Make sure she is dropped above the Arctic Circle in winter time. While waiting in the dark for the evil Ruskies come after her in their gasoline-powered snowmobiles, she would have time to recognize some of the limitations of solar-powered vehicles.
5 Likes
This grant proposal will never pass – the amounts are too small.
6 Likes
Smart people will do the best given the circumstances, good or bad politics.
Even with a pure military power metric, I can see a number of ways that hybrid vehicles could really win over internal combustion engines. Electric engines are light and explosive.
I also wouldn’t mind research into super-stable modular nuclear power plants to power all those electric vehicles.
3 Likes
If a current tank has a fuel capacity of 400 gallons, how does one charge an electric tank that will presumably need more due to the greater weight? How does one charge a small unit of four tanks and four infantry fighting vehicles?
There is no analog to having one private per vehicle carrying jerry cans to keep vehicles topped off. your nuclear powered recharging vehicle will have to be very exposed at all times. You’ll have to stop movement for several hours per day to charge up these vehicles. If you are charging them all at once, they’ll have to be clustered very close together and make a nice big target.
With fossil fuel vehicles, even if your tank truck has only a single pump, You can fill all the vehicles in less than an hour. Plus, only one vehicle at a time needs to be at the fuel truck. The others can be in defensive positions.
5 Likes
Done with solar cells and windmills supplied by the PRC
3 Likes
Fast charging can be accomplished using ultra-capacitors that I mentioned here Electric Vehicle Charging, July 11, 1917 - #2 by eggspurt
Hybrids could be exceptionally useful for military applications, and they use ordinary fuel.
Electric car technology has certain capabilities that fundamentally change what a vehicle is and what it can be. Here’s something from more than 5 years ago:
2 Likes
What does fast charging do to battery life? Oh, wait… I guess it doesn’t matter because… taxpayers.
3 Likes
It might matter if the countries that supply the essential lithium and the other materials the Swamp Creatures refuse to produce in the US decided to impose sanctions on the US. Sauce for the goose, etc.
Or what if the likes of Ukrainian activists in rented sailboats decided to sink a few cargo ships carrying those essential materials to the US? It would only take one or two ships going down to send insurance rates to unaffordable highs.
Our Betters can print dollars. They seem to have forgotten there are lots of other things which they can’t print.
3 Likes
Ultracapacitors have high power density but low energy density. Thus, in your video’s example, it appears the busses charge up at each stop with enough energy to get to the next stop. Even with an order of magnitude improvement over the past decade, that’s nothing in combat.
8 Likes
Based on the Lightning’s towing performance , I don’t think the electric vehicle could be counted on to even tow a generator to charge another stalled out vehicle.
There are times I think these people intentionally push the boundary of stupid to see just how much they can get away with. During COVID I was joking that that would say wear two masks. Then they did and I about fell over. Wear two masks and put your left pinky in your ear for ultimate protection.
The sad thing is that the bottom has not yet been plumbed. Several years ago I was traveling with a friend. We stopped to eat at a bar and soon my friend was in an argument with a millennial. The millennial was not only convinced that women are better than men in all sports, he was angry anyone would have the audacity to argue the point. We have two generations now that have absolutely no contact with reality.
7 Likes
I hear you. But politicos will dump a few hundred billion if not more for electrifying the military. It might be reckless and ideological - but why not take that money and do something useful with it? There are new opportunities, and military has always been about being one step ahead of the enemies.
You mean – like making sure they have a bigger manufacturing base than their enemies, and having a bigger pool of fit motivated potential recruits, and having domestic sources of supply for critical minerals & computer chips, and enough domestic fuels to supply all the potential needs? Yes, that would be worth investing a few hundred billion before starting fights with the big boys!
4 Likes
I’m actually in favor of this. Maybe with no working military vehicles the US can get out of the empire business.
5 Likes
Mission accomplished!
The West’s superpower has always been building alliances in favor of pure self-sufficiency and mercantilism. But there’s always a balance.
6 Likes
Notice the 30% drop in German auto exports since 2017. Recall that Volkswagen now builds more cars in China than in Germany. Looks like a standard application of China’s very successful plan for overtaking the misled West – first persuade Western manufacturers to build plants in China to supply the Chinese market, and later expand to exporting the same product. In Macron’s recent visit to China, France agreed to build two more Airbus factories in China. How long until Airbus builds more planes in China than in Europe?
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
6 Likes
Of course, Airbus was also “persuaded” by the U.S. to build a factory in Mobile, Alabama, to have any chance of winning the U.S. Air Force contract for a tanker aircraft, the EADS/Northrop Grumman KC-45, which they eventually won and then lost when Boeing brought the lobbying hammer down and was awarded the contract to build what became the disastrous KC-46.
In 2012, “persuaded” by the threat of having tariffs slapped on their aircraft at the behest of Boeing, they began to build a factory in Mobile at the cost of US$ 600 million to build the Airbus 320 series. The plant now employs 2,200 people and also assembles the Airbus 220 series, which was acquired from Bombardier Canada.
5 Likes
Consider which scenario is more probable: Airbus ends up exporting aircraft to the world from the US, or from China?
In a contest between a “Free Trader” and a Mercantilist, some elements of the “Free Trader” society get a short-term boost through lower prices (at the expense of other elements of that same society who endure unemployment and reduced prospects) while all elements of the Mercantilist society benefit in both the short & long terms through the transfer of technology and the creation of employment & revenues (some of which will be taxed).
My guess is that, if the planet manages to escape Biden’s thermonuclear war, companies like Volkswagen and Airbus will gradually become Chinese companies, as their R&D and design components migrate to the place that has the manufacturing capabilities, the well-educated skilled workforce, and affordable energy costs.
4 Likes
If anything, it may have been the other way around.*
The specs of the original competition were narrowly tailored to replace the KC-135 and not the KC-10.
On the one hand KC-45 clearly failed some strict requirements on size that were based on being able to use existing KC-135 facilities. But the AF did not penalize, let alone default, Airbus.
On the other hand, there were some threshold requirements that both met but where the KC-45 beat the KC-46 like fuel capacity. The AF gave Airbus bonus points even though the rules said none would be offered.
Boeing quite properly won a challenge.
- This all came after the Darlene Druyun incident. Many in Congress and the press were out to punish Boeing. IMHO, the AF took this as guidance to award the contract to Airbus no matter what the actual competition rules were.
4 Likes
But the fact remains that had Airbus not partnered with Northrop Grumman and planned to build the tanker in the U.S., they’d have had no hope of winning the contract.
4 Likes