Logistics, Strategy and Tactics: Logistics in the Formation of the Medium-weight Army
Abstract
The friction of war, heavily influenced by logistic factors, ultimately determines how military capabilities will perform. Despite the intended strategy and tactics of a force, captured in the operational concepts developed by Army’s staff and established in principles employed in the introduction into service of new capabilities, logistics reveals itself to be much more than a mere afterthought. This article examines how often overlooked logistics factors, considered in unison with strategy and tactics, influences the outcomes of military transformation and capability development. In examining the Australian Army’s aspirations to develop its combat weight and analysing the concept of the US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team, this article draws a number of lessons worthy of consideration by Army’s capability development and concept writers.
Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which no man can imagine who has not seen war. … So in war, through the influence of an infinity of petty circumstances, which cannot be properly described on paper, things disappoint us, and we shall fall short of the mark.
- Carl von Clausewitz1
While Clausewitz’s idea of ‘friction’ reflects the vagaries of chance in war, he could quite easily have been referring to the ability of apparently routine logistical matters to define the way armies actually fight. Certainly, in shaping and influencing the way armies function operationally, there is no other factor that exerts as consistent or pervasive an influence as logistics. This is a point of particular importance to the Australian Army which, over the past decade, has sought to increase its combat power through its modernisation initiatives. Since the introduction of the Hardened and Networked Army initiative, Army has spent the better part of a decade restructuring and developing new capabilities ‘to afford [it] greater protection and firepower’.2 Army must also devote increased attention to the logistics element of this aspiration so as to understand the points of friction that might, to use Clausewitz’s term, initially appear ‘petty’, so that when it does take new capabilities to war, it does not ‘fall short of the mark’.3
Hardened and Networked Army was introduced at a time when well-resourced larger militaries such as the US Army, which were designed to meet defunct Cold War-era contingencies, were being reshaped to reflect expeditionary-oriented force structures that enabled greater strategic reach and operational mobility.4 Conversely, obsolete equipment and capability deficiencies compelled the Australian Army to pursue a capability trajectory that ran contrary to the trend of ‘lightening’, as described by then Chief of Army Lieutenant General Peter Leahy.5 This transformation trend has continued in Plan Beersheba, a restructure that standardises nominally light, motorised and heavier brigades to achieve a sustainable, ostensibly medium-weighted force. The transformation has also influenced operational concepts such as the recently proposed joint archipelagic manoeuvre concept developed to support Australia’s maritime strategy.6 However, the sustainment initiatives and logistic concepts that are the necessary accompaniments to Army’s long-term capability direction remain largely absent. This is cause for concern, and suggests that Army may not recognise the source of much of the ‘friction’ experienced during operations. Before Army ‘builds on Beersheba’, it is therefore essential to review how its present state reflects the intentions of the past, and whether its capacity to sustain its capabilities will suit its aspirations.7
This article will describe the way logistic factors, often evident in operational friction, can dominate the outcomes of military transformation. As Deborah Cowen explains, military logistics must not be a ‘practical afterthought’ in modernisation, but should be ‘the calculative practice that defines thought’.8 The US Army’s creation of the medium-weight Stryker brigade combat team will be used as a case study to illustrate how sustainment-induced ‘friction’, evident in the crucible of training and warfare, shaped the way this force ultimately fought. This case offers clear parallels and, by extension, lessons relevant to the Australian Army’s modernisation approach. It demonstrates that, while operational concepts and transformation initiatives may be important intellectual artefacts, unless explicitly proven by the study of logistics such concepts should be deemed purely aspirational in nature. As the second of two articles, this study offers a direct, practical and pragmatic examination of why logistics, strategy and tactics must always be balanced in the development of operational concepts and in the conduct of actual military practice, particularly if their implications are considered broadly and in terms of the theory of war.9
Preparing for war – logistics in the design of armies
When Phillip, King of Macedonia, forbade the use of wagons and reduced the number of followers within his army by three quarters, he produced not only the leanest, but also the most effective fighting force in Europe and Asia. He bequeathed to his son, Alexander, the ancient world’s most operationally mobile army, an army that sustained the longest expeditionary land campaign ever undertaken.10 At a glance, it may appear that reducing the size of the Macedonian logistic train, or demanding that soldiers carry their own equipment and sustenance, was the key to Alexander’s operational mobility. Such a view certainly reflects the modern military message that managing the ‘tooth-to-tail’ ratio is at the heart of military effectiveness. However, as Donald Engels contends, it was actually Alexander’s meticulous attention to the provisioning of his army that allowed him to advance his force through one of the most inhospitable regions of the world. Moreover, he employed a force that was specifically designed and formed with an operational concept based on an understanding of the logistic factors that were to underpin its true combat potential.
