Energy to Tactical Edge: Hybrid power saving lives

HOHENFELS, GERMANY — The mod­ern bat­tle­field demands a more sus­tain­able Sol­dier. Today, troops increas­ing­ly depend upon reli­able ener­gy avail­abil­i­ty, fuel effi­cien­cy and reduced load bur­dens to sur­vive an unre­lent­ing envi­ron­ment and adapt­able adver­sary.

 -
Rapid Equip­ping Force train­ers edu­cate Sol­diers from the 173rd Air­borne Brigade Com­bat Team on oper­at­ing and main­tain­ing SolarStik, March 6, 2012, dur­ing an Ener­gy to the Edge train­ing exer­cise at the Joint Multi­na­tion­al Readi­ness Cen­ter in Hohen­fels, Ger­many. SolarStik will pro­vide troops in remote out­posts with a reli­able ener­gy source, decreas­ing their depen­dence on dan­ger­ous refu­el­ing efforts and enabling them to focus time and ener­gy on their pri­ma­ry mis­sion.
Click to enlarge

As high­er num­bers of Sol­diers face our ene­mies in remote loca­tions with lim­it­ed resources, which are areas known as “the tac­ti­cal edge,” the impor­tance of pro­vid­ing them with the edu­ca­tion, capa­bil­i­ties and tools they need becomes more urgent. 

The U.S. Army’s Rapid Equip­ping Force ini­ti­at­ed its Ener­gy to the Tac­ti­cal Edge, known as E2E, effort to mit­i­gate the inher­ent risks asso­ci­at­ed with liv­ing on small com­bat out­posts and for­ward oper­at­ing bases by reduc­ing troops’ reliance on fuel resup­ply oper­a­tions and decreas­ing the Sol­dier load burden. 

The E2E ini­tia­tive is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort between the Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of the Army for Instal­la­tions, Ener­gy and Envi­ron­ment, Army G‑4, the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of the Army for for Acqui­si­tion, Logis­tics and Tech­nol­o­gy, U. S. Army Train­ing and Doc­trine Com­mand, and U.S. Army Europe. 

These orga­ni­za­tions have teamed togeth­er to cre­ate a first-of-its-kind com­pre­hen­sive approach to under­stand­ing sol­diers’ ener­gy and load require­ments, iden­ti­fy­ing solu­tions and rapid­ly equip­ping units in or prepar­ing for severe conditions. 

On March 6th at the Joint Multi­na­tion­al Readi­ness Cen­ter in Hohen­fels Ger­many, the 173rd Air­borne Brigade Com­bat Team, based in Vicen­za, Italy, received train­ing on mul­ti­ple hybrid ener­gy capa­bil­i­ties that will increase gen­er­a­tor effi­cien­cy, improve renew­able ener­gy har­vest­ing, and reduce the sol­dier load by improv­ing bat­tery recharg­ing capa­bil­i­ties. The inten­sive train­ing cur­ricu­lum served to increase sol­diers’ capa­bil­i­ties and sur­viv­abil­i­ty once deployed through a suite of sus­tain­able options. 

They learned main­te­nance, sys­tem capa­bil­i­ties and detailed oper­at­ing instruc­tions to pre­pare them for flu­id inte­gra­tion into dai­ly use while in Afghanistan. 

Today, fuel con­sists of over 50 per­cent of the load car­ried by sup­ply con­voys in Afghanistan. These con­voys are espe­cial­ly attrac­tive tar­gets to adver­saries, and are reg­u­lar­ly attacked. Sta­tis­tics show that the U.S. los­es one Sol­dier for every twen­ty con­voys through attacks con­sist­ing of impro­vised explo­sive devices and/or direct fire ambush­es. There will be over 3,000 resup­ply con­voys in 2012. 

In addi­tion, the aver­age dis­mount­ed Sol­dier is forced to car­ry approx­i­mate­ly 130 lbs of weight, often con­sist­ing of spare bat­ter­ies, recharg­ing capa­bil­i­ties, and heavy elec­tron­ic com­po­nents. By pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive and light­weight bat­ter­ies and uni­ver­sal charg­ing options, the REF will help to unbur­den the Sol­dier and enable him or her to move more flu­id­ly along the rough ter­rain in theater. 

While the E2E ini­tia­tive is in its infan­cy, ear­ly feed­back has demon­strat­ed that inno­v­a­tive ener­gy capa­bil­i­ties, com­bined with prop­er edu­ca­tion and train­ing will dri­ve future com­bat efforts and will lead to a new gen­er­a­tion of hybrid, sus­tain­able Soldiers. 

Source:
U.S. Army 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →