That "logistics" thing always bothered me while on active duty. Here are some of my collected thoughts on that subject:
I don't know what the hell this logistics is that Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it! ~Admiral Ernest J. King USN [WWII]
The Logistician
Unknown Author
Logisticians are a sad and embittered race of men who are very much in demand in war, and who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace. They deal only in facts, but must work for men who merchant in theories. They emerge during war because war is very much a fact. They disappear in peace because peace is mostly theory. The people who merchant in theories, and who employ logisticians in war and ignore them in peace, are generals.
Generals are a happy blessed race who radiate confidence and power. They feed only on ambrosia and drink only nectar. In peace, they stride confidently and can invade a world simply by sweeping their hands grandly over a map, point their fingers decisively up terrain corridors, and blocking defiles and obstacles with the sides of their hands. In war, they must stride more slowly because each general has a logistician riding on his back and he knows that, at any moment, the logistician may lean forward and whisper: "No, you can't do that." Generals fear logisticians in war and, in peace, generals try to forget logisticians.
Romping along beside generals are strategists and tacticians. Logisticians despise strategists and tacticians. Strategists and tacticians do not know about logisticians until they grow up to be generals—which they usually do.
Sometimes a logistician becomes a general. If he does, he must associate with generals whom he hates; he has a retinue of strategists and tacticians whom he despises; and, on his back, is a logistician whom he fears. This is why logisticians who become generals always have ulcers and cannot eat their ambrosia.
In the rush to divest and restructure many short cuts were taken and draconian measures applied. In short the commander’s intent might as well have read:
1. Prove that our strategy, tactics and equipment works.
2. Prove that what we discarded was not needed.
3. Marginalize anyone who asks questions.
4. Brand those who have questions as “resistant to change” or ignorant.
War Games was merely one of shortcuts. If you could really build in all of the variables the NFL would have cracked the code in football which is a million times easier to war game.
Today was a milestone. Someone in the Corps let the first ray of light in. A disbanded Cobra Squadron is going to be reactivated and reconstituted. The USMC is also going to acquire F-5 fighters from Switzerland to serve in Op For squadrons. Time to re-look more than that. War in the Ukraine is real. It is not a computer war game. Why did the autumn counter offensive fail? Certainly it was “tested” in a war game. It failed for a lack of Armor, Mechanized Infantry, infantry, engineer assets, Artillery and air support working as a synchronized team. The lesson is right in front of our face. Imagine ignoring tanks, artillery, CAS, fast moving infantry and airborne forces after the fall of France in WWII and stubbornly insisting that war games validated the Maginot line. Tell the men at Dunkirk.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that our moribund industrial base can’t produce the weaponry and ammunition while the Russians are mass producing tanks and ammunition in staggering numbers. Who war gamed that one wrong?
The USMC placed too many eggs in one basket by asking for a mix of anti ship missiles industry will not be able to build in sufficient numbers. No war game needed there. An 8th grader who can count enemy ships, aircraft and forces will quickly tell you when you are out of Schlitz while the enemy still has plenty. When you are only good for 3 rounds in a 15 round fight it gets pretty ugly very quickly.
Let’s keep this SIMPLE. An amphibious USMC MEU (MAGTF) comes with 30 days of sustainment. A USMC MEB (MAGTF) comes with 60 days of sustainment. Each MPF MEB comes with 60 days of sustainment. This makes the US Marine Corps a tremendous asset for the Combat Commanders when it comes to strategic deployments and the required sustainment. General Burger and his 2030 staff did not consider or understand Joint Logistics and, BTW, the current MLR logistics issue proves 2030 Design concept is myopic.
