December 9, 2024 - 12:45pm
The Ministry of Defence is reportedly ramping up testing of battlefield electronic vehicles (EVs). Defence Secretary John Healey has hailed the venture as a means “to improve the […] environmental performance of military vehicles”. If Britain is to fight a war, the present Labour government seems intent that it will do so without releasing too much carbon into the atmosphere.
The pushback from military officers has been intense. Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp called it “virtue-signalling”. Admiral Lord West said that the endeavour gave him a “horrible feeling”. Meanwhile, Colonel Tim Collins, who commanded the Royal Irish in Iraq, asked: “What is driving this? Is it battlefield necessity or fashion?” There is no doubt, evidently, that this is another example of boutique political and cultural issues overriding any desire for competence in British institutions.
But it goes deeper than that. The reality is that the Labour government is intent on handing over the limited resources left in the British military’s kitty to friendly contractors. Magtec, a defence firm that specialises in the electrification of vehicles, has scored £400,000 in contracts since July. While this is a drop in the bucket relative to the overall size of the military budget, it is yet another indication that the British Government long ago stopped focusing on fielding a serious military. Instead, it has reverted to ideological box-ticking.
When the Houthis started harassing ships in the Red Sea a year ago, Britain controversially refused to send an aircraft carrier to the region, instead favouring bombing campaigns run out of an RAF base in Cyprus. Reports at the time pointed to a staffing crisis which meant that the Royal Navy could only field a support vessel. A few weeks after Britain refused to commit its aircraft carrier, it turned out that the HMS Queen Elizabeth was unable to take part in Nato exercises due to problems with its propeller.
Nor are the problems limited to Britain’s aircraft carriers. In February of this year, the Royal Navy tried to test-launch a missile from its Trident submarine. It failed for the second time in a row and the missile crashed into the sea. The MoD insisted that the British nuclear deterrent “remains safe, secure and effective”, but it is not clear how it could evaluate this after two failed tests in a row. The reality is that the Trident nuclear deterrent has not been successfully tested in a decade.
This should be of particular concern after Keir Starmer’s long campaign to allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles into Russia resulted in Moscow launching its new Oreshnik missile against a target in Dnipro. The missile arrived from its launch site in Astrakhan within minutes of being fired and very likely caught those operating Nato’s early-warning radar systems by surprise. If this had been a nuclear strike, would Trident have been able to launch all its munitions? No one can say for sure.
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SubscribeNot sending a UK aircraft carrier to the Red Sea area, for whatever reason, was very sensible. Aircraft carriers are the battleships of the modern era…obsolete or becoming so. Even the USA has had to move its carrier group out of range of Houthi missiles. The risk just isn’t worth the reward.
As for Trident it is a very, too, expensive piece of posturing which could only be used as part of SIOP which effectively means under USA control. Gordon Brown shouldn’t have renewed it but was frightened of the political backlash. He should have told the electorate the truth ie too costly for its actual utility.
The UK isn’t a world power and hasn’t been for decades. Keeping up the pretence that it is one is costly and ridiculous.
Is it a big surprise that the main goal of upgrading the forces is to fight CO2 emissions? This is presumably what the current government (and others before) regard as ‘the first duty of government: to protect its citizens’. Ministered might cast a glance at more immediate threats, in order to save our country before saving the rest of the world.
We are now officially in the Age of Absurdity. Just look at the composition of our government.
Clearly. The level of absurdity is now Pythonesque. How have we got to this?
I suppose our nuclear deterrent remains as such, in the sense any likely target nation couldn’t be sure our missiles would misfire.
However, where are our military vehicles going to recharge their batteries in the midst of battle? I’m sure our enemies would be most obliging if we ask them nicely.
Have I imagined the existence of EMPs? Or is it science fiction. Although I’m pretty certain Net Zero is also science fiction!
NZ is anti-scientific claptrap. NZ policies have the effect of hurting people and will make zero difference to the climate.
It’s a massive scam that only the seriously naive and easily led have fallen for.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Our invasion of Iraq. Libya’s civil war. Our invasion of Afghanistan. The very first thing targeted was the electricity grid and one of the longest things to fix was (is) the electricity grid.
A helicopter can lift 100x its own need for fuel over 100km. My car can pull a trailer with 1000x its own need for fuel. An EV can barely carry its own need in batteries thanks to the ultra low energy density. So how on a battlefield are we supplying electricity? Sending a small modular nuclear reactor into a combat zone?! Spending 3 months erecting hectares of wind or solar arrays that are easily destroyed by artillary?! Or sending loads of diesel generators and wasting 20% of the fuel energy converting it to electricity when we could have put the fuel in the vehicle?!