Through Engels’s now widely cited portrayal, Alexander the Great has been shown to have mastered the amalgamation of logistics, strategy and tactics to design an army that successfully married operational concepts with logistic capacity and limitations. And this example appears all the more exceptional when compared to others. Retired Major General Julian Thompson, who fought in the British Falklands campaign of 1982, drew on his experiences in concluding that logistics was ‘the principal factor in driving planning’, adding that ‘unpreparedness’ was a consequence of a ‘flawed perception of future conflict’ and the way in which wars would be fought.11 What occurred prior to the operation in terms of designing the force, preparing capabilities and writing concepts, proved as important as overcoming logistic friction during the campaign itself. It was evident that the British had made significant miscalculations, particularly in terms of their assessment of the way capability systems worked. It was only through cannibalising the resources of non-participant formations and sheer luck in the application of a hastily drafted logistic concept, that the British were ultimately successful.12
Both Engels and Thompson confirm the importance of aligning strategy, tactics and logistics in operational practice, while others have pointed more directly to the importance of this union in capability development. Writing in 1914, US Army Colonel George C. Thorpe conceived of militaries as ‘fighting machines’ that must be ‘constructed as a unit, adapted in kind and strength to meet such tasks as may be imposed’.13 This metaphor for what might now be termed capability, describes how it was particularly important, not only for logisticians who are expected to sustain the war machine, but for all military practitioners, that the ‘nature of the machine does not determine the design of the function’.14 This caution applies equally to the Australian Army with its foundation idea of capability management as ‘concept-led, capability-driven’.15 Yet what Thorpe recommended to his readership, and what armies have collectively tended to struggle with, is weaving sustainment and supply into the concepts that describe ‘the function’ of a military force.
Militaries typically avoid firm commitment to the functional aspects of the ‘fighting machine’ and often appear unprepared to overcome the friction of war. Martin van Creveld observes that,
There is scant evidence that the task has been attempted by the majority of twentieth century (not to mention earlier) operational planners. Rather most armies seem to have prepared their campaigns as best as they could on an ad hoc basis, making great, if uncoordinated, efforts to gather the largest possible numbers of tactical vehicles, trucks of all descriptions, railway troops, etc., while giving little, if any, thought to the ‘ideal’ combination, which, in theory would have carried them furthest.16
This feature of military planning is evident in the history of the Australian Army, clearly identified in Colonel Bob Breen’s study into Australia’s post-Cold War operational deployments. In examining logistic performance among other aspects relevant to the projection of military power, it was evident to Breen that, although ‘one might have expected that a force-projecting island nation like Australia would have become increasingly proficient’ at expeditionary warfare, the Australian Defence Force exhibited many of the characteristics articulated by van Creveld.17 Planning to overcome sources of logistic friction prior to the conduct of military operations is therefore a rare trait of armies and commanders.
Quite clearly, van Creveld was generalising when he criticised armies for failing to plan for ‘operational sustainability’.18 There are also many factors that prevent military forces perfecting such planning. First, at the very least, force designers require fantastical predictive powers. That the ‘future cannot be predicted’ has become a well-worn slogan in modern military planning, but it is certainly relevant to force development where decisions based on the present profoundly affect the operational outcomes of the future.19 Second, there is an often unstated desire among military staff to design forces able to achieve the full range of possible requirements. This is an exceptionally difficult task, particularly in a resource-constrained — and by extension logistically constrained — environment.20 Finally, militaries often tend to emphasise those functions they traditionally perform best, rather than actually responding to strategic requirements. Despite this, the assertion that logistics have not been factored into military capabilities, particularly in the modern age, is clearly an exaggeration. The Australian Army certainly assesses how forces might deploy, critiques supply requirements and analyses numerous factors in describing its capability needs. However it is the prediction, assessment and ultimately the development of the complete ‘fighting machine’ that requires further attention.
