logistics

(lō-jĭs'tĭks, lə-)
n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

1. The aspect of military operations that deals with the procurement, distribution, maintenance, and replacement of materiel and personnel.
2. The management of the details of an operation.

[French logistiques, from logistique, logic (perhaps influenced by loger, to quarter), from Medieval Latin logisticus, of calculation. See logistic.]

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Logistics is a relatively new word used to describe a very old practice: the supply, movement, and maintenance of an armed force both in peacetime and under operational conditions. Most soldiers have an appreciation of the impact logistics can have on operational readiness. Logistic considerations are generally built in to battle plans at an early stage for without them the tanks, APCs, artillery pieces, helicopters, and other aircraft are just numbers on a table of organization and equipment. Unfortunately, it often seems that high-profile weapon systems have had greater priority in resources than the means to support them in the field, be it ammunition, fuel, or spares. For it is logistics that will determine the forces that can be delivered to the theatre of operations, what forces can be supported once there, and what will then be the tempo of operations.

Logistics concerns not only the supply of matériel to an army in times of war, but also the ability of the national infrastructure and manufacturing base to equip, support, and supply the armed forces—the national transportation system to move forces—and its ability to resupply those forces once deployed. Thus it has been said that ‘logisticians are a sad race of men, very much in demand in war, who sink back into obscurity in peace. They deal only with facts but must work for men who merchant in theories. They emerge during war because war is very much fact. They disappear in peace, because in peace, war is mostly theory.’

The practice of logistics, as understood in its modern form, has been around for as long as there have been organized armed forces with which nations have tried to exert pressure on their neighbours. The earliest known standing army was that of the Assyrians at around 700 bc. They had iron weapons, armour, and chariots, were well organized, and could fight over different types of terrain and engage in siege operations. The need to feed and equip a substantial force of that time, along with the means of transportation (i.e. horses, camels, mules, and oxen), would mean that it could not linger in one place for too long. Considerable numbers of followers carrying the matériel necessary to provide sustenance and maintenance to the fighting force would provide essential logistic support.

Both Philip of Macedon and Alexander ‘the Great’ improved upon the art of logistics in their time. Philip realized that the vast baggage train that traditionally followed an army restricted the mobility of his forces, so he did away with much of it and made the soldiers carry much of their equipment and supplies. He also banned dependants. As a result the logistics requirements of his army fell substantially, as the smaller numbers of animals required less fodder, and a smaller number of wagons meant less maintenance and a reduced need for wood to effect repairs. Added to that, the smaller number of cart drivers and lack of dependants meant less food needed to be taken with them, hence fewer carts and animals and a reduced need to forage. Alexander was slightly more lenient than his father as regards women and allowed his men to take their women with them. This was important, given the time they spent away on campaign and also reduced disciplinary problems. He also made extensive use of shipping, with a reasonable sized merchant ship able to carry around 400 tons (406 tonnes), while a horse could carry 200 lb (91 kg) (but needed to eat 20 lb (9.1 kg) of fodder a day, thus consuming its own load every ten days). He never spent a winter, or more than a few weeks on campaign, away from a sea port or navigable river. He even used his enemy's logistics weaknesses against them, as many ships were mainly configured for fighting but not for endurance, so Alexander would blockade the ports and rivers the Persian ships would use for supplies, thus forcing them back to base. He planned to use his merchant fleet to support his campaign in India, with the fleet keeping pace with the army, while the army would provide the fleet with fresh water. However, the monsoons were heavier than usual, and prevented the fleet from sailing. Alexander lost two-thirds of his force, but managed to get to Gwadar where he reprovisioned. The importance of logistics was central to Alexander ‘the Great’'s plans, indeed his mastery of it allowed him to conduct the longest military campaign in history. At the furthest point reached by his army, the river Beas in India, his soldiers had marched 11, 250 miles (18, 101 km) in eight years. Their success depended on his army's ability to move fast by depending on comparatively few animals, by using the sea wherever possible, and on good logistic intelligence.

The Romans made few genuine innovations in logistics, but they profited from applying their characteristic organization to logistic policy and from keeping an army's non-combatant element to a minimum. Their logistics were helped, of course, by the superb infrastructure, including the roads they built as they expanded their empire. However, with the decline in the western Roman empire in the 5th century ad, the art of warfare degenerated, and with it, logistics was reduced to the level of pillage and plunder. It was not until the coming of Charlemagne, and his use of large supply trains and fortified supply posts called ‘burgs’, that logistics was again taken seriously in the West.

The Byzantine empire did not suffer from the same decay as its western counterpart. It adopted a defensive strategy, recognizing that expansion of territory is costly in men and material. Thus their logistics problems were simplified—they had interior lines of communication, and could shift base far more easily in response to an attack than if they were in conquered territory. They used shipping and considered it vital to keep control of the Dardanelles, Bosporus, and Sea of Marmara. On campaign they made extensive use of permanent warehouses or magazines, to supply troops.

In the West, feudalism was a means to provide for the logistic support of the armoured horseman in peacetime. However, when medieval armies took the field their logistic provision was usually scanty. During the Crécy campaign of 1346 an English knight wrote: ‘we have lived off the countryside with great difficulty and much harm to our men.’ The chevauchée was a tactic which enabled a force to sustain itself by moving through enemy territory, thereby solving its own logistic problems and stripping its opponent of resources. Sieges posed particular problems. While the besieged would generally have a stock of provisions, the besieger would usually eat up his rations quickly, and then have to send foraging parties ever wider to find more.

Medieval armies were generally small: the English force beaten at Bannockburn was, at 20, 000, unusually large. Armies this size could generally cope by a judicious mixture of living off the land and carrying some of their provisions with them. But as armies grew bigger in the 17th century so their problems multiplied. Primitive logistics turned the armies of the Thirty Years War into huge destructive maggots that gnawed their way across the countryside, biting ever deeper if others had passed that way before. Well might Cardinal Richelieu write that ‘History knows more armies ruined by want and disorder than by the efforts of their enemies.’

By 1700 an army of 60, 000 men needed 45 tons (45.7 tonnes) of bread a day, the product of 60 portable bread-ovens and 200 wagonloads of fuel. Its 40, 000 horses ate 500 tons (508 tonnes) of fodder a day in the campaigning season, falling to 250 tons (254 tonnes) in winter quarters. The French war administrator Michel le Tellier took the lead in calculating the ration requirements of an army, arranging for civilian contractors to supply food, and setting up a wagon train with provision reserves. His son Louvois developed the magazine system, already used since classical times, to ensure that frontier fortresses were well stocked with supplies which could be moved out to the armies by wagon or barge. Yet although the French established a corps of intendants to supervise supply and expenditure, the system still depended on contractors who required payment, and upon civilian drivers who were not proof against war's alarms. Moreover, the need to feed horses made war a largely seasonal affair: not for nothing did Mars, the Roman god of war, give his name to the month when campaigning could traditionally start.

Napoleon was able to take advantage of the better road system of the early 19th century and the increasing population density, but ultimately still relied upon a combination of magazines and foraging. While many Napoleonic armies abandoned tents to increase speed and lighten the logistic load, the numbers of cavalry and artillery pieces (pulled by horses) grew as well, thus defeating the object. The lack of tents actually increased the instance of illness and disease, putting greater pressure on the medical system. Despite careful preparation, Napoleon failed the logistics test when he crossed the Nieman in 1812 to start his Russian campaign. He started with around 450, 000 men and reached Moscow with just over 100, 000 excluding stragglers. The battle of Borodino only partly explains the shortfall. He had known the logistics system would not sustain his army on the road to Moscow and keep it there. He gambled that he could force the Russians to the negotiating table and dictate terms. He failed, and so had to retreat, a venture which logistic breakdown (as much as the weather or Russian pursuit) turned into a rout. The pursuing Russian army did little better, starting at Kaluga with 120, 000 men and finally reaching Vilna with 30, 000.

The American civil war foreshadowed future warfare, particularly as regards logistics. Both sides were determined, with large populations to draw recruits from, and (more notably in the case of the North) the means to equip them. This laid the foundations for a long war, one which would not be determined by one or two battles but by several campaigns, and which would hinge upon the will to sustain the war-fighting capability (material and morale). This meant that a logistics infrastructure would have to be set up to cater for the movement of large armies, as well as the supply of food, ammunition, equipment, spare parts, fresh horses and their fodder, and the evacuation of casualties (of which there would be greater numbers than ever).

Strategy took into consideration not only the combatants' own logistic requirements, but those of the enemy as well. That principle meant that Grant was able to fix Lee in Virginia and enabled Sherman to march to Atlanta to destroy the Confederates' major communications and supply centre, and hence on to Savannah. Lastly, it was the first major war in which railways played an important part, speeding up the movement of troops and supplies. But it also warned of the consequences of having a large army tied to the railway system for the majority of its supplies, as McClellan found out in both the Richmond peninsular campaign and after the battle of Antietam. Most European observers had lost interest in the war early on, but a few were impressed with the support given by the Union navy to the Union army in tactical and logistic terms, and the use of railway repair battalions to keep the rail systems functioning. The two lessons they missed or forgot were the growing importance of field fortifications and the increasing rate of ammunition expenditure.

During the second half of the 19th century, partly in response to failures like those in the Crimean war, the logistic services of armies became increasingly militarized, staffed by officers and men accountable to the chain of command. It was evident that maintaining a nucleus of transport officers to manage hastily drafted peasant carters would not meet the demands of modern war. Service corps troops drove and maintained wagons, specialist railway troops were responsible for the maintenance and repair of the permanent way, and as the internal combustion engine made its presence felt in the early 20th century so service corps troops took that in their stride.

The age-old disdain of combat troops for those who supplied them was reflected in the nicknames service troops received (see slang). In Britain the Army Service Corps was known, after a popular music hall character, as Ally Sloper's Cavalry, and the initials of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps were alleged to stand for Really I am So Common. The German army of WW I coined the unkind expression Ettappenschweine (lines of communication pigs), and the French army of the 19th century had a long and acrimonious dispute over whether officials of its Intendance (military commissariat) might be regarded as ‘proper’ officers.

WW I was unlike anything that had gone before it. Not only did the armies, particularly the Germans in 1914, outstrip their logistic systems with the amount of men, equipment, and horses moving at a fast pace, but they totally underestimated the ammunition requirements (particularly for artillery). Once the war became trench-bound, supplies were needed to build fortifications that stretched across the whole of the western front. Added to that were the scale of the casualties involved, the difficulty in building up for an attack (husbanding supplies), and then sustaining the attack once it had gone in (if any progress was made, supplies had to be carried over the morass of no man's land). It was no wonder that the war in the west was conducted at a snail's pace, given the logistic problems. It was not until 1918 that the British, learning the lessons of the last four years, finally showed how an offensive should be carried out, with supply tanks and motorized gun sledges helping to maintain the pace of the advance, and to maintain supply well away from the railheads and ports. It was no longer true to say that supply was easier when armies kept on the move. From 1914, the reverse applied, because of the huge expenditure of ammunition, and the consequent expansion of transport to lift it forward to the consumers.

This of course, was a foretaste of WW II. The conflict was global in size and scale. Not only did combatants have to supply forces at ever-greater distances from the home base, but these forces were fast moving, and voracious in their consumption of fuel, food, water, and ammunition. Railways again proved indispensable, but sealift and airlift made ever greater contributions as the war dragged on (especially with the use of amphibious and airborne forces, as well as underway replenishment for naval task forces). The large-scale use of motorized transport for tactical resupply helped maintain the momentum of offensive operations, and most armies became more motorized as the war progressed. The Germans, although moving to greater use of motorized transport, still relied on horse transport to a large extent—a fact worth noting in the failure of BARBAROSSA. After the fighting had ceased, the operations staffs could relax somewhat, whereas the logisticians had not only to supply the occupation forces, but also relocate those forces that were demobilizing, repatriate POWs, and feed civil populations. The principal logistic legacy of WW II was the expertise in supplying far-off operations.

With the end of WW II, the tensions that had been held in check by the common goal to defeat fascism finally came to the fore. The Cold War started in around 1948 and was given impetus by the Berlin blockade, the formation of NATO, and the Korean war. The period was characterized by the change in the global order from one dominated by empires to a roughly bipolar world, split between the superpowers and their alliance blocs. The deadlock between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe made battlefield logistics relatively simple. The principal logistic requirement would be to keep open the transatlantic sea lines of communication. However, the continued activity by both blocs in the Third World meant that both sides continued to draw on the experience of power projection from the war. East and West continued to have to prepare for both limited conflicts in the Third World, which would vary between low-intensity operations (Aden, Central America, Malaya, Mau Mau, and Afghanistan) and ‘medium-intensity’ conventional operations (Korea, the Falklands) often conducted well away from the home base, and an all-out confrontation involving high-intensity conventional and/or nuclear conflict. Both sides had to deal with the spiralling rate of defence inflation, while weapon systems increased in both cost and complexity, having implications for the procurement process, as defence budgets could not increase at the same rate.

The ending of the Cold War has had profound effects upon the philosophy of, and approach to, military logistics. The long-held approach of stockpiling of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles at various strategic sites around the expected theatre of operations and in close proximity to the lines of communications which was possible when the threat and its axes of attack were known, is no longer the optimum method in the new era of force projection and manoeuvre warfare. ‘High tech’ weapons are also difficult to replace. Even the USAF started to run short of smart munitions during the 1999 attacks on the former Yugoslavia.

With pressure on defence budgets and the need to be able to undertake a (possibly larger) number of (smaller) operational tasks than had previously been considered there has been a closer examination of the approach of commercial organizations to logistics. The total-process view of the supply chain necessary to support commercial business is now being adopted by, and adapted within, the military environment. Hence initiatives such as ‘Lean Logistics’ and ‘Focussed Logistics’ as developed in the US Department of Defense and acknowledged by the UK Ministry of Defence in the so-called ‘Smart Procurement’, recognize the importance of logistics within a ‘cradle to grave’ perspective. This means relying less on the total integral stockholding and transportation systems, and increasing the extent to which contractorization logistic support to military operations is farmed out to civilian contractors—as it was in the 18th century. Force projection and manoeuvre warfare blur the distinction between the long-held first-, second-, and third-line support concept of the static Cold War philosophy and link the logistics' supply chain more closely with the home base than ever before.

One of the reasons for the defeat of the British in North America in 1776 was the length of time involved in replenishing the forces from a home base some 3, 000 miles (4, 827 km) away. The same was true of Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, with a 4, 000 mile (6, 436 km) supply line along a single track railway. While the distances involved may still be great in today's operational environment, logistic philosophies and systems are being geared to be more responsive in a way that could not have been previously envisaged.

The five principles of logistics accepted by NATO are foresight, economy, flexibility, simplicity, and co-operation. They are just as true today as they were in the times of the Assyrians and Romans. The military environment in which they can be applied is considerably different, and, as can be seen in the Balkans in the late 20th century, adopting and adapting military logistics to the operational scenario is an essential feature for success. As FM Wavell said in 1946: ‘A real knowledge of supply and movement factors must be the basis of every leader's plan; only then can he know how and when to take risks with these factors, and battles and wars are won by taking risks.’

Bibliography

• Christopher, M., Logistics and Supply Chain Management (London, 1992).
• Foxton, P. D., Powering War: Modern Land Force Logistics (London, 1994).
• Lynn, John A., Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford, 1993).
• Sinclair, Joseph, Arteries of War: A History of Military Transportation (Shrewsbury, 1992).
• Thompson, Julian, Lifeblood of War: Logistics in Armed Conflict (London, 1998).
• Van Creveld, Martin, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge, 1995)

— David Moore

Early in the twentieth century, Secretary of War Elihu Root observed that for Americans the difficulties of making war lay not in the raising of soldiers, but in equipping, supplying, and transporting them. The evolution of modern warfare since 1898 amply demonstrates the truth of Root's observation. The scale and scope of modern wars, rapidly changing technology, and new military doctrines involving the rapid movement of large forces over great distances have made logistics the key to modern warfare. The word logistics comes from the Greek logostikos, meaning one expert in enumeration. First used in the eighteenth century, the word in its current meaning became popular during World War II. In 1949, the army's Field Service Regulations defined logistics as “that branch of administration which embraces the management and provision of supplies, evacuation and hospitalization, transportation, and services. It envisages getting the right people and the appropriate supplies to the right place at the right time and in the proper condition.” In his 1966 history of army logistics, James A. Huston points out that logistics is the application of time and space factors to war and consists of “the three big M's of warfare—matériel, movement, and maintenance.”Narrowly construed, logistics encompasses the four main activities noted in the 1949 Field Service Regulations: supply, transportation, evacuation and hospitalization, and services (maintenance being the most prominent). A broader understanding might encompass all measures taken by a state to raise, arm, equip, feed, move, maintain, and otherwise care for its armies in the field. In its broadest construction, logistics also properly includes the mobilization of industry and manpower, research and development, procurement, construction of facilities, personnel management, and allied tasks.

Logistical Functions

Each of the armed services maintains its own logistical system. Despite obvious differences in equipment and certain specialized activities, such as underway replenishment of ships at sea and the aerial refueling of aircraft, each of these systems performs essentially the same five functions: the determination of requirements; acquisition; distribution; maintenance; and disposal. The determination of requirements involves the statement of needs and the definition of the resources required to meet those needs. Acquisition encompasses research and development, design, testing, production, and purchase of ships, aircraft, weapons, vehicles, ammunition, fuel, rations, clothing, and other equipment and supplies. Distribution includes the transportation, receipt, storage, and issue of materiel of all kinds. Maintenance involves the inspection, service, lubrication, and adjustment of equipment, and its calibration, repair, or refurbishment. The final logistical function is the disposal of worn, damaged, or surplus supplies and equipment.

Principles of Logistics

Although logistical organization and procedures vary among the services, the logistical systems of the army, navy, Marine Corps, and air force all respond to the same set of logistical principles. Most students of military affairs are familiar with the nine “Principles of War”—Mass, Objective, Simplicity, Unity of Command, Maneuver, Offensive, Surprise, Security, and Economy of Force—developed to serve as guides to the conduct of strategy and tactics. The principles governing the conduct of logistics are less well known but no less important.

Many commentators have tried to formulate the “principles of logistics.” Huston, for example, proposes fourteen principles based on the American experiences in war, and the army officially adheres to the nine set forth in chapter 3 of Army Regulation 11‐8: Principles and Policies of the Army Logistics System (1976). Both are too long and complex for practical purposes, but can conveniently be summarized under five headings: Concentration, Austerity, Visibility, Mobility, and Flexibility. Concentration is the key, and its accomplishment involves the positioning of superior combat power at the decisive time and place. Allied successes in World War II, and more recently during the Persian Gulf War in Operation Desert Storm, were due to observing just this principle. Resources are always limited, and thus logisticians must always observe the principle of Austerity, which has two aspects. The first is economy—the conservation of available resources before battle and the economical distribution of materiel to other, less vital, areas. Economy involves avoiding both excessive expenditure and unnecessary duplication of resources. The second is Simplicity. Simplicity of doctrine, organization, equipment, and plans is essential to the successful logistical support of combat operations. The third principle is that of Visibility. Because the inability to locate a critical item is tantamount to not having it at all, the successful commander or logistician must always know what he or she has and where it is. Mobility is the fourth principle. Insofar as mobile troops are essential to success on the modern battlefield, adequate transportation must be provided for all military operations, and all military equipment must be designed for agility and transportability. The final principle is Flexibility, or the capacity to accommodate the unforeseen. This can be accomplished by flexibility of organization, plans, and materiel, and, above all, by flexibility of mind.

Periods in the History of American Military Logistics

The history of American military logistics can be divided into four grand periods, each of which has posed new challenges for American logisticians. The period from 1775 to 1845 was an Era of Creation, in which civilian and military leaders struggled to establish effective mechanisms for supporting the armed forces just as the nation searched for effective mechanisms of political and social organization. The challenges of creating effective logistical systems were ultimately met, but not without significant delays, setbacks, and near disasters. The second period ran roughly from the Mexican War (1846–48) to the Spanish‐American War (1989). In this Era of Professionalization, primitive logistical organizations and procedures were placed on a regular and continuous basis, and the practitioners of logistics developed standards of training and performance suitable for a well‐established organization. The development of modern technology and the necessity of worldwide operations after 1898 thrust logisticians into a new Era of Specialization, which lasted roughly until the end of World War II. The relatively simple logistical tasks and organizations that had met the needs of earlier times became much more complex, requiring more and better trained personnel, larger and more diverse logistical organizations, and greater management and control. The Era of Specialization overlapped the fourth phase, the Era of Integration, which began before World War II and continues today. This most recent period is characterized by an emphasis on centralized direction of logistical activities, organization along functional lines, and joint and combined operations employing a variety of advanced technologies.

Themes in American Military Logistics

A chronological account alone cannot fully explain the uneven history of logistical organization and doctrine, in which many key concepts cannot be pigeonholed, and prominent themes cross the boundaries of the four periods. Fortunately, although the history of military logistics in America is complex, its nine salient themes can be concisely stated.

1. Increasing importance of logistics vs. strategy and tactics. Since 1898, logistical considerations have increasingly dominated the formulation and execution of both strategy and tactics; yet obvious as it may seem, in practice many military leaders continue to ignore the importance of logistics. At best, logistical considerations and logisticians are seen as unwelcome, if necessary, adjuncts to strategic planning and the management of “important” problems such as tactical doctrine. Nevertheless, logistics is the primary consideration in all modern military operations. World War II provides an excellent example. Allied victory depended in large part on America's ability to organize and to project its industrial might. Indeed, the great demand for logistical support engendered in World War II had a basic and profound effect on the organization of forces and the strategies adopted. The basic American strategic decision of the war—to defeat “Germany First”—and its corollary—the abandonment of U.S. forces in the Philippines—were dictated mainly by logistical considerations. So too were such key strategic decisions as the timing of the invasion of Europe and the pace of the attack across France in 1944. Many military leaders have failed to understand the significance of this trend, and exclude logisticians and logistical considerations from planning.

2. Increasing complexity and scale. The United States has been a major power with global responsibilities since the Spanish‐American War. As the armed forces have become larger, used more sophisticated weapons, and operated further from home in a variety of climates and terrain, their supply and movement have become increasingly complex. At the same time, technology has evolved at a heady pace, and the tactical doctrines and organizations required to incorporate new technology have demanded correspondingly new and complex logistical doctrines and organizations.

3. Increasing proportion of manpower required in the logistical “tail.” The increasingly logistical demands of modern warfare have required that an ever‐increasing proportion of total manpower be dedicated to the task of supporting combat forces. Indeed, the adequacy of logistical support has proven critical to the success of combat operations, and a nation's ability to mobilize and support its combat forces has become equal in importance to the actual performance of such forces on the battlefield. Many American commanders have fought to keep their military forces lean and simple, with a very high proportion of combat troops. World War II proved such thinking to be shortsighted by demonstrating that modern, complex, mechanized, and technically sophisticated armies, operating worldwide and often in conjunction with allies, require that much if not most of the total force be dedicated to supporting those few who actually do the fighting. The bigger “tail” and fewer “teeth” of today's army may be a function of modern warfare rather than the perversion of military organization that critics often proclaim it to be.

4. Specialization. The same stimuli that influence the structure of combat forces—changes in organization, doctrine, and technology—also shape logistical organizations, which respond with special sensitivity to technological developments and the widening scope and scale of modern war. As warfare in the last two centuries has become more mechanized, the demand for specialized personnel to sustain the equipment of war has increased dramatically. This is particularly true for American armed forces, which have traditionally relied on advanced technology rather than mass manpower to achieve victory. Since 1775, the increasing size and diversity of American military forces, and the wide variety of geographic and climatic conditions under which they have operated, have also had a significant impact on the size and composition of logistical forces. Modern, mechanized, total war, conducted with allies on a global scale, has demanded the creation of ever greater numbers and types of logistical units, staffed with highly trained soldier specialists. This trend is not unique to military affairs. Since the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, there has been an increasing drive toward specialization and division of labor in all human activities.

5. Rationalization. The trend toward specialization has been accompanied by increasing centralization of control over logistical planning and operations focused at the highest, Department of Defense (DoD) level, and by a parallel effort to increase efficiency by organizing logistical tasks along functional rather than commodity‐related lines. These efforts have involved the increased application of modern business management techniques to achieve a “rational,” and thus more efficient, system. For the army, this process began with the reforms carried out by Secretary of War Root in 1903 in response to problems uncovered during the Spanish‐American War and issues that emerged from the creation of a General Staff. Root described the army as a “big business,” which could best be managed by commercial methods. Later, army depots and navy shipyards experimented with Frederick W. Taylor's “time and motion” prescriptions, and World War I brought to the services the concept of statistical controls. World War II saw increased use of statistics, as well as the advent of “operations research” and “systems analysis.” Since World War II, the independent service logistical systems have been linked by the consolidation of selected logistical functions (e.g., the acquisition of food, fuel, and housekeeping supplies) at DoD level for greater managerial efficiency and economy of scale. This rationalization process intensified in the 1960s under the administration of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. McNamara and his so‐called Whiz Kids employed techniques derived from the business world to transform military logistics. The military forces have benefited in many ways from the utilization of civilian experts and civilian techniques for the management of logistics; but there have been serious adverse effects as well, of which the “body count” and “cost‐effectiveness analysis” are prominent examples.

6. Changing the civilian‐military mix. Finding the manpower needed to provide adequate logistical support to the combat forces has been a continuing problem, and traditionally American military leaders have relied heavily on civilians to perform logistical tasks. Overseas operations and the drive toward specialization in the first half of this century led to an increased emphasis on uniformed, disciplined logistical personnel. Nevertheless, the overall trend has been toward increasing “civilianization” of military logistics, particularly at higher management levels.

7. Cyclical attention. Historically, American military leaders have tended to neglect logistical activities in peacetime and to expand and improve them hastily once a conflict has broken out. Politicians and generals have proclaimed at the end of every war that the nation will never be caught unprepared again; but inevitably the nation has been unprepared for the next conflict and has only been saved by its enormous resources of human and material capital. The nineteenth‐century military critic Emory Upton was among the first to decry this “chronic unpreparedness.” Since World War II, the demands of a constant state of “near war” have demonstrated that the United States can no longer afford a cavalier attitude toward military readiness; although specific instances continue to arise, the trend appears to have been broken since the Vietnam War.

8. Primacy of logistical mobilization. Given a tradition of cyclical attention to things military and a myopic focus on combat forces, it is not surprising that logistical support forces have been the first to be demobilized at the end of one war and the last to be formed once a new war has begun. It takes comparatively little time to assemble men and begin their military training, but the lead time for housing, clothing, feeding, and equipping them is much longer, a fact that mobilization planners tend to forget. The results have been all too obvious: troops guarding the Capitol in 1861 without trousers and soldiers in 1941 training with wooden “guns,” stovepipe “artillery,” and cardboard “tanks.” Yet Americans have thus far escaped the consequences of such faulty planning. Until now, the United States has always had the time needed to correct the worst problems, and in the end an enormous industrial capacity has allowed the nation to compensate for many mistakes.