The US Combatant Commander is responsible for his AOR logistics in coordination with USTRANSCOM. The movement of units and sustainment from US bases, warehouses, manufactures, and ammo dumps to US ports (both sea and air ports) and then onto the theater’s ports is USTRANSCOM’s problem. This requires the Combat Commander’s prioritization of his deployment units and sustainment and especially his initial air lift requirements. Air transport is the primary deployment mode until the ship loads of vehicles, supplies, and ammo arrive at their designated ports of debarkation. The easiest coordination point of the Combatant Commander to meet is the air movement of troops to married up with their equipment. USTRANSCOM can contract 500 seat 747 civilian troop carriers all day long. Remember, for Desert Shield, the US Marine Corps had two MPF’s off loaded and operational before the first waves of military sea lift started arriving at Saudi ports of debarkation.
Air Transport does have it problems. The restraining factor is not so much the number of air craft but the MOG. The Maximum on the Ground (MOG) is the number of air craft that can be landed, parked, unloaded, loaded, refueled and departed at the designated airfield. The JTF encountered this problem in the Somalia Restore Hope Humanitarian Operation at the Mogadishu “International” Airport with the MOG of two. Even before 24 hour operations could be achieved, two out of country intermediate airfields had to be opened in order to achieve the close coordination a 24/7 MOG of two requires.
No way in hell is the Marine Corps going to be able to provide the needed sustainment by copying drug cartels submersible operations. During WW2 the Japanese initially tried to supply their troops with submarines because they lost air superiority over of the SLOCs. Noted historians have made the point we starved to death more by-passed Japanese soldier then we killed in combat. Any logistical concept for a peer-to-peer conflict with the CCP has to start with: How do we control our SLOCs? In addition, the control of the SLOCs would also be a great starting point for a “great power competition” strategy.
Now let’s talk required reading for a “do over”. For all Combat Commanders, Joint Staff, and US Marine Corps General officers start with: So Many, So Much, So Far, So Fast – USTRANSCOM and the Strategic Deployment for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm by James R. Mathews and Cora J. Holt.
Next is Beans, Bullets and Black Oil – The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in the Pacific During World War II by Rear Admiral Worrall Reed Carter USN (Ret)
During 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, we assumed that if we didn’t land with it, “it” didn’t exist. Every organization, from platoon up maintained mount out gear that would accompany them in combat. Everything was contained in mount out boxes that were inventoried, tactical marked with weight and square footage, ready to be taken aboard ship or plane. We all practiced logistics from the bottom up, whether we knew it or not. Of course, upon landing, we had the ability to deal with it and use it once the immediate objectives were taken.
Can these littoral units do the same? I’ve seen nothing in FD 2030 that remotely indicates that they can. The entire “testing” process is full of wishful thinking and hoping for things to come. Semper Fi
I have played wargames for about 6o years, including hobby wargames, USG wargames, DOD wargames, and various military training exercises that drew upon wargame mechanics and techniques. Wargames do not prove anything - they tell what questions you need to be asking. There is a bad habit among uniformed senior officers (by no means all of them, merely a few across almost a century or more) who insist in putting their thumbs on the scale so that they are proven 'right'. They are almost never in the field when they get proven wrong (and General McNair wasn't in any way involved with tank destroyers when he was killed in the aerial bombardment in Normandy in 1944).
Amatuers talk tactics, but professionals talk logistics.
I was a Marine artillery officer and as such if your a thinking Marine artillery officer you need to be a part time logistician. I’m not sure why we ignore history. Our ammunition consumption tables, especially for field artillery(FA) are wildly optimistic. In real combat, not wargames, FA fired generally at least 10X what was estimated in prewar planning guidance. By far the most common round fired was HE. Surprisingly many people think that the high tech shells of today are completely specialized “wooden rounds”. Not so. Yes conventional HE rounds are very different and separate from RAP rounds or base bleed but there is still a use for vanilla HE. Most precision rounds are build kits for the 3 above types of HE shells.
Now back in the bad old days a conventional M107 5155 mm HE ammunition weighed in at approximately 95 lbs./rd (depending on square weight). Palletized 155 rounds were 8/pallet for ~800 lbs/pallet. FA ammunition is allocated on a per gun per day basis for either in the offense or in the defense. If each gun were allocated for ease of math, say 50 rds./day - offensive and 100 rds./day - defensive then for an 8 gun battery the daily expenditure would be 400/800 HE rounds, by the table estimates, but if you use historical data from U.S. Army expenditures in WW II, Korea, Vietnam, and the 1st Gulf War, and Ukrainian expenditures each give you different rates, but they are significantly higher than the planning estimates.