Noting that the intention of Army’s current operational concepts is to produce a ‘machine’ that is both expeditionary and of medium combat weight, there are a number of parallels worthy of examination which will allow Army to benefit from the experience of others. Army’s current focus on amphibious capability suggests the analysis of transformation initiatives that have occurred in marine forces, particularly those of the US Marine Corps (USMC), which epitomised modern maritime- centric warfare with its ‘operational manoeuvre from the sea’ concept, and the United Kingdom, with its experience of war in the Falkland Islands.21 However, with the process of transformation initiated under Hardened and Networked Army and continued through Plan Beersheba, and the impending introduction of key projects to meet the goal of increasing Army’s combat weight, the amphibious initiative forms a much smaller component of Army’s broader modernisation requirements. Thus it is the US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team — a nominally medium-weight force — that best represents the goal of the Australian Army’s current force planners.
Delivering the operationally mobile force — the US Army and the Stryker Brigade Combat Team
An operational concept should be immediately followed by a transport capability study. If the transportation system will support, or can be developed in time to support, the forces necessary to carry out a contingency plan, the rest of the logistics can usually be brought into line.
- General Carter B. Magruder (Ret’d), US Army22
In analysing the American experience of war through to 1953, James Huston concluded that the US Army’s most common limiting factor in deployment was transport.23 Huston drew his conclusion from analysis of what he termed ‘overseas warfare’ — strategic and operational mobility encompassing the projection of personnel, equipment and supplies from the homeland.24 Force projection requirements would prove to be a defining feature of force development forty years after Huston’s analysis. The imminent collapse of the Soviet Union presaged a dramatically different strategic environment, one the USMC aptly named the ‘new anarchy’ due to the turmoil it instigated. First, strategic and operational mobility reappeared as a critical consideration for military modernisation.25 The US overseas presence diminished and the closure of forward bases, coupled with emerging threats to national and global security, compelled the US military to reconsider how it might project its forces from its homeland. Second, and probably of greater consequence, the US senior military leadership was particularly concerned about the time it had taken for its forces to deploy to the Middle East during the Gulf War of 1991.26 The then US Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, described the major challenges in responding to these problems, commenting that ‘our forces are too heavy and our light forces lack staying power’.27 It was on the basis of this logic that the US Army would embark on one of the most significant modernisation and transformation initiatives of the last twenty years.
In coining the idea of the ‘Objective Force’, Shinseki outlined the creation of ‘interim brigade combat teams’ that would respond to the US Army’s substantial near-term capability gap.28 This interim force, once introduced and subjected to trials over an extended period, would form the basis for the US Army force structure from 2020. Despite compelling operational reasons, it was logistics considerations that would determine the selection of an appropriate platform for the transition, and subsequently shape the way the combat team would fight. With a mobility goal of being able to deploy an entire brigade with a combination of C–17 and C–130 aircraft (and importantly, no shipping) anywhere in the world within 96 hours, it was quite clear that a medium-weight armoured, wheeled platform of around 10 to 20 tons (approximately 9 to 18 tonnes) would be favoured over heavier options.
This medium-weight platform was the Stryker.29 This interim force would also ensure its strategic and operational mobility by being logistically light, while the Army would ‘aggressively reduce its logistics footprint and replenishment demand’.30 In hindsight, this approach to designing the Stryker appears extraordinary, as actual replenishment demand is what should drive the ‘logistics footprint’ and not the reverse. Events would later prove the veracity of this well- known historical lesson.