9. Coalition logistics. American warmaking in the twentieth century has been largely a coalition activity, and since World War I, the United States has been forced to provide support to its allies or, in some cases, to receive logistical support from them. This trend has introduced further complexities into the problem of providing adequate logistical support for forces in the field, and on occasion America's productive capacity has been severely challenged by the competing demands of supporting both American and allied forces. Although cooperative logistical arrangements have worked effectively in most instances, national preferences and prejudices make the logistician's job more difficult by expanding the number and types of items that have to be supplied. Recently, in an effort to do more with less and to reduce costs, American military leaders have turned increasingly to “host nation support” and “burden sharing” with their allies as means of providing their combat troops with the necessary logistical support.

Modern war requires nations to commit their total resources and victory is determined less by the brilliance of a nation's strategic and tactical thought, and even the valor and skill of its soldiers and leaders, than by its ability to organize and direct the vast machinery needed to project combat power onto the battlefield. From the establishment of the U.S. armed forces in 1775, American military leaders have had to wrestle with the problem of providing adequate logistical support to the combat forces in the field and at sea, in garrison, in port, and in the air. Finding the necessary resources, creating efficient organizations and efficient military doctrine, and achieving a proper balance between fighting and supporting forces has never been easy. Only the quality of the men and women who provide support to the combat forces has remained constant. Without their dedication, skill, and endurance, military success remains uncertain, regardless of the number of machines and the sophistication of the doctrines employed.

[See also Combat Effectiveness; Combat Support; War: Nature of War.]

Bibliography

• George Cyrus Thorpe, Pure Logistics: The Science of War Preparation, 1917.
• George C. Shaw, Supply in Modern War, 1939.
• John D. Millett, Logistics and Modern War, Military Affairs, 9, no. 3 (Fall 1945), pp. 193–207.
• Daniel Hawthorne, For Want of a Nail: The Influence of Logistics on War, 1948.
• United States Army Service Forces, Logistics in World War II: Final Report of the Army Service Forces, 1948.
• Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945, 1955.
• George C. Dyer, Modern Air Logistics, 1956.
• Henry Effingham Eccles, Logistics in the National Defense, 1959.
• George C. Dyer, Naval Logistics, 1960.
• James A. Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953, 1966.
• James E. Hewes, Jr., From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 1900–1963, 1975.
• Richard L. Kelley, Applying Logistics Principles, Military Review, 57, no. 9 (September 1977), pp. 57–63.
• David C. Rutenberg and Jane S. Allen, eds., The Logistics of Waging War: American Logistics, 1774–1985, Emphasizing the Development of Airpower, 1986

n. the organization of moving, housing, and supplying troops and equipment.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Logistics is the application of time and space factors to war. If international politics is the "art of the possible," and war is its instrument, logistics is the art of defining and extending the possible. In short, it is the economics of warfare. Literally, it provides the substance that physically permits a military force to "live and move and have its being." As the U.S. Army's Field Service Regulations puts it, "It envisages getting the right people and the appropriate supplies to the right place at the right time and in the proper condition."

The word itself is derived from the Greek logistikos, meaning "skilled in calculating." Logistics has been a recognizable part of military science, together with strategy and tactics, since ancient times. Nonetheless, Baron Henri Jomini, the French writer on military affairs, appears to have been the first to have made systematic use of the term in this sense, in about 1838. One of the first to use the term in this way in a book in the United States was Henry B. Harrington in Battles of the American Revolution 1775–1781, published in 1876.

In the triad of war, a more or less sharp distinction exists for each segment. Military leaders usually see strategy as the planning and management of campaigns toward achieving the object of the war, tactics as the planning and waging of battles or engagements toward achieving strategic objectives, and logistics as the planning and management of resources to support the other two. Nevertheless, in a broader sense, these are all branches of the same entity. Frequently, the objectives of strategic operations and tactical engagements are themselves aimed at weakening the enemy's logistics, whether through bombing an industrial center, mining a harbor, or seizing key terrain to threaten a line of supply.

It can be argued, for instance, that most of the major strategic decisions of World War II, such as Europe first, the cross-Channel invasion of 1944, the landings in southern France, the return to the Philippines, and the bypassing of Formosa for Okinawa, were essentially logistic decisions. That is, military leaders based the timing, location, scale, and very purposes of those operations mainly upon logistic considerations. They evaluated comparative resources and determined that the seizure of Normandy or Marseilles or Luzon or Okinawa would facilitate further the support of forces by opening the way for additional bases and supply lines.