Besides fuel and water, artillery ammunition takes up the most wt/sq. ft. of consumables. Why I haven’t seen the wargame assumptions made on artillery ammunition consumption, I’m willing to bet that they haven’t been validated against historical data.
Could the inability to supply your most important supporting arm be the reason for “divesting to invest”?
It’s heart warming to see HMLA 269 “The Gunrunners” coming back from the initial dust heap of FD2030. Imagine the spin doctors in the puzzle palace and at the oldest standing structure in Washington, DC, working that language out. “Today in our munificence we decided that to be more right in our FD2030 convictions we would reactive that which should never been deactivated!” “All you old timer thinkers and your mount out boxes and RORO and prepositioning of ships nonsense, just remember how smart we were and continue to be, AND being A Marine (particularly if you’re as handsome and smart as we) is bonus enough damnit!
Not to throw shade as the youngsters say, but as previously mentioned as a young infantry officer at 2nd MarDiv, I thought the recon elements were a show boating lot that cheery picked their Marines, did a lot of “fun stuff” and ruined our long planned and semi rehearsed night attack out at Fort Campbell when one of their teams was compromised and our route to the assembly area was discovered and the attack had to rush forward as a basic frontal assault. Naturally enough it didn’t go well, and the lessons learned evolution was interesting back at Mike Company 3/2 when we returned to Camp LeJeune. Yep, held a grudge. Fast forward to Aide de Camp for Major General David Barker and the lesson in drip drip drip form of “logistics Charlie logistics. You need to learn logistics if you’re going to stay in the Corps and be successful.” Or many kind words to that effect. Point bring one can have little confidence in units and unit leaders that don’t sweat the long slog of the infantry and the logistics tail that follows them, if you get in and get out in a few short days or a week of operation in far forward TOAR’s.
It’s been 72 hours since contacting Senator Shaheen’s office with several interrogatives regarding the current state of our Navy to support amphibious operations and other items. To include what she and her cohorts intend to do in order to get the Corps to meet its Title X mandates. Crickets. Imagine if upon receiving a congressional inquiry from Representative Dingbat about the lack of ice cream in the field for his/her/they/them Marine constituent, who’s mother heard that ice cream was being held back as punishment for her they/them Marine for being “fat” was not answered within oh say 24 hours, maybe at worse 48 hours? Correct all Hell would come down on the unit leaders. Well Senator Shaheen, you have until Monday mid day, then you are getting a second request, and then a third and then a fourth and how ever many damn emails it’s takes to get you to answer the questions put forth. Will report back!
Lessons from WWII. Reduced to Starvation”: The Japanese Evacuation of Guadalcanal, January-February 1943
Jan. 26, 2023 | By Dr. Heather M. Haley, Historian, Naval History and Heritage Command
Over the course of the Solomon Islands campaigns, which began in August 1942 with landings on Guadalcanal, Allied forces slowly established air and maritime superiority over the region. While both the Allies and the Japanese operated at the end of long, tenuous supply lines—the closest major Japanese base was at Rabaul and the closest Allied base was Efate, each over 600 miles from Guadalcanal—the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps seized the initiative when they established an operating airbase at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal soon after the initial landings. This put the Japanese in a difficult logistical situation, as their land-based strike aircraft had to sortie the six hundred miles from Rabaul to reach Allied targets. This was an untenable situation, as Japan was short on twin-engine bombers as many squadrons were needed in China and Southeast Asia, and carrier-based aircraft could not make up the difference since their presence was intermittent. After weeks of costly attempts to neutralize Henderson Field with air strikes during August 1942, the Japanese ceded air supremacy in the Solomons to the Americans.