The interim force represented the systemic convergence of a wide variety of modernisation trends such as digitisation and network-centric warfare which were prominent in the 1990s. The force’s logistics also reflected the conjunction of a number of popular ideas.31 First, there was an overwhelming belief that technology and process improvements could ‘leverage combat service support reach capabilities that allow commanders to reduce stockpiles in theatre’.32 Second, maintenance efficiencies were sought with ‘reliable systems and commonality … in chassis, repair parts, fuel, munitions and components’.33 Modularity in components and a common combat vehicle type reduced the number of items required in the supply chain and enabled more efficient repair. Moreover, this meant that components could be replaced quickly and simply, with rapid backloading to a relatively well-resourced contractor-based maintenance organisation (for the Stryker this was General Dynamics, the original equipment manufacturer). This effectively capped the number of maintenance personnel required in forward positions.
Third, and most importantly, because the interim force was designed only to be sustainable for three days, it was believed that brigade logistic force elements could be substantially reduced. Logistic manning was reduced to one-third of the capability of heavier formations in the belief that sufficient additional supplementation could be derived from corps-level logistic elements.34 In order to increase the number of manoeuvre units within the Stryker by an infantry battalion, the brigade support battalion (BSB) was reduced in size commensurately.35
In any case, all sustainment was concentrated in the BSB, thereby reducing the sustainment effectiveness of the Stryker to a level below that available to either lighter or heavier brigade combat teams in the US Army.36 The BSB was increased from the woefully inadequate strength of 350 personnel to 600 (slightly larger than the Australian Army’s combat service support battalions) following revealing trials in 2001, but even a BSB of this size continued to draw criticism.
While the transformation of the US Army climaxed with the raising of Stryker brigades in I Corps, achieving operational sustainability was a different matter. Logisticians questioned whether the predicted logistic requirements of the Stryker, based on low-intensity and small-scale operations, were sensible. They were particularly concerned that the austere force design developed to allow 96-hour air deployability was too arbitrary, and introduced too much risk to logistic planning. Neither were they confident that ‘distribution-based, centralised combat service support’ would prove effective.37 Other studies produced for the US Air Force confirmed that the deployment of a sustainable Stryker brigade would significantly exceed the desired deployment timeline by a factor of four (roughly two weeks).38 Moreover, the paucity of distribution-related force elements meant that the formation would be overly reliant on logistic ‘echelons above brigade’ to execute functions they should be performing organically, or on static logistic positions from which contractor support could be drawn.39
Operational experience in the Middle East over the period 2003 to 2014 confirmed the accuracy of these concerns. Stryker units proved sufficiently deployable, but increases in armour weight to offset platform vulnerabilities against rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices meant the Stryker was no longer C–130 transportable.40 Arguably, this new dependence on the larger but scarcer C–17 and C–5 airframes for movement strained strategic deployment timelines and undermined the ability to deploy the Stryker into small airfields. The increase in weight also meant that recovery assets internal to the Stryker combat team could not transport damaged vehicles and that heavy recovery assets from corps logistics elements were required.41 Stryker units were also dependent on contractor support for their sustainment, particularly in terms of maintenance. While the Objective Force may have been specifically designed with a light logistic tail, it was the false promise of increased efficiency that has since led to a particularly instructive response: the ‘GDLS [General Dynamics Land System] to Green’ initiative which sees formerly contracted maintenance tasks returned to soldiers.42
Yet of all the issues that were to plague the implementation of the Stryker brigade, it was logistic hollowness that would prove the most pernicious. Logisticians had responded to the requirement to be ‘adaptive’ by developing new logistic concepts of support such as the logistic support team, which saw purpose-built teams formed from the centralised logistic capabilities within BSBs and provided to manoeuvre units.43 While the concept that underpinned the logistic support team was relatively successful, it was not possible to fully overcome the limitations of force design; the manning for the logistic support team was drawn from the BSB and, as such, came at the expense of its capacity to support other elements within the brigade.44 It thus proved to be an operational ‘bandaid’ rather than a reliable means of eliminating logistic risks and issues.45 Only since 2014, with the assignment of a further 350 personnel to the BSB (a total of 950 personnel) has the capacity to develop standing unit-specific logistic elements or forward support companies been regenerated.46 Whether this means that the US Army has abandoned its decade-old mobility objectives as a consequence of this change is yet to be seen.
