Is it possible they are intentionally shipped like this to reduce fire risk in transit, and field maintenance is expected before they are battle ready, and this is so much FAKE NEWS?!?!?
Yup. On all counts.
No trivial thing to spool-up a gas turbine tank engine with weak batteries. Put these tanks on a fast transport for a week/10-days without the ability to fire up the engines regularly to charge those batteries — heck, what do you expect?