Assessing the Army Power and Energy Efforts for the Warfighter

In this paper we review some of the landscape of research and development on power and energy as it pertains to the needs of the Army warfighter. We focus on the battlefield and consider questions related to vehicles, dismounted soldiers, and forward operating bases. The literature in the overall field of energy research is immense; we make no attempt to review all these reports but rather have looked at a few selected studies that focus on the military challenges. The context of the study is twofold: the National need to reduce the use of petroleum-based fuels and the Army's need to reduce the logistical burden and hazards of moving said fuels on the battlefield. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted the danger inherent in transporting supplies over terrain that is difficult to render safe from terrorist raids and hidden explosives. The Army seeks to reduce this dependence by improving the fuel efficiency for uses that cannot now be entirely supplied by alternatives. These efforts will also provide the opportunity to save a great deal of money and reduce the number of personnel in the logistics chain. Needless to say, there will still be convoys carrying other supplies to forward bases. However, any reduction in the amount of supplies convoyed will be desirable.