The Stryker model remains highly controversial, and many US Army officers remain sceptical of the capability conclusion for the medium-weight expeditionary force.47 The plan to achieve a rapid transformation outcome essential for the modernised US Army was highly ambitious and offered the prospect of reforming the way in which operational logistics was conducted. However, if the designers of the Objective Force had read Engels’s work on Alexander the Great, they appear to have learned the wrong lesson. The operational mobility of the Macedonian army was not a consequence of reducing its logistic tail. Alexander, understanding the impact of supply on his strategy and tactics, structured his army accordingly.48 Through a force design that appreciated logistics factors, he accomplished what even now appears impossible. He proved that the understanding of a realistic replenishment demand must always precede the calculation of a logistic ‘footprint’; function must come before form when new force structures are created. At the very least, this problem suggests that operational ideas and outcomes, strategy, and perhaps even tactics, could be described as appendices to logistics.49 As the Australian Army moves ‘beyond Beersheba’, this vital lesson on capability and force design must not be ignored.
Combat power and logistic friction – lessons for the Australian Army
Despite the Australian Army’s aspirations to be a ‘medium-weight’ force, care must be taken when modelling it on the US Army’s medium-weight capabilities. The Stryker is nested within a wide spectrum of specialised capabilities available to the US Army that are specifically designed for lower intensity conflict situations and tasks. Furthermore, the US Army has seemingly vast logistic capabilities, commensurate with its prodigious ability to project military power. Conversely, by virtue of being much smaller and therefore unable to sustain a similar spectrum of specialised capabilities, the Australian Army’s combat and support brigades must be capable of a wider variety of contingencies and operation types.50 This includes the generation of amphibious capability, an imperative not necessarily recognised by the US Army force designers responsible for the Objective Force. The panoply of potential missions expected of the combat brigade therefore makes any predictions on capability or the way the ‘fighting machine’ might eventually perform a much more difficult prospect for Australian Army planners than for their American counterparts. Nonetheless, there are a number of lessons from the Stryker that are of particular value to Army planners and concept writers.
The first key lesson, and one not only associated with becoming ‘medium weight’, is that a realistic, precise and well-defined warfighting concept is the precursor to any operationally effective sustainment plan. The application of explicit parameters to guide capability development and their retention throughout all stages of planning may have been extremely useful for defining the Objective Force, but its unrealistic objectives produced a fundamentally flawed sustainment concept. As noted earlier, designing a formation on a limited operational viability period of 72 hours of low-intensity conflict was intrinsically flawed. Well-defined logistic requirements based on realistic scenarios will be important factors for the Australian Army’s future force design and the development of complete capability systems. It will not be sufficient for Army to be capable of a wide variety of missions if it is not resourced with an appropriate sustainment structure to withstand the most testing of predicted events.
Second, adjustments to combat power or capability result in consequential and proportional logistic costs. In the case of the Stryker, adjustments to the combat weight of formations adversely affected the rapidity with which land power could be concentrated via strategic transportation.51 This example is directly pertinent to any expeditionary-oriented military force to which the Australian Army aspires. However, given the enhancement of armoured capabilities envisaged under Army’s Land 400 and a variety of other capability projects, there are other more pernicious consequences of adjusting combat power.52 Better self-protection, greater lethality and enhanced mobility are logical desires for Army’s capability planners, but each factor will be matched by a commensurate cost in maintenance, ammunition and fuel. It is inevitable that such costs will ensure an increased logistic machinery and manpower will be required on the battlefield. Significantly, these costs will not be immediately apparent, perhaps only emerging once effective testing and experimentation occurs before, perhaps even after, the introduction of new capabilities. However, it is important that logistics are seriously considered and not relegated to an afterthought by force designers.
