7 Gas Guzzling Military Combat Vehicles

I didn't expect to see this on treehugger!

but I kind of like it. Army stuff is usually so full of politics, it's good to have a look at it by just focusing on one thing (fuel economy here). So we can learn smething without getting into a huge debate that never ends and isn't productive anyway. good on ya!

340,000 barrels per day, at a conservative price of $100 per barrel, amounts to $3.4m per day in fuel costs. That might seem like a lot, but it's only 1.2% of the total cost of the war ($290m per day). Wages for soldiers (assuming 150,000 of them, at $500 per day) accounts for around $75m. That leaves only about $200m per day left to account for! Just think, we could equip every house in America with solar panels in less than a year. Or we could have universal healthcare.

Nice article, but it kinda misses the point. Of all the things wrong about this war, you chose to pick on fuel economy!

"Nice article, but it kinda misses the point. Of all the things wrong about this war, you chose to pick on fuel economy!"

This article specifically tries not to be a political comment about the war. We just decided to look at the MPG of various vehicles and see what we could find.

Antiwar.com is a better source for arguments against the war.

Michael Graham Richard said:

"According to NPR, all the tanks, planes and ships of the U.S. military burn about 340,000 barrels of oil per day, making it the "single-largest purchaser and consumer of oil in the world.""

So what? The entire US consumed 19.6 million barrels of oil (ref: http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/Sidebar/OilConsumption.html, written 2000) per day in 1999. That means the military used

There was a recent article on Treehugger (I think about a month or two ago) about a book on "What Great Britain would have to do to go all renewable", which I read. Their military consumption vs. total consumption was about 3% I recall, almost too small to bother figuring into his calculations at all.

US military consumption vs total consumption is 1.73%. Heck, it's probably even smaller than that now, since the consumption numbers (19.6 million barrels of oil per day) I have are 9 years old.

I guess armour plating is always going to negatively effect your MPG!
I don't think we can really begrudge the army a little protection - war is never going to be a green endeavour...

Great post.

This oil crisis is good news for those of us who think war is a bad idea.

Rising oil prices could threaten Japan's military readiness later 2008. There were reports that the country's navy will run out of money for fuel months earlier than expected. Though Japan's self-defence forces have attempted to cut back on fuel consumption, this year's fuel budget is expected to run dry well ahead of the 2009 budget.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/28/japan?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

Also, I couldn't help but notice from the pictures that the soldiers using these vehicles are carpooling. That's a big improvement over US civilian fuel use! ;)

"So what? The entire US consumed 19.6 million barrels of oil"

Yeah, and the entire US is 300+ million people while the military is about 1.4 million (with a $583 billion budget). and a lot of those 1.4 mil are not in the field.

well, if you remove the 150,000 soldier's you have other stresses that will be placed on the economy and its relation to the environment.

It's not an either or, and we have to deal with what is essentially a system of finite resources with consequences to each allocation of resources.

An example can be found in the ethanol biofuel industry and the stresses it caused with food prices, employment and pollution.

Now back to a solely environmental aspect of the article at hand, fuel management in a large organization such as the department of defense. They LOVE recycling and fuel saving because whether it's 1% or 10%, their fuel costs are staggering and cause many equipment hours and man hours in logistics.

The military will be a primary party to the development of alternative fuels, fuel conservation and subsequently emissions reduction as the cost of fuel rises.

I think it's funny that it's about the US Army's oil consumption, but Marines are pictured standing in front of the vehicle.

"I think it's funny that it's about the US Army's oil consumption, but Marines are pictured standing in front of the vehicle."

It's not about the Army, it's about ground vehicles of the *military*. Some are used by the army, others by the marines.

Just think, we could equip every house in America with solar panels in less than a year. Or we could have universal healthcare.

Sure, if the US government actually had the money to spend. But they don't. The Iraq war has been financed with debt.

A few things to point out:

The Abrams tank actually has some green cred by virtue of the fact that it's actually a flex fuel vehicle. In the US Army and Marine Corps it burns the same jet fuel as the helicopters. In other countries that operate the Abrams (such as Australia) it burns diesel. The turbine engine will burn just about any combustible fluid: gas, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel, bio-diesel, etc.

Second, one thing to keep in mind is weight. Military vehicles are heavy. REALLY heavy. The Abrams may seem like a fuel guzzler but keep in mind that it literally weighs more than the average house!

As someone who spent 10 years in the Army (including 6 as a tank crewman) I'm happy to see Treehugger post this article in an opinion free manner. It never ceases to amaze how many people in this country - on both sides of the political spectrum - are completely and utterly clueless when it comes to anything relating to the military. Like it or not, a good chunk of your tax dollars go into the military and you should educate yourself on where that money is going. The defense budget is massive and covers a LOT more than just weapons. It's amazing what politicians sneak into the defense budget. Case in point: Congress gave the US Army $500 million over a 4 year period to study breast cancer. Not sure what that has to do with national defense but that's where Congress put the money. That's just one tiny example.

This an excellent article , thanks , I'm grateful to you .

