- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
Not actually a great idea. You want to train how you fight, and that includes equipment operations and maintenance. Even assuming you created an electric drive train that was a 1-1 match for a diesel in weight, effective range, and performance characteristics, you would really rather odd behavior or operational requirements in your actual drivetrain be discovered during field exercises that push them up to the limits, rather than only discovering them during wartime. Procurement testing never catches all this shit.You could solve this with "power packs". The propulsion of the vehicles are electric, and you can slot in either a battery or a diesel turbine to provide the electricity. For peace time and exercises you'd use the battery, in war time you switch to the diesel turbines. Tanks already use interchangeable power packs like that and replacing the power pack is a matter of hours, the only difference here is that fewer moving parts to transfer energy from the gearbox to the drive sprocket means improved reliability, and since the tanks can be electric during peace time, your army would be a lot more green 99% of the time, without losing the range benefits diesel engines offer during wartime.
If we're talking only using it for purely transport purposes and not even peacetime exercise, then its pointless. Better to tow the damned thing or put it on a flatbed, it'll cost less than keeping two engines for every tank you wanna move floating about.