====== Electric Power ======

In the spring of 2003, at the height of the Iraq War, the U.S. military machine almost lurched to a stop. A terrible and unforeseen crisis gripped combat units from Basra to Baghdad: they were running out of BA5590, military-speak for the principal radio battery in use with U.S. forces. Without BA5590s, units would go offline, one by one, and back to the days of General Custer.

The problem was caused by a number of logistics snafus. Ships full of BA5590s were steaming toward Iraq, but the
war kicked off while the ships were days from port. Meanwhile, frontline soldiers were throwing away batteries
half-used rather than fully draining them, in an effort to keep their equipment topped up at all times. Each combat
division was using over 3,000 batteries a day – three or four times the predicted rate! It took several weeks of round-the-clock shifts at stateside battery plants – and a lot of creative borrowing from other U.S. units around the globe – before the crisis fully abated.

The lesson is simple: High-tech gadgetry can be a wonderful advantage, the linchpin in the heroes’ plan... but the best encrypted cellular phone or latest palmtop computer is just an expensive paperweight without power.

  * [[:rpg:gurps:core:equipment:core_technologies:power:electric:fuel|Fuel]]
  * [[:rpg:gurps:core:equipment:core_technologies:power:electric:batteries|Batteries]]
  * [[:rpg:gurps:core:equipment:core_technologies:power:electric:generators|Generators]]
  * [[:rpg:gurps:core:equipment:core_technologies:power:electric:energy_collectors|Energy Collectors]]
  * [[:rpg:gurps:core:equipment:core_technologies:power:electric:beamed_broadcast_power|Beamed and Broadcast Power]]