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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Refueling an advancing army
Message-ID: <1990Dec11.015116.26171@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 11 Dec 90 01:51:16 GMT
References: <1990Dec8.222647.28332@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: ssdc!jbasara@uunet.UU.NET  (jim basara)
>Could someone please give me some details on how an advancing army remains
>supplied, especially with fuel.  For instance, if we were to invade Kuwait,
>thousands of vehicles, some which require enormous amounts of fuel would
>be on the move.  How is the supplying of all these vehicles with fuel
>orchestrated?

By lots more vehicles carrying supplies, basically.  High-level commanders
tend to worry more about logistics than about tactics; an army with plenty
of supplies will almost always beat one that is running out of everything,
tactics or no tactics.

If you want an example, German operations in the USSR in autumn 1941 bogged
down almost totally when the rains started.  Not because the tanks couldn't
move; they had no problem.  Not because the halftracks carrying troops and
support units couldn't move, although they were having trouble.  The total
halt to effective offensive operations was because the trucks and wagons
carrying supplies up to the front were immobilized almost completely, until
it got cold enough for mud to freeze.

The advent of heavy cargo aircraft and helicopters has reduced the problem
a little, but has not removed it.  The sheer *tonnage* required is still
so huge that ground transport has to move much of it.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry