of picking nominees to his assistant and she simply used the test scores and other criteria suggested by the Academies.

Maybe political pull helped some people, but most of my classmates seemed like pretty ordinary guys to me (this was before women entered). Except that most were not only smart, but athletes. They also, like me, had lots of extra-curricular work in clubs, boy scouts, and the like.

My first roommate was a black kid, Spencer T. Way, from Savannah, GA. Spence came from a small high school and I know he had no political pull. I helped Spence in History and he taught me about Motown. Worked out pretty well, but I think I got the better end of the deal.

Not a whole lot of torque out of an electric motor run.

Hunh? Electric motors offer 100% torque at 0 RPM. Depending on how much power you want to use, they've got enough torque to....well, power a locomotive.

ajay at 11:17: Well, this is all a pretty futile semantics debate. But to carry on for the sake of it: I'm not necessarily advocating that standard, just noting that it's very easy and not entirely illogical to see the military healthcare system as something other than socialized because the population as a whole pays into a system that then spits out tangible benefits for only a small segment of the population. You're right that in any form of government spending there are some people who gain nothing from it and some people who gain from it without having put anything in. But it's slightly different with the military. The government, with some rare exceptions, doesn't own the means of production for preschool education or nursing-home care. It does, however, own healthcare facilities for soldiers, such as (notably) Walter Reed, and those publicly-funded facilities are reserved exclusively for a certain subset of the population. When a state or city builds a school with taxpayer money, every child is entitled to attend it, and when a county builds a road, everyone is entitled to walk/bike/drive on it. That level of universality is lacking from the military healthcare system, which is why there's a sound argument against calling it socialism in the commonly accepted sense.

I'm just not sure how efficient the power train linkage would work off rails and, especially, off roads. Somebody suggested they're working on the problem. I'll be interested in seeing the result.

Somebody please runover trashhauler with one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebherr_T_282B

B wrote:

Somebody please runover trashhauler with one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebherr_T_282B
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I don't know what your personal mafunction is, B, but don't get too cute with the nasty jibes. I haven't said a unpolite word toward anyone in this thread. Not that it stops anyone else here. Nice double standard you folks work with.

As relates to your cite, perhaps we're simply talking a matter of scale here. These giants certainly seem capable for their designed purpose. The trick would be to engineer vehicles that are somewhat less...cumbersome than a locomotive or these huge trucks, yet robust enough to carry useful amounts of armor and payload. Presumably, someone at DARPA is working on it.

Trashauler

If you can build a municipal bus with diesel electric engine (BAe does, and BAe owns United Defence, which makes AFVs for the US Army) you can build an armoured vehicle. New York City is switching to diesel electric buses (over the entire replacement cycle) because they are 30% more fuel efficient and less polluting.

Electric motors are excellent for torque at low speeds.

The problem is the weight of the battery pack. *that* is where the challenge and cost lies.

My suspicion is a diesel-electric Stryker or Hummer is a possibility, but a diesel-electric Main Battle Tank is some ways off. The thought of an RPG hitting a lead-acid battery is not pleasant, however there may be plastics that can be used.

The US military is also a world leader in fuel cell development (DARPA). Which will be of great interest for stationary power, if not mobile power.

FWIW the US Academy grads I have met typically have SAT scores and other academic measures comparable with the performance of, if not the top of the Ivy League admits, then in the middle. So comparable to the top 5% of all US college applicants.

This is interviewing them a few years down the road, when they are applying for MBA school.

Within the US military, it is a British article of faith that British enlisted men are better, taught to be more independently minded, but that US officers are mostly top notch- -especially US field officers (majors and up). US NCOs are also pretty good (but British NCOs are amazing).

Where the problem comes is mid career, where they get sucked into that super bureaucracy that is the Pentagon.

The other problem is the same that we have, that to make your career you have to have 'loyalty' to an arm: be it armour, cavalry, airborne, artillery etc. So you tend to espouse that arm's solutions. We'd call it loyalty to the Regiment.

(I was just reading about Creighton Abrams, last commander MACV during the Vietnam War. Apparently he despised paratroopers, thought they had dominated the US command structure for far too long, and he loved armour people (he was one)).

There is no 'arm' specialising in counter-insurgency in the US Army, so no one is going to make their career on counterinsurgency.

By contrast, armour with all the nice toys and the textbook victory of Operation Desert Storm, is in a strong position to boost its' officers' careers.

Someone said the US has no plan to retreat from Iraq. We know already that's not true (those plans have been in the works for some months). But the military is addicted to planning and thinking (Donald Rumsfeld's micro-destruction of the 'tipfiddle' deployment plan for OIF notwithstanding)-- someone would have a shelf study, somewhere.

Sec Rumsfeld would not have allowed such planning to take place (but there's plenty of evidence he had very little control of what was going on at the Pentagon), but Sec Gates would undoubtedly have had those plans drawn up. It's in his nature, as a fundamentally cautious an analytical guy. And he's not afraid of Bush or Cheney firing him-- he paused before taking the job in the first place.

Maybe they are not fully developed, but rest assured those plans exist.

Thanks for the FCS cite, toast. As it happens, they've got an FCS simulator outside the building today. Not the vehicle itself, but I can probably ask about the drive system.

Overall, very interesting post, Valuethinker. Much of what you said about career paths corresponds to what many in the Services say is wrong with our military. Too much identification with specific specialties tends to result in stovepipe thinking. On the other hand, retraining everyone in another specialty every few years would be very expensive and, to be fair, one can find innovative thinkers in just about all specialties. Much of the innovation is a result of the jointness mandated by Goldwater-Nichols.

Trashauler

The German General Staff system focused on creating Combined Arms thinkers.

There needs to be a system, that once you reach Lt. Col. or whatever, you are separated from your 'arm' in your career.

To some extent that is true in a very 'button punching' sense. I doubt you could make senior officer without having passed the Ranger Course. But that doesn't give you real experience of special forces work.

The US military is in some senses the world's most impressive bureaucracy (as well as being the largest, excepting perhaps the Chinese military). But the limitations of that approach have been seen in Iraq (see 'Fiasco' by Thomas Ricks).

However the procurement system has defeated all attempts at reform, since MacNamara. One of the interesting things about Rumsfeld, made clear in the Andrew Cockburn book, is how powerless he was to alter that.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff refused the Marine general's "urgent" request for renewable power stations in Iraq. They are funding two installations for testing over the next year and are also offering $1,000,000 for a portable power pack that weighs 4 kilograms and provides 20 watts for four days.

I have two diaries on these topics at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/27/0353/85056 and http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/29/20056/7310

Apollo had created $14 for every dollar spent on it as of 27 years ago; the spinoff chain has continued. Apollo was one of the best investments ever made by this nation.

This is not to say that today's NASA is worth anything.

Interesting thought.