jhungary
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The more the better?? This is what I often heard in this forum. Time and again you will hear some poster saying they will build 7 Aircraft Carriers, 5000 Tanks, and 10,000 Helicopters and so on. But are there any truths to it?
Of course you can build 20,000 Helicopter, but that does not mean you can operate them all, and especially when you are talking about forward deployment or overseas deployment. Problem is, Logistic is often neglected to many people here. One needs to know, soldier can't teleport. That means everything from soldier to truck, guns, tanks, tents, toilet down to each meal and bullet were brought into battle field by some mean. That mean logistic solution will be involved one way or another.
So, it really doesn't matter how many tank you can make, or how many helicopter you can make, it doesn't matter. What matter is how you bring your stuff into battle?
So, military logistic is an important field in any Military. It directly affect how any military fight a war, either home front or aboard. Problem as far as I can see is, this is a 4 years degree so I am not going to make it clear for you overnight, but I will try and outline how Military Logistic is conduct and how important it is to a marching Army.
Let's break down a Military force first, shall we? In any military, you would have a land component, an air component and a maritime component. So, let's make it clear and out in the open first, it's very easy that your land component only limited on land and the naval component limited at sea and so on. You also need to recognize that land supply route is slow, vulnerable and can only move tiny bit of stuff. Where naval supply route would be even slower, vulnerability depend on how strong is your navy, but can hold the most stuff at one haul. Air supply (Not the band) route were the fastest, less risky but can haul even less than trucks.
Ok, that's the limitation of each branch. So what come next??
Next we need to determine the type of operation. It can be either a local operation where you would have land connection with in your AO, or it would be an overseas operation, where you are sending your troop over the oceans to fight a war. But either way, what you are looking for is a simple word "Sustainability"
Equilibrium of Force
So why can't we just build 10,000 helicopters and use them? The idea is quite simple, but the implication is not. See, everything in battlefield need support, support comes in a form of anything, it can be shell for the tanks, fuel for the helicopter, or even mechanic for your truck. There are limit for everything, Say for example in the US, on average we have 10,000 commercial flight entering or exiting US Airspace every day. And each flight would require an Air Traffic Controller to guide them to their destination, either inbound or outbound.
And each air traffic controller needed a radar scope and a place to work in, that's called air traffic control centre. And each air traffic control centre are built to only accommodate certain amount of radar scope, hence limited the number of ATC can operate out of a single traffic centre, hence limited the number of Aircraft they can handle. What if we want to increase the amount of plane to 20,000? By definition you will need twice as many ATC, twice as many Radar scope, and twice as much space in your Traffic centre.
So, if we break it down, to increase 1 plane capability (1 entity) you need to increase 3 support services (ATC, Space in Traffic Centre and Radar scope). In the field we call it exponential factors. Now, think of the problem this way, you only got a limited number of ATC you can train every year. And you only got so much space you can build your traffic control centre. And you only have so many radar scopes, that mean there would be a limit to how many plane you can guide. And don't forget, even we can train ATC, build more radar scope and build a bigger Traffic Control centre, those 3 entities would require another set of support on their own.
And you know what you get in the end, since no one in this world have unlimited resource. Now, look at any battlefield. You have your tank, helicopter, jeep, truck, artillery, command post, base and all those are a single entity. Now, let's work it out one by a time. Say you deployed 4 tanks on your AO and those 4 tanks would require a team of mechanic and technician to fix and maintain. Those 4 tanks also require tanks parts for said maintenance, shell and ammunition for the tanks and fuel.
Then each of those mechanics would have to eat, drink and satisfied their basic daily routine too, that mean foods, drinks, lodging, firearms and ammunition and above all, the soldier who protect those mechanics.
Then your soldier protecting those mechanics would also need to have the same food, lodging, drinks, ammunition and firearms.
And what is going to bring in all the supply? Say you brought them in with trucks and helicopters. Then somewhere at some place, you have to have the same entity (Soldier, lodging, food, drinks and etc) for those trucks and helicopter too.
So, are you getting the point now?
