[nordsieck]

> Airdropping battery packs would appear to be safer than gas right?

This is the most absurd statement I've read on HN in the past week. Just take 20 seconds and think about the logistics of a 60+ ton tank in the middle of nowhere doing a battery swap.

[salty_biscuits]

If (and it is a big if) electric power had an advantage, surely they would just have a support vehicle with a big generator that they could recharge from.

[nordsieck]

> If (and it is a big if) electric power had an advantage, surely they would just have a support vehicle with a big generator that they could recharge from.

On the actual power generation side, electric might have an advantage. But the range and recharging story is just too awkward to make sense. I'm not saying never: if battery power density jumped up 10x, they might be able to make it work. Just not right now.

1. Armored vehicles can have enormous gas tanks. The Abrams has a 500 gallon gas tank. If needed, it's pretty easy to double the size of the tank by strapping 10 5-gallon gas cans to the size of the vehicle. I just don't see how current battery technology could hope to compete with that.

2. The vehicle that refuels front line troops is the HEMTT. It carries 2500 gallons of petroleum and can fuel 2 vehicles at a time, maybe 5-10 times faster than a gas station.

That means that these vehicles can drive up to the front lines, fuel up vehicles and leave quickly so that they're less of a target and the front line vehicles can get back to doing what they need to do quickly.

In your generator scenario, you still need the fuel trucks, but there's an additional truck that has to sit there, charging vehicles for a long time.

I just don't see it working.