Third, new logistic concepts and technologies rarely achieve their promise of reducing actual logistic costs; in the case of the Stryker, these seemed to merely keep pace with adjustments to combat power. This is not to say that the Australian Army should not investigate new ways to mitigate logistic friction; certainly its transformation in combat weight will require new measures to ensure combat effectiveness. As it evolves from its roots as a light, infantry-oriented army, primarily defined by the subsistence of individual soldiers, the Army will discover that petrol, oil and lubricants, machine parts, multiple ammunition types and natures, and instrumentation are its lifeblood. Army’s sustainment problems will be further compounded by the need to maintain a large number of highly complex weapon and equipment types procured to suit very specific operational requirements, and the management requirements of precision equipment. Most logisticians would argue that these are not minor changes, but are logistic problems that require the consideration of influences not evident in recent history. Logistics will undoubtedly remain a ‘momentous exercise in coordination’, will continue to determine what is strategically and tactically feasible during operations, and most importantly, its miscalculations will remind us that logistics cannot be ignored.53
Of course it will always be tempting for Army to emulate Shinseki and seek a higher tooth-to-tail ratio with larger numbers of combat troops to logisticians. But to do so risks producing the very effect that militaries seek to avoid as smaller numbers of supporting forces become proportionally more important to the final battlefield outcome. As the Stryker experience demonstrates, the inability of scarce logistics assets — let alone logisticians — to devote time to protecting themselves makes the supply chain, and transport platforms in particular, especially vulnerable to interdiction or disruption.54 Despite efforts to ensure support elements are capable of their own protection, it is almost impossible for them to operate without combat elements. Furthermore, the scarcity of logistic force elements within the Stryker made it highly dependent on contractor support which, in turn, forced formations to operate at relatively short ranges from static sources of supply. This is extremely pertinent to the Australian Army which also seeks to alleviate logistic deficiencies through the employment of military contractors. Moreover, even these limited examples confirm that operational problems are not simply overcome by proportionally increasing the firepower of the deployed force.
This leads to the final and ultimately most important conclusion: logistic requirements rarely conform to the will of commanders, capability managers or concept writers. Friction caused by logistics can be mitigated by effective preparation, but will never be eliminated in its entirety. While the Stryker proved a successful, battle-tested, motorised and medium-weight addition to the US Army’s range of capabilities, it has only become so because it has been adapted to suit logistic exigencies. In many respects, it is fortunate that the operations in which it has performed have been of such limited intensity that it has been relatively easy to adapt the Stryker concept. However, as a smaller military without the considerable resources available to the US Army, the Australian Army cannot minimise risk the way Americans can.55 This makes precision in capability planning particularly important, and operational concepts based on the instincts of soldiers to adapt to overcome challenges on operations a risky proposition. Army should not ask how logistic capabilities, concepts and forces can better support operations once capabilities have been introduced or transformation completed. This question must be answered long before the process of change is actually commenced.
Yet transformation cannot occur without a degree of risk. Leaving a critique of capability or modernisation in the hands of specialists in an attempt to find an apparently ‘perfect’ solution would probably see no transformation occur at all. Aspiration and momentum are important to the achievement of lasting change, and at times the price to be paid may be in the formulation of utopian plans. It is therefore reasonable to assume that General Shinseki regarded the transformation of the US Army as essential to its future success, irrespective of the logistic problems that might emerge. Finding the same logic in the Australian Army’s approach to modernisation through programs such as Hardened and Networked Army, Plan Beersheba and the development of Army’s amphibious capabilities would therefore be unsurprising. However, military staff implementing capability changes and transformation must not forget the difference between the need for transformation within an organisation, and the requirement to ensure Army’s capabilities and operational objectives can be sustained. This, as the history of the US Army’s Stryker brigade demonstrates, may leave operational forces devoid of effective sustainment at the critical point of an operation.
Conclusion
Logistic factors shape how capability systems are eventually employed, despite the ideas behind the creation of those systems. While the union of strategy, tactics and logistics is vitally important in producing coherent and effective operational plans, the way capabilities actually operate is determined by the same three factors in unison. As it becomes a heavier army, Army will increasingly find that its operational options will be determined by logistic factors — much to the chagrin of its commanders. As such, when Army seeks to design a new capability system, it must be developed in conjunction with an operational sustainment concept. Army must avoid the same mistake as witnessed with the US Army’s Stryker brigade, and avoid simply treating logistics as an afterthought rather than a fundamental determinant of the way combat power is delivered. If capability development does not encompass sustainment requirements (food, fuel, ammunition, equipment and personnel) and methods of delivering supply, the robustness of the future force when operationally deployed will suffer commensurately. As Major Andy Love aptly put it when discussing Army’s approach to amphibious warfare and force development, ‘you can’t ride a concept to the beach’.56
The pursuit of a medium-weight army is just one component of modernisation and thus this analysis does not fully address many other influences and aspects of Army’s modernisation. However, even if it did, it is almost certain that the same conclusions regarding capability development would result. Irrespective of the path taken to modernisation, Army cannot escape the fact that to produce operationally sustainable outcomes it must be pragmatic rather than purely conceptual. It must avoid being overly consumed by the ‘monumental’ at the expense of the ‘mundane’.57 This was the secret of Alexander the Great’s successes and the reason for most of the US Army Stryker brigade’s failures. The Australian Army cannot afford to dismiss logistics, explaining away sustainment and logistic contingency planning through the employment of technology or by addressing the form, but not function, of its logistic system. If Army chooses to take the path of expediency, the creation of an effective ‘fighting machine’, ready, deployable and capable of succeeding in expeditionary warfare, may ultimately prove elusive.
