Army's next battle: Fuel, transportation costs: Gen. Thompson says hybrid-electric tactical vehicles offer a viable alternative.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

Confronting growing fuel and transportation costs, the U.S. Army has no choice but to start fielding fuel-efficient trucks, officials said. The Army, additionally, needs to finds ways to control the escalating expenses associated with maintaining a fleet of nearly 240,000 trucks.

One way to do that is to have "fewer, but more capable trucks," said Maj. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III, head of the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments command. In the long term, he said, the Army will be able to save billions of dollars in logistics-related costs by consolidating the number of truck types it uses currently and by adopting hybrid-electric vehicles.

"If the trucks are more capable, you don't need as many of them. Even if they are more expensive and more capable, you can still save by having fewer drivers, mechanics and handlers," Thompson said in an interview during a conference hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association, in Monterey, Calif.

The Army obviously will not be able to just have one type of truck, he noted. It always will need light, medium and heavy trucks. "There will be a range of sizes, but as much as possible, common components across all the fleets."

The current fleet of 238,000 trucks, over time, will become smaller, "unless the Army goes up in size," said Thompson.

Between 1987 and 2007, the Army's heavy truck fleet will grow from 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles. The medium fleet, meanwhile, will shrink from 206,000 to 83,000 and light trucks will go from 174,000 down to 124,000. Annual funding for truck programs is about $1.2 billion. This account is expected to rise to $2 billion by 2007.

Thompson is adamant about the Army's need to replace gas-guzzlers with fuel-efficient vehicles, likely to be diesel-electric hybrids, he said. "I think there should be a 50 percent fuel-efficiency requirement in current vehicles.

"If I have a truck that gets 30-50 percent fuel economy, then I don't need as many 5,000-gallon fuel tankers [or] as many fuel handlers. If I have on-board load-handling equipment to do the lifting, I don't need the cranes and forklifts."

In hybrid power drives, the methodology for generating power can either be through an internal combustion engine (gas or diesel), turbo shaft (turbine), fuel cells or all electric (batteries only).

For military vehicles, experts agree the most desirable system is a hybrid-diesel, where a small diesel engine powers a generator and charges the battery. This technology provides on-board electric power, which means that the Army would bring fewer generators to the battlefield, said Thompson. In a word of advice to the industry, he added, "I don't think that I would invest in generator companies that support the U.S. Army, or in trailer companies that are used to transport generators."

The Army goes through 200 million gallons of fuel a year, resulting in annual expenses of $3.5 billion, including transportation and labor. Even nominal savings in fuel consumption could result in significant cost reductions, Thompson said. Fuel and water currently constitute about 60-90 percent of the short tons the Army takes to the battlefield. Further, about 55 percent of the fuel is consumed, not by the front-line forces, but in the echelons above corps and rear units.

The Army Brigade Combat Teams, each with 959 vehicles, would greatly benefit from hybrid power drives, he said. According to a TACOM study, if all the vehicles in the brigade were hybrid, the unit would increase its range by 180 miles on a single tank of fuel, and would need 4,000 fewer gallons of fuel for every 100 miles.

Of the top 10 battlefield fuel users in the Army, said Thompson, four are trucks: the heavy line haul truck, the medium tactical truck, the heavy-equipment transport and the Humvee.

Despite the enthusiasm about hybrid-electric vehicles, Thompson acknowledged that...