The Evolution Of Logistics Within Warfare

The sheer military power of the United States, and their appearance in the war, both had a major impact on the outcome of the war, striking fear into the opposing military forces. America was and has always been a very wealthy and large economy with an abundant supply of resources. This gave America the ability to mass-produce war machines such as planes and tanks to give them a large advantage over the Axis Powers. The US had an over-supply of war vehicles, which were later shared with Britain and France, providing a huge advantage over the Axis Powers. According to Historynotes, over “10 million American soldiers were ready to be deployed to help fight against the Axis Powers”. This statement clearly proves just how much military power America had over their opponents put together. German and Italian spies were reporting back to their country about the dramatic

Two years earlier, America’s military preparedness was not that of a nation expecting to go to war. In 1939, the United States Army ranked thirty-ninth in the world, possessing a cavalry force of fifty thousand and using horses to pull the artillery. Many Americans — still trying to recover from the decade-long ordeal of the Great Depression — were reluctant to participate in the conflict that was spreading throughout Europe and Asia. President Roosevelt did what he could to coax a reluctant nation to focus its economic might on military preparedness. If the American military wasn’t yet equal to the Germans or the Japanese, American workers could build ships and planes faster than the enemy could sink them or shoot them

December 7th, 1941 marked the entrance of the United States into the Second World War, an international conflict fought with technologically advanced battleships, submarines, airplanes, and other modern weaponry. World War II would be an extended four-year-long battle fought on two fronts, and the manufacturing needs to supply the war machine would be great. Unfortunately, the United States entered the conflict ill-prepared for war, whereas the enemy nations of Germany and Japan had been amassing wartime equipment for nearly a decade (Streitmatter). After the bombing of Pearl Harbor catapulted America into the war, the United States immediately initiated two campaigns: one to build a formidable militia and

As the war in Europe was heating up, the United States government initiated a state of preparedness. It began increasing the size and strength of its military, enhancing its global politics, and promoting patriotism amongst the public. Industrially, manufacturers changed tooling and operations, gearing up to produce the tools of war that would become more essential than the common consumer goods they had once produced. Labor unions also played a role in this process, advocating conversion in industries that were less eager to change their ways. The marine industry was among the first of the industries to convert to wartime production, cranking out ships not only to fight, but especially to haul the much needed weapons, munitions, and food across Atlantic to the British and the Soviet Union. The Lend Lease act provided these supplies, playing an extremely important role in the resupply and refitting of our allies.

Knowing the importance of maintaining combat troops in theater, an efficient supply system was created, giving boots to the ground soldiers the advantage over their foes. The technological advances in transportation enhanced the Army’s supply system to move goods almost overnight. Army forces through mutual interdependence rely upon joint capabilities, air and maritime, to deliver sustainment to the theater of operations (US Army, 2012). The United States Army supply system is the most efficient in the world. We can move troops into the theater and sustain them indefinitely.

Logistics is the planning and moving of supplies, food, equipment and people from the point of the supplier to the place/people who need them. The military operations of the British suffered significantly because of a logistical system that was not able to sustain supply lines. The 3000-mile journey that the supplies had to make from the host country to the New World was an instance when this supply system failed the British. This inability would sometimes be caused by weather that “struck convoys and the ships would be forced to turn back or be diverted to other places. Others would continue on with the journey and then have to wait for the weather to break while their cargoes rotted” or died, and would not make it to the New World. Additional causes would be “profiteering, poor supply procedures and privateering” (McCoy, 2012).

The commanders of the Axis powers signed their surrender treaties as thirsty men. If a lack of petrol did not lose them the war, it certainly shortened if for them. As the Second World War was the first to incorporate planes, tanks and diesel powered warships on such a large scale, it is not surprising that oil was of massive importance. However, this essay will show that for the Axis powers, oil was not only a logistical necessity. But also a decisive factor in declarations of war, strategic decision making, objectives of campaigns as well as battlefield tactics. For readability, I will discuss

In the 1950s, the term logistics was perceived as a word that the military use. The areas of logistics was

In order to ascertain the effect that technological advances had on the nature of warfare within this 146 year period, it is necessary to break down the definition of the “nature” of warfare. Within this essay it is understood to mean the ways in which wars were fought. Furthermore, one must also consider the non technological factors that affected the nature of warfare, and the ways in which wars were fought as a result of their impact. For example, factors such as economic power and resources have been known to significantly affect the nature of warfare. In evaluating the importance of these factors in comparison to

History showed that the United States and its Allies triumphantly fought back against the Axis Powers to end the Second World War. While headlines and credits for the ultimate triumph centered around the politicians and generals, no successful war effort would come to light without the heroic figures in the civilian world and the companies they ran, who produced the ships, tanks, airplanes, weapons and ammunition more quickly, to higher standards and in greater quantities, than the enemy did. In center stage was the U.S. automobile industry, whose participants had mastered the industrial production process to churn out 50 million units in 35 years since the turn of the 19th century. These industrial builders helped the American industry go from negligible arms output to building an arsenal of weaponry then unmatched in human history. Their out-production was an epic achievement of American business and directly helped the United States and its allies win World War II. They empowered the United States to become the world’s "arsenal of democracy," a term coined by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The buildup of the American war machine took time, however, and in the interim, shortages during the early months of the war ran rampant. Terms such as “unprepared” and

The United States’ approach to waging war across history did not change notably. Historically U.S war doctrine possessed an offensive focus that relied primarily on the use of infantry to secure key terrain once the enemy had been neutralized. The attenuation of enemy troops was a subordinate effort in response to acquiring and the defending ground. The offensive methodology was the avoidance of a frontal assault that focused on flanking the enemy. Our Armor’s role was to gain superiority by directly engaging the enemy’s front at the most weakest point and seek battlefield dominance, a battle of implementing tanks as the best weapon to kill enemy tanks. The American artillery and aviation had attained a great level of competence during World War II. Post World War II, American offensive doctrine was a stride short of being superb.

Structuring on World War I research, European forces in the interim searched innovative ways of by means of tanks to link weapons and mobility to reinstate decisiveness of unpleasant ground operations.

Most logistical tacticians have a tendency to review historical documents before developing strategies to deploy and redeploy troops and equipment. This common practice is very successful to deploying soldiers and equipment, but historically there is a lack of emphasis on the redeployment, or retrograde of equipment. The soldiers are undoubtedly brought home; nonetheless antiquity shows us equipment is sometimes not a priority to return. Logistic American retrograde issues were first publically noticed in 1847 following war with Mexico. A published Army bulletin revealed property divesting as an issue and needed a high priority because of the great loss of left behind equipment. Again after World Wars I and II, the military had immense amounts of equipment scattered across the Pacific and Europe. There was no specific need for the equipment after the war, and much of it was abandoned in place, and although lack of retrograde operations occurred, the abandoned equipment turned useful in supporting the Korean War. Logisticians learning their lessons from previous wars, vowed to not be unprepared while entering the Vietnam War. Specialized programs and systems were established to document, classify and store all equipment entering Vietnam. Continental Army Command initialized the program STOP/SEE to

     One of the first things that the military had to change was its attitude that logistics is the same thing as supply management. Logistics plays a very important role in the supply chain but supply chain management involves much more than simply logistics. (Hyland 2002) A team at Ohio State University developed a framework for supply chain management that consists of three supply chain elements: network structure, business processes; and management components.