A quick attempt to compare the fuel efficiency of these military Hummers through some quick searches on the civilian Hummer models

Even compared to other heavy passenger vehicles, Hummers have poor fuel economy. Because the H2 is built to the over-8500-lb GVW class, its fuel economy is neither published by the EPA nor counted toward Corporate Average Fuel Economy.[11] For instance, H2 in one engine configuration averages about 14 mpg (US) (17 L/100 km/17 mpg imp) on highways, 10 mpg (US) (24 L/100 km/12 mpg imp) in the city, and has a curb weight of over 6,000 lb (2,700 kg), making it technically illegal for use on some streets.

Or we could look at a 4wheeldrive.com review, in particular the cons

Finding fuel efficiency for the larger vehicles is going to be more difficult because the EPA rules don't require them to report the fuel economy, but the Cougar is rated at a GVW of 52,000 lbs --- anyone got the numbers for cement truck fuel economy?

While there are much better ways to decrease a nation's overall oil consumption than improving the military's ( almost any democratic nation's military ) oil use, I do like the post ... and the on-topic comments.

*******

Bah Humbug Mike -- now I'm going to searching for the GVW, engine ratings and fuel economy of these and similar civilian vehicles

I'd like to make another comparison. Compared to the rest of the world, does the military spend more or less on oil?

The US military budget is approximately $600 billion/year, and they consume 340,000 barrels of oil per day. The world's GDP is about $44 trillion/year, consuming 83 million barrels of oil/day. That means in a year the world consumes about 30 billion barrels of oil, whereas if the world spent the same fraction of its budget on oil as the US army, we would only be using about 9 billion barrels a year.

Go, US army, for your comparatively low fuel use, and for continuing to try and reduce fuel consumption further.

Anthony, that's some creative accounting there. Did you ever work on Wall Street by any chance?

But seriously, your comparison is deeply flawed on many levels.

The US military IS working on fuel systems other than petrol...

However, A purpose built armor clad personnel carrier is a poor choice of critique.

These are not things that can not be made cheap and light. There are attempts to use some composites in the construction of tanks and APC's... but protection is the primary factor..

Protection provided by thick heavy sheets of armor. Armor produced with heavy industry and lots and lots of electricity.

Today's armor and tanks are getting better fuel mileage than ever.

So lets focus on the real issues people. The issues are with the consumers, the makers and the fuelers of our domestic transport infrastructure. and lets leave the military and there very small percentage of use and pollution out.

It would seem to be in the military's best interest to have higher fuel efficiency. The logistics of supplying all of these vehicles on the battlefield must be quite a major issue. I'd like to know what kind of DARPA projects they got going on this. Too bad they're top secret.

The army is beginning production of a hybrid powered artillery support weapon (smaller but similar to the Paladin in this article) called the NLOS-C (just google 'hybrid tank').

Something I thought was amazing from this article is that the large armored combat trucks get better mileage with armor and off-road gear than school buses get on paved roads.

-Lego

That's interesting Lego is that true about the schoolbus / mileage thing?
Maybe because the buses are making frequent stops and idling a lot?

Great article. Nicely Neutral !!!!!

DARPA - yes, there have to be more unmanned electric flying doodads to get the jobs done.

I wonder if those GoogleEarth cars are going around and taking pictures of the battlefields?

vsk

I'm not too sure what to make of this article. Does the U.S. Military consume more fuel than other forces around the globe, or is this about normal for miliary purposes? We can't really compare this to, say, consumer purposes.

Heh. The other day I was driving an M997 Field Litter Ambulance over the Coastal Range and was thinking about fuel efficiency while I had the pedal to the metal as we made a whopping 45MPH going uphill on the highway.

It's a 4.5ton vehicle and isn't up-armored. We're switching to an up-armored M1152 ambulance soon for predeployment training.

If you can increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles without compromising armoring/safety I'm all for it. And if you can increase the horsepower so I'm not going 45MPH uphill, I'd really appreciate it.

Great attempt at trying to estimate the amount of fuel used by the Army in Iraq, but you missed on a few key points.

1. Due to circumstances, vehicles aren't the only thing that consumes fuel in Iraq. Everything and I mean everything runs off generators which consumes a lot of diesel. We can blame congress on that one.

2. Unlike in the US where most of the fuel is transported by pipeline, all of the fuel used in theater is trucked in. I can't be specific but it's over 600 trucks a day out of Kuwait.

3. Don't forget, we also give fuel to the Iraqi Army and Police when their country can't come through.

So, to add up all of that, we're using about 1.2M (as of 2007) gallons of fuel. I think that ranks in the top 15 of countries.

to vsk:
A city-only conventional school bus gets 3-4 mpg. I used to drive in Minneapolis (whcih used to bus 90% of their students) and the stop and go routes were murder on fuel economy. On highways we did better... 6-7mpg tops though. Turbodiesels did a hair better once they warmed up, maybe 15% better overall.

On cold nights we would idle 200+ buses all night, and the yard was in a depression... you would walk in to a fogbank of diesel smoke in the morning.

-Lego

Abrams flex fuel... well if you litle resech around the world you will find out that all tanks are flex fuels and most of them have diesel engines.
Turbine engine in tanks is the most inefficent as you can get.
It will have much more sence if they will used microturbine in series hybride configuration.