Each element present in a battlefield would require some sort of support, and by increasing only a single one entity, it would upset the whole equation in multiple fold. The problem is, in war, we operate on limited resource. The idea of getting more would have required resupply and resource to increase exponentially.
The only way to get out of this equation is to limit the troop in the AO or frontline as to maximize the resource you can allocated in a given AO.
So, why can’t we put 5000 helicopter in a battlefield even if you can make them? Simple, if you want to put 5000 helicopter in a battlefield, you would have to have a way to supply and support it and as I mentioned before, the support in need will rise exponentially. Otherwise of course you can put 5,000 helicopters, if you just want them to sit there doing nothing.
However, the reverse is also true in this occasion. How many troop and equipment you can put in a given area is directly related to how many support unit you can spare in given area too.
Say you want to put 5000 troops on a shore, you would physically need either 5 ships that can load 1000 troop each or 50 ships that can load 100 troop each. Well, otherwise you can’t just have those troops to swim ashore right? If you remember carefully, you would recall the number of support is limited to the number of resource you can handle. So the question you need to ask is, can your home network handle those support element that come down to the same question as before. Indeed you can build 5 1000 passenger troop ship, but can your coast/dry dock handle it??
While there are no actual figure how many troop you can send aboard and how many troop you can support with each country. But the ball park figure of each country would not be more than 10% of their own total force. With the exception of the United States, which at each different war they fought in the last 50 years, they achieve a whopping 20-25% supporting rate.
So what if you chew more than you can handle?
Time and again, war fought with limited resource and the only way to resolve this problem is to conquer and use the local resource, come to think of it, it is often the course of war. During WW2, both Japan and Germany were involved in the land grab campaign simply because they do not have enough resource and land to develop.
While Germany depend on the oil field in Caucasus, as well as mineral rich Sweden and Norway and the Japanese depend on the oil field in Dutch East Indies and the mineral rich south Pacific.
When a war time economy becoming increasingly depend on outside help, this would present a weak link toward the whole war. Instead of attacking the Enemy head on, you simply need to attack the point where the enemy resupply.
Problem is, this is happening even in today world. You see resource being throw up and down in a battle, and in the end, there is only one factor that govern the whole balance of battlefield, and that is resource, and what govern how those resource being distributed?? That’s the art of Logistic.
Local Operation
So, how to sustain your operation when you are fighting a near enemy with land connection, apparently you don't need to use your naval element.
There are many way to supply a force inland, but what you need to look at is the accessibility of the item. The key is to establish your supply line as short as possible. Long supply route pronged to enemy attacks. It's absolutely imperative that you establish your supply routes as short as possible. However, things may not always get what you want. Say you are 500 mile away from the closest airstrip. You can’t just keep setting up check point after checkpoint over every 50 meters. That mean you have to be supply via a third dimension.
Air Drop are one way where you risk the least than when you have to land and park the cargo plane for unload. The problem with airdrop is there would be a big problem if you do not hold majority of the area you need to supply.
Otherwise road convoy is another option, but with ambush and everything, you need to put effort in and neutralise the enemy in between your supply route. MSR (Paved Road) is clear a candidate for convoy to travel in, but whatever you can think of, the enemy can think of too, so, chance of getting ambushed in a MSR is big.
ASR (Route/Dirt Road) is usually quiet. But then it will take you a long time to get there. And in a country where landmark is not at all that frequent, there are chances to get lost too.
International Operation
Basically it would be the same with local operation; the only different is, now you are separated with your main supply line (Your own country) You need to ship all your supply to and from your own country to your AO.
The only way you can do is by Ship. Although each ship can take heck a lot of supply, but they also take heck a lot of time to get there. So the important thing is to have a constant shipping date set and all your supply/resupply would have to be governed by the shipping date. Simply saying, if the ship ain’t coming, what are there to be distributed??
However, that would also bring us to our usual question. How many ship you can support in the effort?
Conclusion
In the law of logistic, everything is connected. There is no one part that stand out more. When you increase the theatre level, then everything it’s related to have to increase too. While you can have a capacity to make as many equipment as you can, but for each item you make, you have also need to get the supporting item to go with them.