That "logistics" thing always bothered me while on active duty. Here are some of my collected thoughts on that subject:
I don't know what the hell this logistics is that Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it! ~Admiral Ernest J. King USN [WWII]
The Logistician
Unknown Author
Logisticians are a sad and embittered race of men who are very much in demand in war, and who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace. They deal only in facts, but must work for men who merchant in theories. They emerge during war because war is very much a fact. They disappear in peace because peace is mostly theory. The people who merchant in theories, and who employ logisticians in war and ignore them in peace, are generals.
Generals are a happy blessed race who radiate confidence and power. They feed only on ambrosia and drink only nectar. In peace, they stride confidently and can invade a world simply by sweeping their hands grandly over a map, point their fingers decisively up terrain corridors, and blocking defiles and obstacles with the sides of their hands. In war, they must stride more slowly because each general has a logistician riding on his back and he knows that, at any moment, the logistician may lean forward and whisper: "No, you can't do that." Generals fear logisticians in war and, in peace, generals try to forget logisticians.
Romping along beside generals are strategists and tacticians. Logisticians despise strategists and tacticians. Strategists and tacticians do not know about logisticians until they grow up to be generals—which they usually do.
Sometimes a logistician becomes a general. If he does, he must associate with generals whom he hates; he has a retinue of strategists and tacticians whom he despises; and, on his back, is a logistician whom he fears. This is why logisticians who become generals always have ulcers and cannot eat their ambrosia.
“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.”
-Army General John J. Pershing
In the rush to divest and restructure many short cuts were taken and draconian measures applied. In short the commander’s intent might as well have read:
1. Prove that our strategy, tactics and equipment works.
2. Prove that what we discarded was not needed.
3. Marginalize anyone who asks questions.
4. Brand those who have questions as “resistant to change” or ignorant.
War Games was merely one of shortcuts. If you could really build in all of the variables the NFL would have cracked the code in football which is a million times easier to war game.
Today was a milestone. Someone in the Corps let the first ray of light in. A disbanded Cobra Squadron is going to be reactivated and reconstituted. The USMC is also going to acquire F-5 fighters from Switzerland to serve in Op For squadrons. Time to re-look more than that. War in the Ukraine is real. It is not a computer war game. Why did the autumn counter offensive fail? Certainly it was “tested” in a war game. It failed for a lack of Armor, Mechanized Infantry, infantry, engineer assets, Artillery and air support working as a synchronized team. The lesson is right in front of our face. Imagine ignoring tanks, artillery, CAS, fast moving infantry and airborne forces after the fall of France in WWII and stubbornly insisting that war games validated the Maginot line. Tell the men at Dunkirk.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that our moribund industrial base can’t produce the weaponry and ammunition while the Russians are mass producing tanks and ammunition in staggering numbers. Who war gamed that one wrong?
The USMC placed too many eggs in one basket by asking for a mix of anti ship missiles industry will not be able to build in sufficient numbers. No war game needed there. An 8th grader who can count enemy ships, aircraft and forces will quickly tell you when you are out of Schlitz while the enemy still has plenty. When you are only good for 3 rounds in a 15 round fight it gets pretty ugly very quickly.
Logistics -
Let’s keep this SIMPLE. An amphibious USMC MEU (MAGTF) comes with 30 days of sustainment. A USMC MEB (MAGTF) comes with 60 days of sustainment. Each MPF MEB comes with 60 days of sustainment. This makes the US Marine Corps a tremendous asset for the Combat Commanders when it comes to strategic deployments and the required sustainment. General Burger and his 2030 staff did not consider or understand Joint Logistics and, BTW, the current MLR logistics issue proves 2030 Design concept is myopic.