Of course, none of the above. When you realise the problems created by net zero are intentional, it all makes sense. Politicians who in their younger days railed against the nation state and despised the military are hiding behind net zero to destroy both. Watermelons: green on the outside and red in tooth and claw international socialists on the inside.
And of course, the taxpayer is paying for this nonsense.
Batteries that take hours to charge, can be depleted in a split second as I have been forced to observe on countless occasions in my capacity as a crime-tech-demo-dummy in leafy Melbourne, Australia. Unless you have an external power-bank fully charged handy, you are stuck.
Power leads can be sabotaged remotely also, without any external signs of damage. There is no indication of of charging disruption until the item powered by electricity is expected to be charged & functioning.
How has net zero managed to supersede absolutely everything else, up to and including national security?
It’s simple. Global warming is the literal end of the world, the end of humankind and maybe all life on the planet. The literal apocalypse justifies everything. This is why hardcore greens are by far the most dangerous political faction should they ever gain power. There will be no limits, none, as to how far they’re willing to go to ‘save the planet’.
Should be a designated terrorist group
It’s a religion. That’s how.
Perhaps we should’ve thought of this before blowing up the Nord Stream. Also how much CO2 does a Storm Shadow explosion release?
I can remember from the late 1980s trying to source some military spec batteries (the temperature range for mil spec is -40X to +125C) to back up an electronic system when the power went off. It was almost impossible then – only an Israeli company came close.
My point here is that there are a whole load of core functional requirements military kit needs to meet before luxury environmental considerations even get a look in. Or rather, should get a look in. Just make the kit work reliably first. Which is quite hard enough already.
But the MoD and defence procurement rotted decades ago. DEI and net zero are only the latest manifestation.
if you look at the foreseeable consequences of such actions as goals, they make a lot more sense. That does not make these actions good things, but it does explain them far better than pretending that the people in charge are incompetent or stupid. While they can be those things, they can also be malevolent.
This reminds of the time time Ron Paul was asked [about the US government bureaucracy]”
“Are they stupid, or are they evil?”
…to which he replied:
“Yes.”
These are profoundly unserious people. I’m sure they have embedded all the noxious DEI practices in the military as well.
If military operations can be carried with a lower environmental price, why not? Not at the expense of efficiency, of course. Net Zero must not be complied to at the expense of military goals themselves.
The problem I see with this text and the comments below is that considering anything from an Net Zero perspective — or from any environmental point of view whatsoever — seems to be blasphemous in itself. As if military affairs were just an excuse to bash again on anything environmental.
I think this is fair. The author failed to mention that Labour actually thinks EV war machinery will be just as effective. Unfortunately, this notion is batshit crazy. Recharging military equipment in the heat of battle is not an option.
NZ has nothing to do with helping the environment or climate. Policies based on NZ demands are doomed to fail.
Military activities by definition are not good for the environment. That is not any part of their purpose. For example, nuclear weapons….
It is a truly frightening reflection of today’s world that anyone can even think or believe this statement… let alone express it in sincere belief!
“The MoD insisted that the British nuclear deterrent “remains safe, secure and effective””
When the Government are lying to us they could at least try to invent different phrases.
Just like the other shots then.
Just imagine, WWIII is on the brink, Putin is on his deathbed and a civil war is raging across Russia, spilling over into Europe. The British land army is arrayed in full technological splendor in the Crimea as part of NATO, bravely trying to restore order with the very latest high tech machinery.
In the midst of a fierce battle, Sergent Major Tommy English, resplendent in his magnificent Victorian moustache, is wandering around a small bombed town as the locals flee, erm, looking for an EV charging point so he can restart the three dozen jeeps in is Division. With his loud hailer he is pleading: “где ближайшая станция зарядки электромобилей??”.
This would be hilarious, if it weren’t so likely.
Like Clare O’Neil’s carefully staged photo-shoots pouting with squinty eyes & heroine hairdo threatening hackers GLOBALLY that 100 Australian experts were “hunting them down” before they could hurt Australian interests (1). Clare O’Neil was Australia’s Minister for Cyber Security & Home Affairs in 2022.
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(1) https :// www .smh .com.au/politics/federal/we-will-hunt-them-down-o-neil-signals-more-action-on-medibank-hack-20221113-p5bxsi.html
The author needs to look at the sub-text. Healey is quietly signalling that the British Army will not be deployed outside battery range from a Waitrose.
War is extremely carbon intensive. A true net zero zealot would persuade Zelinski that only abject surrender will save the planet. Never mind the collateral Ukrainian human damage. Trump was clearly better for the planet than Biden since fewer wars were waged under his watch.