Logistics may be thought of in terms of scale as paralleling the scale of military operations. "Grand strategy" refers to national policy and the object of the war; "strategy," to the planning and management of campaigns; and "tactics," to the planning and management of battles or engagements. Parallel terminology may also apply to logistics. Thus, "grand logistics" refers to the national economy and industrial mobilization. "Strategic logistics" relates to the analysis of requirements and logistic feasibility of proposed campaigns, a determination of requirements to support a particular strategic decision, and to the follow-up mobilization and assembly of forces and the moving of them—with their supplies and equipment—to the area, with provision for effective resupply. "Tactical logistics" refers to the logistics of the battlefield: the movement of troops to the battlefield and the supplying of these troops with the ammunition, food, fuel, supplies, and services needed to sustain them in combat.

As a calculation of logistic efficiency, one may speak of "primary logistics" as those needed for the support of combat units, and of "secondary logistics" as those required to support the means to meet the primary requirements, or what the satisfaction of requirements in one category may create for requirements in another. Thus, in delivering a given amount of gasoline to an armed force, for instance, the amount of fuel and other resources needed to deliver that gasoline must be taken into account. During the American Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman reckoned that an army could not be supplied by horses and wagons at a distance greater than 100 miles from its base, for in that distance, the horses would consume the entire contents of their wagons. Air transportation occasionally creates greater logistic problems than it solves. During the Korean War, for each five tons of cargo that a C-54 air transport carried across the Pacific Ocean, it consumed eighteen tons of gasoline. To move a given 15,000 tons of cargo from San Francisco to Yokohama by sea required two Victory ships. By contrast, to move it by air required 3,000 air flights plus eight ships to carry the gasoline for the airplanes. On the other hand, other secondary logistic requirements are built up in the maintenance of long supply lines and multiple storage facilities. At times, a supply base, given to continuous proliferation, reaches the point at which it consumes more supplies than it ships out, and thus becomes a net drain on the logistic system. Another aspect of secondary logistics arises in the acceptance and manufacture of a new weapon or in the choice of one weapon over another for expanded production, in terms of the effect of the decision on the problem of ammunition supply.

Bibliography

Jessup, John E., ed. Encyclopedia of the American Military: Studies of the History, Traditions, Policies, Institutions, and Roles of the Armed Forces in War and Peace. New York: Scribners, 1994.

Leonard, Thomas C. Above the Battle: War Making in America from Appomattox to Versailles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Lynn, John A., ed. Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.

Van Creveld, Martin L. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977; 1980

The overall  management of the way resources are moved to the areas where they are required.

Investopedia Says:
This term originated in a military context, referring to how personnel acquire, transport and store supplies and equipment. In the business community, the term is used to refer to how resources are acquired, transported and stored along the supply chain. By having an efficient supply chain and proper logistical procedures, a company can cut costs and increase efficiency.

Related Links:
A company's efficiency, financial strength and cash-flow health show in its management of working capital. Working Capital Works
We look at a retailer's inventory turnaround times, its receivables as well as its collection period. Measuring Company Efficiency

(DOD) The science of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of forces. In its most comprehensive sense, those aspects of military operations that deal with: a. design and development, acquisition, storage, movement, distribution, maintenance, evacuation, and disposition of materiel; b. movement, evacuation, and hospitalization of personnel; c. acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities; and d. acquisition or furnishing of services.

For a list of words related to logistics, see:

• Types and Techniques of Warfare - logistics: science of planning and executing troop movements, procurement and supply, provision, and related support services
• Order, Hierarchy, and Systems - logistics: detailed planning, implementation, and coordination of an operation, esp. military

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Dansk (Danish)
n. pl., -
n. - logistik, transport- og forsyningstjeneste

Nederlands (Dutch)
logistiek, leer van troepenbeweging, wiskundige logica

Français (French)
n. - logistique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Logistik

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. pl. - επιμελητεία, φροντιστεία, διοικητική μέριμνα

Italiano (Italian)
logistica

Português (Portuguese)
n. pl. - logística (f)

Русский (Russian)
материально-тех- ническое снабжение, организация работы тыла

Español (Spanish)
n. - logística

Svenska (Swedish)
n. pl. - logistik, (mil.) underhållstjänst, planläggning och utförande av transporter och underhåll, symbolisk logik

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
后勤学, 后勤

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. pl. - 後勤學, 後勤
n. - 後勤學, 後勤

한국어 (Korean)
n. pl. - 기호논리학
n. - 기호논리학

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 兵站学, 兵站業務

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الجمع) السوقيات فن نقل الجنود وإيوائهم وتموينهم‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. pl. - ‮תחזוקה (אפסנאות, הובלה, הספקה) (צבא), לוגיסטיקה‬

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