Interesting article. Here are some other points to consider from a former Army officer:

1. I do not know know where you got your fuel efficiency figures for the vehicles, but the figures are probably for vehicles carrying either no load or a standard load. A combat-loaded vehicle is often packed to the gills with personnel and gear -- and of course lots of ammunition!

I would think that terrain is also a crucial factor in calculating fuel efficiency. Your article cites figures for "the highway" and "the city". It is important to remember that these vehicles, especially in Afghanistan -- a country with one highway which is not finished yet -- are most often not operated either in highway or city conditions. Troops operate in places in Afghanistan where dust the consistency of talcum powder (soldiers call it "moon dust") is literally waist deep.

Both of these factors -- the load on the vehicle and rough terrain -- likely have no small influence on fuel efficiency.

2. Another thing this article does not take into account is the military's use of diesel generators. I would wager that far, far more fuel is consumed by the generators that run 24/7 to provide electricity to sprawling military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan that is consumed flying planes or driving vehicles.

On my daily ride to work (on a non-fossil-fuel-consuming mountain bike, by the way) at Kandahar Airfield in the hundred-plus degree heat under a cloudless sky, I was often struck by the irony of the wall of generators parallel to the road that powered our housing area. The generators, housed in weather resistant containers stacked two-high and lining the road for several hundred feet groaned night and day to run our air conditioners, computers, televisions, lightbulbs, and even the electric hot water heaters in our showers.

That's right, in a country that has 6.5 kWh of solar irradiation per square meter per day, the water for our showers was heated with electric boilers supplied by diesel generators. But then, war is all about waste.

Cheers and thanks for the good read!

Well, also something of consideration- the military when overseas, largely subsidizes the cost of fuel for military members and family so what they are paying is closer to US prices than the European prices. When I lived in Germany, they'd limit the amount we could get, but we could buy discounted coupons on base to use at the local gas stations surrounding the base. And in Places like the air base in the Azores, the military brings in the gasoline themselves and sells it at a subsidized rate directly on the base, and though you're on an island, there's no limit to how much you can buy there. So if you really want to do fuel economic standards of the overall military, take into account that I was in Germany and Portugal and everywhere else driving an PZEV.

Well they can't go delivering death and mayhem in Prius's

(What's plural of Prius? Priuses? Priora?)

I guess those arguing that this is unimportant will not be disappointed when they won't be able to travel by airplane within the next couple of years.

Hey, you've got to burn oil to get oil!

Did anyone ask what the oil burn rate was before we went into combat... i.e. year 2000. Because they generally burn quite a bit just from training, excercises, patrolling, and movements.

Just to see the difference between combat and non combat periods.

thanks

wowh...a really tough car in there!!!!!!

"Abrams flex fuel... well if you litle resech around the world you will find out that all tanks are flex fuels and most of them have diesel engines.
Turbine engine in tanks is the most inefficent as you can get.
It will have much more sence if they will used microturbine in series hybride configuration."

Yes, most tanks have diesel engines however they don't have as much flexibility as the turbine in the Abrams.

The turbine in the Abrams was ***at the time*** the most efficient engine available for a vehicle of that size and weight. The Soviets also went with turbines during this period for similar reasons. Diesel technology has evolved since then and chances are the next MBT will go back to diesel. Keep in mind the Abrams was designed in the mid-70s.

A turbine has pros and cons just like any other power plant. One of the big pros is that it's much quieter than a diesel. The Abrams earned the nickname "Whispering Death" for a reason! The con is that turbine engines create much hotter exhaust than a diesel. Not a big issue for a helicopter but a real problem when you have a tank operating in an urban area with infantry dismounts moving behind you! You need to be very careful when starting up an Abrams and make sure nobody is standing behind the vehicle when the engine fires up.

Also for the record, I served on the M-1 Abrams tank and the M-60A3 tank. I've also spent time on a M-109, M-113, M2/3, M-551, T-72, T-55, BMP-1, and AMX-30. The Abrams is the finest all-around tank in the world today. Other tanks - such as the Merkeva - may have better protection but it comes at the expense of mobility. Others might be faster but sacrifice protection. Others have more powerful cannons but lose accuracy. Show me another vehicle that does it better.

HOLY CRAP!!!

thats all I have to say

I'm not sure where Anonymous comment #2 came up with the $500 dollars a day per solider. As an E-6, I was making about $120 a day.

"340,000 barrels per day, at a conservative price of $100 per barrel, amounts to $3.4m per day in fuel costs. That might seem like a lot, but it's only 1.2% of the total cost of the war ($290m per day). Wages for soldiers (assuming 150,000 of them, at $500 per day) accounts for around $75m. That leaves only about $200m per day left to account for! Just think, we could equip every house in America with solar panels in less than a year. Or we could have universal healthcare.

Nice article, but it kinda misses the point. Of all the things wrong about this war, you chose to pick on fuel economy!"

The Amphibious Assault Vehicle carries a crew of 3 pluse 25 Marines. If you multipuly 1.7mpg times 28 you get 47.6 mpg per person. Thats better milage then a prius with one person in it.