The US Combatant Commander is responsible for his AOR logistics in coordination with USTRANSCOM. The movement of units and sustainment from US bases, warehouses, manufactures, and ammo dumps to US ports (both sea and air ports) and then onto the theater’s ports is USTRANSCOM’s problem. This requires the Combat Commander’s prioritization of his deployment units and sustainment and especially his initial air lift requirements. Air transport is the primary deployment mode until the ship loads of vehicles, supplies, and ammo arrive at their designated ports of debarkation. The easiest coordination point of the Combatant Commander to meet is the air movement of troops to married up with their equipment. USTRANSCOM can contract 500 seat 747 civilian troop carriers all day long. Remember, for Desert Shield, the US Marine Corps had two MPF’s off loaded and operational before the first waves of military sea lift started arriving at Saudi ports of debarkation.
Air Transport does have it problems. The restraining factor is not so much the number of air craft but the MOG. The Maximum on the Ground (MOG) is the number of air craft that can be landed, parked, unloaded, loaded, refueled and departed at the designated airfield. The JTF encountered this problem in the Somalia Restore Hope Humanitarian Operation at the Mogadishu “International” Airport with the MOG of two. Even before 24 hour operations could be achieved, two out of country intermediate airfields had to be opened in order to achieve the close coordination a 24/7 MOG of two requires.
No way in hell is the Marine Corps going to be able to provide the needed sustainment by copying drug cartels submersible operations. During WW2 the Japanese initially tried to supply their troops with submarines because they lost air superiority over of the SLOCs. Noted historians have made the point we starved to death more by-passed Japanese soldier then we killed in combat. Any logistical concept for a peer-to-peer conflict with the CCP has to start with: How do we control our SLOCs? In addition, the control of the SLOCs would also be a great starting point for a “great power competition” strategy.
Now let’s talk required reading for a “do over”. For all Combat Commanders, Joint Staff, and US Marine Corps General officers start with: So Many, So Much, So Far, So Fast – USTRANSCOM and the Strategic Deployment for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm by James R. Mathews and Cora J. Holt.
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Monographs/Transcom.pdf
Next is Beans, Bullets and Black Oil – The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in the Pacific During World War II by Rear Admiral Worrall Reed Carter USN (Ret)
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/b/beans-bullets-black-oil.html
Semper Fi
During 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, we assumed that if we didn’t land with it, “it” didn’t exist. Every organization, from platoon up maintained mount out gear that would accompany them in combat. Everything was contained in mount out boxes that were inventoried, tactical marked with weight and square footage, ready to be taken aboard ship or plane. We all practiced logistics from the bottom up, whether we knew it or not. Of course, upon landing, we had the ability to deal with it and use it once the immediate objectives were taken.
Can these littoral units do the same? I’ve seen nothing in FD 2030 that remotely indicates that they can. The entire “testing” process is full of wishful thinking and hoping for things to come. Semper Fi
I have played wargames for about 6o years, including hobby wargames, USG wargames, DOD wargames, and various military training exercises that drew upon wargame mechanics and techniques. Wargames do not prove anything - they tell what questions you need to be asking. There is a bad habit among uniformed senior officers (by no means all of them, merely a few across almost a century or more) who insist in putting their thumbs on the scale so that they are proven 'right'. They are almost never in the field when they get proven wrong (and General McNair wasn't in any way involved with tank destroyers when he was killed in the aerial bombardment in Normandy in 1944).
Amatuers talk tactics, but professionals talk logistics.
I was a Marine artillery officer and as such if your a thinking Marine artillery officer you need to be a part time logistician. I’m not sure why we ignore history. Our ammunition consumption tables, especially for field artillery(FA) are wildly optimistic. In real combat, not wargames, FA fired generally at least 10X what was estimated in prewar planning guidance. By far the most common round fired was HE. Surprisingly many people think that the high tech shells of today are completely specialized “wooden rounds”. Not so. Yes conventional HE rounds are very different and separate from RAP rounds or base bleed but there is still a use for vanilla HE. Most precision rounds are build kits for the 3 above types of HE shells.