In the end, it never how many stuff you make matters. But how many stuff you can put in the battle, that’s the only thing that count
Of course you can build 20,000 Helicopter, but that does not mean you can operate them all, and especially when you are talking about forward deployment or overseas deployment. Problem is, Logistic is often neglected to many people here. One needs to know, soldier can't teleport. That means everything from soldier to truck, guns, tanks, tents, toilet down to each meal and bullet were brought into battle field by some mean. That mean logistic solution will be involved one way or another.
So, it really doesn't matter how many tank you can make, or how many helicopter you can make, it doesn't matter. What matter is how you bring your stuff into battle?
So, military logistic is an important field in any Military. It directly affect how any military fight a war, either home front or aboard. Problem as far as I can see is, this is a 4 years degree so I am not going to make it clear for you overnight, but I will try and outline how Military Logistic is conduct and how important it is to a marching Army.
Let's break down a Military force first, shall we? In any military, you would have a land component, an air component and a maritime component. So, let's make it clear and out in the open first, it's very easy that your land component only limited on land and the naval component limited at sea and so on. You also need to recognize that land supply route is slow, vulnerable and can only move tiny bit of stuff. Where naval supply route would be even slower, vulnerability depend on how strong is your navy, but can hold the most stuff at one haul. Air supply (Not the band) route were the fastest, less risky but can haul even less than trucks.
Ok, that's the limitation of each branch. So what come next??
Next we need to determine the type of operation. It can be either a local operation where you would have land connection with in your AO, or it would be an overseas operation, where you are sending your troop over the oceans to fight a war. But either way, what you are looking for is a simple word "Sustainability"
Equilibrium of Force
So why can't we just build 10,000 helicopters and use them? The idea is quite simple, but the implication is not. See, everything in battlefield need support, support comes in a form of anything, it can be shell for the tanks, fuel for the helicopter, or even mechanic for your truck. There are limit for everything, Say for example in the US, on average we have 10,000 commercial flight entering or exiting US Airspace every day. And each flight would require an Air Traffic Controller to guide them to their destination, either inbound or outbound.
And each air traffic controller needed a radar scope and a place to work in, that's called air traffic control centre. And each air traffic control centre are built to only accommodate certain amount of radar scope, hence limited the number of ATC can operate out of a single traffic centre, hence limited the number of Aircraft they can handle. What if we want to increase the amount of plane to 20,000? By definition you will need twice as many ATC, twice as many Radar scope, and twice as much space in your Traffic centre.
So, if we break it down, to increase 1 plane capability (1 entity) you need to increase 3 support services (ATC, Space in Traffic Centre and Radar scope). In the field we call it exponential factors. Now, think of the problem this way, you only got a limited number of ATC you can train every year. And you only got so much space you can build your traffic control centre. And you only have so many radar scopes, that mean there would be a limit to how many plane you can guide. And don't forget, even we can train ATC, build more radar scope and build a bigger Traffic Control centre, those 3 entities would require another set of support on their own.
And you know what you get in the end, since no one in this world have unlimited resource. Now, look at any battlefield. You have your tank, helicopter, jeep, truck, artillery, command post, base and all those are a single entity. Now, let's work it out one by a time. Say you deployed 4 tanks on your AO and those 4 tanks would require a team of mechanic and technician to fix and maintain. Those 4 tanks also require tanks parts for said maintenance, shell and ammunition for the tanks and fuel.
Then each of those mechanics would have to eat, drink and satisfied their basic daily routine too, that mean foods, drinks, lodging, firearms and ammunition and above all, the soldier who protect those mechanics.
Then your soldier protecting those mechanics would also need to have the same food, lodging, drinks, ammunition and firearms.
And what is going to bring in all the supply? Say you brought them in with trucks and helicopters. Then somewhere at some place, you have to have the same entity (Soldier, lodging, food, drinks and etc) for those trucks and helicopter too.
So, are you getting the point now?
Each element present in a battlefield would require some sort of support, and by increasing only a single one entity, it would upset the whole equation in multiple fold. The problem is, in war, we operate on limited resource. The idea of getting more would have required resupply and resource to increase exponentially.
