Secretary Granholm Says to Replace all Petroleum fueled tanks with Electric Ones. Dumb and Deadly Idea.
By
Dan Perkins
When I was in the army my job was in communications. When I was in radio school at Ft. Knox, we learned about the various radios the Army used. Early on in my training, I went into a classroom that displayed many of the radios we might have to use if we were sent to Vietnam. The instructor told us about each one and the last radio was a PRC-10. This radio was strapped on a soldier’s back with the antenna pointing up. (See the image to the left)
He told us that these radios were in use in Vietnam. Then he shocked all of us when he said to us, “The Average Life Expectancy of the Radiomen carrying a PRC-10 radio in combat is five seconds in The Vietnam War.“
Look at the picture above of a soldier wearing the PRC-10 radio on his back. The Vietcong would aim for the center of the radio on the back and shoot for it. Most of the time, there were two kills, the radio and the possibility of the soldier porting the radio. If the enemy takes out the communications, the army is lost. The chain of command is broken because the leader can not give orders to the troops on what to do.
You may be asking what the small PRC-10 radio and 60-ton electric tanks have in common. If the enemy took out the communications, the PRC-10, then they neutralized the effectiveness of the army. The same would be true of taking out the charging capability of the tanks. It is clear to me that Secretary Granholm doesn’t understand deadly combat. Does she think the combat engineers would just go in and lay electric lines and create charging stations for the tanks and other equipment in the middle of a war zone?
If the enemy takes out the charging stations the tanks can’t recharge their batteries, they are worthless sitting ducks. Another danger to the tanks and the crews will be the time it takes to charge the battery in the tank. All those tanks sitting in line to get to the chargers will make perfect targets for an enemy to attack. Tanks with dead batteries because of waiting in line will have no way to protect themselves and just like the PRC-10 radio, they will be easy targets. Think of the logistics of tanks with dead batteries having to be towed to the charging station. Think about the exposure over the many hours to charge.
I think the left thinks that anything battery-operated is better than something powered by fossil fuel. In the movie Patton, there is a part where the German tanks start running out of gas and they stop dead in their tracks. They can reengage the enemy as soon as they can get some fuel. In the movie, the German tanks were sitting ducks and were picked off.
The tank, depending on size, can hold 300 to 500 gallons of fuel and would take about 20 minutes to fill the tanks which would power the tank for about 8 hours. An M1A1 Abrams tank can weigh about 63 tons. Car and Driver Magazine’s biggest EVA pickup truck is the RIT, and it weighs 7,173 pounds. I don’t know how much an electric tank will weigh, but I do know the larger the load the larger the battery will have to be.
The last issue is battery safety in tanks with the risk of explosion due to impact. The current line of ER batteries contains toxic and flammable chemicals to make Lithium Iron batteries. The enemy could use Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) to explode the batteries and kill everybody in the tank. The explosion will also release toxic chemicals into the atmosphere potentially killing more soldiers on the ground than in the tank.
Secretary Granholm also wants to eliminate gas stoves, gas furnaces, and gas ovens. The President Biden Environmental Protection Agency announced a plan to dramatically cut auto emissions and is designed to spur the industry toward full electrification. The first set of proposed standards would target emissions from passenger cars, vans, and light trucks, while the second batch would apply to heavier-duty vocational vehicles, such as delivery trucks, dump trucks, and buses.
The replacement of gas tanks with EVA motors could put American soldiers at even greater risk than gas motors. This is truly trying to put a round peg in a square hole and putting more of our soldiers at risk.
If you saw the movie Dumb and Dumber, the title fits what Secretary Granholm is trying to do.
Dan Perkins is the author of 9 books, a nationally syndicated talk show host, an expert on energy, the founder of the Black and White radio and TV network promoting free speech, and the host of two shows on the network, (Blacks and Whites and Dan After Dark). You can find more info about Dan and his works at danperkins.guru.