Now back in the bad old days a conventional M107 5155 mm HE ammunition weighed in at approximately 95 lbs./rd (depending on square weight). Palletized 155 rounds were 8/pallet for ~800 lbs/pallet. FA ammunition is allocated on a per gun per day basis for either in the offense or in the defense. If each gun were allocated for ease of math, say 50 rds./day - offensive and 100 rds./day - defensive then for an 8 gun battery the daily expenditure would be 400/800 HE rounds, by the table estimates, but if you use historical data from U.S. Army expenditures in WW II, Korea, Vietnam, and the 1st Gulf War, and Ukrainian expenditures each give you different rates, but they are significantly higher than the planning estimates.
Besides fuel and water, artillery ammunition takes up the most wt/sq. ft. of consumables. Why I haven’t seen the wargame assumptions made on artillery ammunition consumption, I’m willing to bet that they haven’t been validated against historical data.
Could the inability to supply your most important supporting arm be the reason for “divesting to invest”?
It’s heart warming to see HMLA 269 “The Gunrunners” coming back from the initial dust heap of FD2030. Imagine the spin doctors in the puzzle palace and at the oldest standing structure in Washington, DC, working that language out. “Today in our munificence we decided that to be more right in our FD2030 convictions we would reactive that which should never been deactivated!” “All you old timer thinkers and your mount out boxes and RORO and prepositioning of ships nonsense, just remember how smart we were and continue to be, AND being A Marine (particularly if you’re as handsome and smart as we) is bonus enough damnit!
Not to throw shade as the youngsters say, but as previously mentioned as a young infantry officer at 2nd MarDiv, I thought the recon elements were a show boating lot that cheery picked their Marines, did a lot of “fun stuff” and ruined our long planned and semi rehearsed night attack out at Fort Campbell when one of their teams was compromised and our route to the assembly area was discovered and the attack had to rush forward as a basic frontal assault. Naturally enough it didn’t go well, and the lessons learned evolution was interesting back at Mike Company 3/2 when we returned to Camp LeJeune. Yep, held a grudge. Fast forward to Aide de Camp for Major General David Barker and the lesson in drip drip drip form of “logistics Charlie logistics. You need to learn logistics if you’re going to stay in the Corps and be successful.” Or many kind words to that effect. Point bring one can have little confidence in units and unit leaders that don’t sweat the long slog of the infantry and the logistics tail that follows them, if you get in and get out in a few short days or a week of operation in far forward TOAR’s.
It’s been 72 hours since contacting Senator Shaheen’s office with several interrogatives regarding the current state of our Navy to support amphibious operations and other items. To include what she and her cohorts intend to do in order to get the Corps to meet its Title X mandates. Crickets. Imagine if upon receiving a congressional inquiry from Representative Dingbat about the lack of ice cream in the field for his/her/they/them Marine constituent, who’s mother heard that ice cream was being held back as punishment for her they/them Marine for being “fat” was not answered within oh say 24 hours, maybe at worse 48 hours? Correct all Hell would come down on the unit leaders. Well Senator Shaheen, you have until Monday mid day, then you are getting a second request, and then a third and then a fourth and how ever many damn emails it’s takes to get you to answer the questions put forth. Will report back!
Lessons from WWII. Reduced to Starvation”: The Japanese Evacuation of Guadalcanal, January-February 1943
Jan. 26, 2023 | By Dr. Heather M. Haley, Historian, Naval History and Heritage Command
Over the course of the Solomon Islands campaigns, which began in August 1942 with landings on Guadalcanal, Allied forces slowly established air and maritime superiority over the region. While both the Allies and the Japanese operated at the end of long, tenuous supply lines—the closest major Japanese base was at Rabaul and the closest Allied base was Efate, each over 600 miles from Guadalcanal—the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps seized the initiative when they established an operating airbase at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal soon after the initial landings. This put the Japanese in a difficult logistical situation, as their land-based strike aircraft had to sortie the six hundred miles from Rabaul to reach Allied targets. This was an untenable situation, as Japan was short on twin-engine bombers as many squadrons were needed in China and Southeast Asia, and carrier-based aircraft could not make up the difference since their presence was intermittent. After weeks of costly attempts to neutralize Henderson Field with air strikes during August 1942, the Japanese ceded air supremacy in the Solomons to the Americans.