The only way to get out of this equation is to limit the troop in the AO or frontline as to maximize the resource you can allocated in a given AO.
So, why can’t we put 5000 helicopter in a battlefield even if you can make them? Simple, if you want to put 5000 helicopter in a battlefield, you would have to have a way to supply and support it and as I mentioned before, the support in need will rise exponentially. Otherwise of course you can put 5,000 helicopters, if you just want them to sit there doing nothing.
However, the reverse is also true in this occasion. How many troop and equipment you can put in a given area is directly related to how many support unit you can spare in given area too.
Say you want to put 5000 troops on a shore, you would physically need either 5 ships that can load 1000 troop each or 50 ships that can load 100 troop each. Well, otherwise you can’t just have those troops to swim ashore right? If you remember carefully, you would recall the number of support is limited to the number of resource you can handle. So the question you need to ask is, can your home network handle those support element that come down to the same question as before. Indeed you can build 5 1000 passenger troop ship, but can your coast/dry dock handle it??
While there are no actual figure how many troop you can send aboard and how many troop you can support with each country. But the ball park figure of each country would not be more than 10% of their own total force. With the exception of the United States, which at each different war they fought in the last 50 years, they achieve a whopping 20-25% supporting rate.
So what if you chew more than you can handle?
Time and again, war fought with limited resource and the only way to resolve this problem is to conquer and use the local resource, come to think of it, it is often the course of war. During WW2, both Japan and Germany were involved in the land grab campaign simply because they do not have enough resource and land to develop.
While Germany depend on the oil field in Caucasus, as well as mineral rich Sweden and Norway and the Japanese depend on the oil field in Dutch East Indies and the mineral rich south Pacific.
When a war time economy becoming increasingly depend on outside help, this would present a weak link toward the whole war. Instead of attacking the Enemy head on, you simply need to attack the point where the enemy resupply.
Problem is, this is happening even in today world. You see resource being throw up and down in a battle, and in the end, there is only one factor that govern the whole balance of battlefield, and that is resource, and what govern how those resource being distributed?? That’s the art of Logistic.
Local Operation
So, how to sustain your operation when you are fighting a near enemy with land connection, apparently you don't need to use your naval element.
There are many way to supply a force inland, but what you need to look at is the accessibility of the item. The key is to establish your supply line as short as possible. Long supply route pronged to enemy attacks. It's absolutely imperative that you establish your supply routes as short as possible. However, things may not always get what you want. Say you are 500 mile away from the closest airstrip. You can’t just keep setting up check point after checkpoint over every 50 meters. That mean you have to be supply via a third dimension.
Air Drop are one way where you risk the least than when you have to land and park the cargo plane for unload. The problem with airdrop is there would be a big problem if you do not hold majority of the area you need to supply.
Otherwise road convoy is another option, but with ambush and everything, you need to put effort in and neutralise the enemy in between your supply route. MSR (Paved Road) is clear a candidate for convoy to travel in, but whatever you can think of, the enemy can think of too, so, chance of getting ambushed in a MSR is big.
ASR (Route/Dirt Road) is usually quiet. But then it will take you a long time to get there. And in a country where landmark is not at all that frequent, there are chances to get lost too.
International Operation
Basically it would be the same with local operation; the only different is, now you are separated with your main supply line (Your own country) You need to ship all your supply to and from your own country to your AO.
The only way you can do is by Ship. Although each ship can take heck a lot of supply, but they also take heck a lot of time to get there. So the important thing is to have a constant shipping date set and all your supply/resupply would have to be governed by the shipping date. Simply saying, if the ship ain’t coming, what are there to be distributed??
However, that would also bring us to our usual question. How many ship you can support in the effort?
Conclusion
In the law of logistic, everything is connected. There is no one part that stand out more. When you increase the theatre level, then everything it’s related to have to increase too. While you can have a capacity to make as many equipment as you can, but for each item you make, you have also need to get the supporting item to go with them.
In the end, it never how many stuff you make matters. But how many stuff you can put in the battle, that’s the only thing that count
