American Military Logistics Since World War I - Coursework Example

American Military Logistics Since World War I Military logistics is the discipline of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of military forces. There are a high number of infrastructure elements that fall under the auspices of military logistics. In transferring military forces, there is also the consideration that materials, personnel, furnishings, and health and medical services and support are transported. This involves a high number of design and development processes that adequately account for transportation and storage. While military logistics is strictly cursory to the actual combat, it nonetheless is integral to the war effort. Because of its central contributions to combat, military logistics has received a significant amount of critical attention. Indeed, the 20th century witnessed tremendous innovation and development in military logistics. This research considers American military logistic advances since World War I. World War I witnessed considerable advances in American military logistics. One of the greatest considerations within World War I logistics was that the sheer enormity of the war resulted in past logistic processes being outstripped. This war witnessed amounts of men and machines that the country had never prepared. It’s considered that the average amount of ammunition used was as much as ten times pre-war estimates. Adding to these logistic problems was the consideration that establishing trenches required significant amounts of supplies. As a result, the early stages of the conflict experienced tremendous shortcomings in logistic transport, particularly in the areas of ammunition. Much logistic innovation during World War I then emerged as a response to these infrastructure challenges. A major innovation during this period was the implementation of tanks and gun sleds to lead the military advance, while military supplies would be delivered to railheads and ports many miles away (Lynn 1993, p. 109). In addition to logistic innovations, logistic shortcomings during this period had a corresponding impact on military strategy. The main recognition in these regards was that it no longer was more efficient to supply armies on the move than static armies. This realization had a corresponding impact on the very strategic initiatives within the conflict. Namely, the significant size of military operations necessarily resulted in trench warfare. There were a number of major logistic innovations during World War II that revolutionized military conflict. One of the most seminal innovations was the development of the aircraft carrier. During World War II the aircraft carrier witnessed ascent to the lead vessel of the fleet. Contributing to this was the increasing emphasis on submarines as a means of transport. While submarines had been implemented in World War I, innovations in the intervening years, including Sonar, made them increasingly effective as logistic tools (Lynn 1993, p. 113). Another major logistic advance in World War II was the increasing reliance on motorization. The increasing speed of warfare required increasing innovations in logistic mobility. This resulted in this increasing emphasis on motorized vehicles. World War I had largely relied on traditional forms of railway and horse transport that ultimately proved unsuccessful. As a means of counter-acting these shortcomings, in World War II the American military implemented Harley Davidson motorcycles, as well as the Willys MB US Army Jeep, and the Ford GPW (Lynn 1993, p. 117). While military logistics in World War I would largely impact the very shape of the war, by World War II these early shortcomings would result in significant innovations. World War II witnessed an increasing emphasis on railway for transport. While railway was increasingly implemented during this large-scale conflict, American military forces also increasingly implemented sealift and airlift logistical methods. There is the recognition that D-Day, considered the turning point of World War II, was largely accomplished through logistic innovation. Specifically, the Allied forces coordinated 160,000 troops through land, sea, and air (Lynn 1993, p. 123). While the transport processes were individually in existence prior to the D-Day invasion, the large-scale coordination of these elements constituted a major step-forward for American logistic prowess. While logistic challenges would shape military strategy in World War I, in World War II logistics can arguably be argued as the determining factor in the conflict, as the United States was able to outpace all other nations. Ultimately, then the logistic legacy of World War II may be the increasing effectiveness through air and sea transport of supplying far off operations. Following World War II the United States witnessed a large-scale demobilization effort. The masses of military infrastructure and logistic support mechanisms were broken down, sold, or disposed of. The advent of the Korean War then posed a number of logistic challenges for the country. In 1947 the United States issued the Military Procurement Act that allowed the United States to begin building up a military-industrial base (Foxton 1994, p. 26). This act then would greatly contribute to the United States ability to logistically supply forces in Korea. There is the recognition that the United States entry into the Korean War held a number of parallels to their entry in World War II. Namely, both situations emerged first out of the belief that the United States could simply provide logistical support and only later resulted in full-scale involvement. From the outset the Korean War presented a number of logistic challenges that would require further innovations. One of the first tactics implemented by the United States military during this period is referred to as the block load. The block load shipped from the United States all the supplies and equipment required by tables of allowances for a specific military division (Foxton 1994, p. 9). While successful in the early stages of the conflict, the increasing complexity of the warfare resulted in many of the supplies included not being the one’s needed by the ground forces. As a means of counter-acting these challenges, the United States military change to a salvage and pickup plan that would more efficiently match supplies to needs. Another prominent challenge faced during the Korean War was the extensive distance between the American homeland and the Korean shore. This distance made the rapid and efficient supply of troops and materials a near impossibility. As a means of addressing these concerns, the United States increasingly came to rely of surround military bases to facilitate logistic operations. Most prominently the country implemented bases that has been newly established on the Japanese homeland as a means of supplying Korean forces. There is the recognition that American military bases through the 21st century have constituted an important means of logistic advantage. Following the Korean War