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In theory anything that burns...
In practice using actual fuel is probably the best idea.

I did recently see a History Channel programme that talked about refitting the US main battle tank so it could run on a variety of differrent fuels - don't know if these has happened with our Challengers or other nations now or previously.

I thought they we considering retiring the Abrams tank completely.

I also have heard about a new type of vehicle that is in the ideas stage. A chassies that can be a variety of vehicles, from Light tank to APC to fire support vehicle. Kinda like how the Rhino chassies is the basis for Predators, Whirlwinds, and Razorbacks.

Grey Templar wrote:I thought they we considering retiring the Abrams tank completely.

In the US military? Not going to happen. US is even developing the M1A3 upgrade kit right now to make them more capable on the 21st century battlefield.

Britain is going to retire its tanks eventually though. Closed all tank production facilities and has also stopped training new tank crews. So after the last batch of tank crewmen retire, that's pretty much it. Right now they only have like 300 Challenge 2's anyway, whereas a much smaller country like Israel is approaching 3,000 MBT's.

Why? What is the reason? Budget or strategic?

A number of reasons I guess

We are not often fighting tank battles these days

Israel is more likely to

We can't afford them having gave our taxes to the banks to pay bonuses and pay offs to failed chief execs and the like

So Britian's getting rid of armored forces completely?(Mech infantry exempted)

Harriticus wrote:Britain is going to retire its tanks eventually though. Closed all tank production facilities and has also stopped training new tank crews. So after the last batch of tank crewmen retire, that's pretty much it. Right now they only have like 300 Challenge 2's anyway, whereas a much smaller country like Israel is approaching 3,000 MBT's.

From what I understand, Israel spends a disproportionately high amount of its money on its military. Of course, it does exist in a pretty unstable part of the world, but that's just one more example of why it's not a good comparison for Britain. It would make more sense to compare Britain's military to other European countries.

Yeah, western countries don't spend a major portion of their budget on the military. Israel has to spend a massive portion because they are constantly being attacked/threatened by their neighbors.

I think some Western countries do - notably America - but, yeah, it makes more sense for countries in more dangerous regions.

Its a common misconception that America spends lots of its budget on the army. If we only count the money that we arn't required by law to spend the army is a significant chunk. However its small potatos compared to things like Social Security, interest on the debt, and Medicare which makes up over 70% of the actual money spent, and that is money that can't be touched by the Budget unless Congress changes the laws. Thats where malmost all of the money is, the army has very little cash comparativly.

Defense takes up 20% of the budget, same as social security, so it's not that small of a junk.