Assuming that this country is being run by a cabal of its enemies is the only way to make sense of such utter lunacy.
Invited to what us even former Foot Guards call a ” Jimmy’s lunch” at St James’s Palace Officers Mess, by a young Officer I assisted in introducing and recruiting, I discovered that thanks to Burger King Charles, there is ” No smoking” even on the deck balcony outside- far worse, those on Guard cannot have a smoke anywhere, even outside, in the environs of Buck House- This says volumes for the real respect Burger King has for his Household Division soldiers, and about the man himself.
More displacement activity, with the added bonus that our cash is handed to their grifter mates. This is literally all the government does these days, whatever department you look at.
I think the Ministry of Defence and Labour’s Defence Secretary may have misunderstood the word “battery” when used in a military context.
The strength of the British Army is pathetic on the world stage. Whether it rides to battle in fossil-fueled APCs or one’s propelled by electricity will make very little difference to its impact in any strategic war!
Will the last one out of Net Zero please turn on the light
3 points why electric vehicles are dicey for civilians, plainly insane for military use based on the flaunted capabilities of the MARCUCCI, one of Australia’s crime dynasties in leafy Melbourne since 2009:
1) it has been possible to deplete batteries, to sabotage power-leads remotely without any defence or remedy by 2021. Since power leads are not meant to malfunction, there are no alarms signalling failure to charge. No one can empty a vehicle’s fuel-tank remotely.
2) everything computerised is hackable. A vehicle controlled by a hacker is a deadly missile in motion: deadly for people trapped inside as much as people in the vehicle’s path. It is extremely naive to expect anything computerised to remain permanently unhackable.
3) since all computerised systems are hackable, electric vehicles can be turned against their own via falsified displays, altered functions or as missiles.
No one knows, EVER, what capabilities are in crime arsenals. Snowden, Manning, Teixeira haven’t been the only opportunists & information isn’t the only valuable thing to steal. The MARCUCCI were experts at hacking car electronics by 2015.
I stopped experimenting with defences in 2022, when I was subjected to a Faraday Cage breach in my suburban home in Melbourne (1) minding my own, mundane business.
I lost over a million $ + more than a decade of my life from 2009 trying to first retain, then regain my ability to earn a salary, to function, to at least live without ongoing crimes in physical & cyber-space. There is no point in moving in Australia, unless I become a homeless fugitive always on the run. In Australia voting is compulsory. Government insiders like the stalker ex-coworker whom I never even dated will always know where I live, where everyone lives, where to find people in witness protection. I am too old to keep running, to outraged to commit suicide: hence my public interest disclosures like this one. People need to know the threat Australia’s lawlessness poses to the industrialised world. Australia faked its way into AUKUS, the Five Eyes, the Quad, etc.
Australia never had functional law-enforcement. There is no authority to which it would be safe, let alone effective to try to report what technology capabilities are in crime arsenals. Don’t be fooled by the grotesque incompetence, babe-in-the-woods cluelessness of Australia’s princes & princesses in ministerial roles like Chris Bowen & Clare O’Neil. Australia’s organised crime is world-class. My last, forced warcrime experience was less than 2hours ago involving DARPA-grade technology in the million $ home I have owned since 2001 in an expensive Melbourne suburb, in Clare O’Neil’s electorate. I am writing this comment at 1:27pm on 12 December 2024.
No one knows how many crime dynasties like the MARCUCCI feature insiders from Australian government / military / adversarial-technology-agency entities.
The MARCUCCI have been delivering crimes at industrial scale, professional consistency & quality, with an unmissable Italian flair since before 2009, breaking into buildings & vehicles, using technology far beyond what civilian experts know about to discredit crime witnesses & victims in addition to devastating them. Technology the MARCUCCI’s victims pay for via their taxes. MARCUCCI men stand out via elaborate tattoos, ear-ornaments, musketeer-type facial hair, in addition to their often grotesquely pear shaped bodies. MARCUCCI women are enthusiastic participants in crime: their glee is unmissable, as they deliver voice-to-skull assaults against those, who refuse to aid crime.
Crime witness/victim discreditation via bizarre crimes, using vastly disproportionate means to achieve nonsensical outcomes have been staple prosecution avoidance strategies by Australia’s criminal police officers likely ever since Australia existed. See Raymond T. Hoser’s work.
See my ‘perfect crimes’ & ‘contactless extortion’ LinkedIn articles for more information about Australia’s absurd crime reality, the capabilities flaunted by Australia’s organised-crime participants like toddlers show off a new puppy.
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(1) Faraday Cage breach was doable by 2022, definitely NOT trivial:
https ://blog.avast .com/exploiting-air-gaps-avast