the United States entered the Cold War and American military logistics took on a strikingly different order. As it well recognized Cold War military policies resulted in the Western nations facing off against the Eastern block in the stockpiling of military weapons. While military logistics has been previously envisioned in terms of the transportation of troops, supplies, and ammunition, with the Cold War it becomes contextualized in strategic reserves and technological innovation. While Cold War logistics were largely in the arena of theory, the Vietnam War posed a series of logistic challenges for the United States military. This conflict witnessed the increasing reliance on the Bell UH-1D helicopter as a means of transporting troops and light supplies (Foxton 1994, p. 10). Still, perhaps the greatest logistic consideration during this conflict was the United States inability to attenuate their operations to the terrain and opponent. In this way the Vietnamese guerilla logistic methods ultimately proved unconquerable by the United States more industrialized processes. Even while the Vietnam War was one of the few actual conflicts following the Korean War, the United States, along with NATO allies, established: flexible response, forward defense, and follow on force attack, as key logistic strategies. Broadly speaking these strategic elements were combat policies, but they also underlined the necessary logistic infrastructure that would be needed to support them. A prominent logistic innovative solution to these policies during the Cold War period was Exercise Reforger. This was the America military’s logistic policy to ensure that forces would be able to be deployed to West Germany in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. This policy was in-line with the military’s practices of rapid reinforcement and between 1969 and 1993 was practiced annually in Europe. Other strategic measures considered the means logistic support would be implemented in the case of a prolonged conflict in West Germany. In this way military strategy, just as it had been in World War I, conformed to logistic potentials. Specifically a broad frontal assault would be implemented where the attacking forces would be echeloned three or more echelons deep. This would ensure that necessary logistic support could be maintained. While military strategy has long been documented, the recognition here and with Vietnam, is that logistic developments are contingent on the specific war situation. Following the Cold War American military logistic operations greatly shifted. No longer did stockpiling weapons, or even the imminent threat of warfare, pose pressing logistic challenges. Modern logistic operations now frequently go under the term combat service support (Axe 2011, p. 190). These operations have innovated through uncertain conditions. Increasingly American logistics has been linked to operations research. For instance, modern operations processes have increasingly implemented quantitative statistical data in delivering more accurate logistic solutions. From a more overarching perspective operations research has been implemented in identifying specific processes in the implementation of a project. While operations research emerged after World War II, it has increasingly come to dominate the contemporary landscape. One such innovation is the use of Applied Information Economics (AIE). This is a quantitative method implemented by the Office of Naval Research and the Marine Corps for forecasting bulk fuel requirements for upcoming combat situations (Hubbard 2010, p. 20). Specifically this method implement decision theory and risk analysis as a means of calculating a range for fuel reserves. Other prominent areas that operations research have been implemented in military logistics is scheduling combat air-flights, deciding on the appropriate place to locate new facilities, managing the flow of water and foodstuffs to on-ground troops, identifying potential future development, identifying information and intelligence needs, and understanding strategies and systems adopted by combatants. Supply chain management processes have also been adopted in modern American logistic operations. Largely these processes have been adopted from Japanese organizations that established Just In Time (JIT) and Total Quality Management (TQM), as cutting-edge supply approaches (Axe 2011, p. 198). For American military operations the main consideration is that these processes shifted the emphasis from a silo type logistic approach, to an approach that considered the entirety of the supply chain. One recognizes the silo-type approach in the bulk load processes implemented during the Korean War conflict. This is contrasted with the total process supply chain approach to modern military logistics. In this way the United States military has implemented ‘Lean Logistics’ and ‘Focused Logistics’ in a cradle to grave perspective of logistical operations (Axe 2011, p. 205). One of the primary implications of this change is that the American military establishment has increasingly come to rely on external businesses and organizations to efficiently support the supply chain. In addition to these processes a number of specific technological innovations have been advanced in logistics. In terms of aerial support, the United States military has foregrounded aerial refueling processes and a variety of forms of airlift. In terms of on-ground personnel the American military has established expeditionary maneuver warfare as a mode of operation. This is part of an increasing move towards integrated logistics support mechanisms (Axe 2011, p. 207). This is a process that implemented iterative processes for establishing a support strategy that optimizes functional support and leverages existing resources. Ultimately, this iterative approach has been combined with the operations and supply chain models in the American military’s comprehensive approach to modern logistics. In conclusion, this essay has examined advances of American military logistics since World War I. Within this spectrum of recognition World War I is considered in terms of the heavy reliance on railways. World War II marks a significant period of innovation in logistics as the aircraft carrier and new forms of motorization would revolutionize the war effort. The Korean War witnessed the implementation of bulk load processes, as well as an increasing reliance on military bases. The Cold War is considered in terms of stockpiling efforts. Finally, modern logistic advances are examined in terms of operations research, supply chain management, and integrated iterative processes. References Axe, D. (2011). From A to B: How Logistics Fuels American Power and Prosperity. Potomac Books. Foxton, P D. (1994) Powering War: Land Force Logistics, Brasseys, London, Hubbard, D. (2010)., How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business, 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons. Lynn, J. (1993) Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present, Westview, Oxford, 1993. Read More