What the heck is wrong with the formerly Great Britain? This nation, which was for many years the world's foremost naval power and the head of an empire on which the sun never set, this island nation that whipped Napoleon and held off Hitler, has fallen a long way since World War 2. Oh, they still retain some military capacity. The British Army still employs the Gurkhas, who are on the entire world's "Don't mess with" list, as well as some special ops groups like the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service, more or less the equivalent of our Navy SEAL teams.
Other than those few elite units, the British military is a mere shadow of what it was in 1945, and a lot of that is due to deliberate stupidity on the part of the British government. The latest example of that? Pushing for electric tactical vehicles for the British Army in the name of "Net Zero."
Ministers are forging ahead with plans to use electric vehicles (EVs) for combat on the battlefield despite warnings from military grandees that they could put the Armed Forces at risk.
The Telegraph has learnt that the Ministry of Defence will be ramping up testing of battlefield EVs next year at the Army’s Bovington Garrison in Dorset, home of the Tank Museum.
The testing, described by an insider as “putting these vehicles through their paces”, is at an experimental phase, but is an expansion of plans first mooted under the Conservative government on the development of combat EVs.
The British Army brass is reportedly not enamored of the idea, and one can scarcely blame them. This isn't a decision that was made with combat readiness in mind. This isn't a decision that was made by warfighters. This isn't a decision that will enhance the ability of the British Army to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. Quite the opposite; this is stupidity, it is virtue-signaling of the first water, and if the British Army has to ride these tactical abominations into battle, it won't go well.
But hey, there's a lot of money in it, for someone:
Since coming to office in July, the Government has handed more than £400,000 in contracts to Magtec, a defence firm that specialises in the electrification of vehicles.
In October, John Healey, the Defence Secretary, visited the firm’s design and manufacturing facility in south Yorkshire, saying he was impressed with the company’s “creative flair to improve the battlefield performance and the environmental performance of military vehicles”.
Uh-huh.
There are issues of range, recharging times, and capacities involved. I remember very well being in northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1991 when I toured with General Schwarzkopf's Traveling Road Show on the Highway of Death Tour and saw the endless lines of tanker trucks carrying diesel fuel up to the tanks, fighting vehicles, and other equipment being run by our troops as they were kicking some and taking some. It worked because a track, tank, or truck could pull up, refuel, and be on their way again in a matter of minutes. But an EV? How long will it take to charge an electric infantry fighting vehicle? How will this charging be accomplished in a tactical environment? Will there be portable charging setups, presumably powered by diesel generators?
Has nobody thought these things through?
And what happens if one of these huge lithium-ion batteries, big enough to propel a 25-ton fighting vehicle, takes a hit? In World War 2, the Germans referred to the gasoline-powered Sherman tank that we supplied to the British as "Tommy Cookers" for their propensity to burst into flame when hit. Our own troops called the early marks of the Sherman "Ronsons," after a popular cigarette lighter that promised to "light the first time every time." But that would be as nothing next to the explosive burning of a lithium battery.
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Add to that the fact that an electric tactical vehicle, particularly an armored vehicle, would have nowhere near the range of a traditional vehicle.
Fortunately, some senior British officers are pushing back on this stupidity.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, said: “What this amounts to is virtue signalling by MoD, trying to get into the climate change agenda. I suspect it will be wasting quite a lot of people’s time and resources in trying to show they are playing their part. At the moment the technology is just not there."
And:
Admiral Lord West of Spithead, former First Sea Lord, said: “The aim must be to get war-winning equipment that we can use in the conditions we find ourselves fighting in; that enable us to fight, win and defeat enemies like Russia. That should be the aim of what we are developing.
“If they are saying we should have things that will achieve net zero, I don’t think that is the priority. We need things that we can use to fight and win – because we may well be at war in the next few years."
This is a bad idea and has the possibility of proving to be a catastrophically bad idea. The British government may as well send their army into combat with Matchbox vehicles. Worse, as all this is being done, the safety, liberty, and property of the people of the United Kingdom are being endangered, all in the name of reducing carbon emissions - in the nebulous name of "climate change."
It's sad, but the only conclusion we can draw is that Britain is Great no more.