Endnotes
1 C. Clausewitz, On War, M. Howard and P. Paret (trans), US: Princeton University Press, 1989,
p. 119.
2 P. Leahy, ‘The Medium-weight Force: Lessons Learned and Future Contributions to Coalition Operations’, Australian Army Journal, 3: 2, Winter 2006, p. 21.
3 Clausewitz, On War, p. 50.
4 US Army, Concepts for the Objective Force, White Paper, US Department of Defense, 2000,
p. iv; A. Krepinevich, Transforming the Legions: The Army and the Future of Land Warfare, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2004. Krepinevich describes and critiques this process of transformation in the US Army.
5 Leahy, ‘The Medium-weight Force’, p. 21; M. Mellilo, ‘Outfitting a Big-war Military with Small- war Capabilities’, Parameters, Autumn 2006, p. 26.
6 Australian Army, Army in a Joint Archipelagic Manoeuvre Concept, Discussion paper 01/14,
p. 1, http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/Content/Our%20future/Publications/Papers… Discussion%20Paper%2001-14.pdf.
7 Australian Army, ‘Building on Beersheba’, http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/Publications/ Research-Papers/Building-on-BEERSHEBA.
8 D. Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 2014, p. 30.
9 The first article was titled ‘Logistics, Strategy and Tactics: Balancing the Art of War’ and appeared in the Australian Army Journal, 11: 2, Summer 2014, pp. 48–63.
10 D.W. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian army, California: University of California Press, 1978, pp. 12–13.
11 J. Thompson, The Lifeblood of War: Logistics in Armed Conflict, UK: Brasseys, 1994, p. 288.
12 Ibid., pp. 255–57, 266–69, 288.
13 G. Thorpe, Pure Logistics, USA: National Defense University, (1917), 1986, p. 67.
14 Ibid., p. 66.
15 Directorate of Future Land Warfare, Adaptive Campaigning: Future Land Operating Concept, Canberra: Army Headquarters, 2009, foreword, p. i.
16 M. van Creveld, Supplying War, (2nd edn), UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 236.
17 B. Breen, Struggling for Self-reliance: Four Case Studies of Australian Regional Force Projection in the Late 1980s and the 1990s, Canberra: ANU e-press, 2008, p. 157.
18 ‘Sustainability’ is defined in Australian Defence Doctrine Publication 4.0: Defence Logistics, 2009, as ‘the ability of the force to maintain the necessary levels of combat power for the period necessary to complete its objectives’.
19 C.S. Gray, ‘The 21st Century Security Environment and the Future of War’, Parameters, Winter 2008–09, p. 14.
20 G. Gentile, ‘The Imperative for an American General Purpose Army that can Fight’, Orbis, 53: 3, 2009, p. 458.
21 United States Marine Corps (USMC), Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 3: Expeditionary Operations, USA: Department of the Navy, 1998; USMC, Other Expeditionary Operations, USA: Department of the Navy, 2003; I. Speller, ‘Delayed Reaction: UK Maritime Expeditionary Capabilities and the Lessons of the Falklands Conflict’, Defence and Security Analysis, 18: 4, 2002.
22 C.B. Magruder, Recurring Logistic Problems as I Have Observed Them, Center of Military History, US Army, 1991, p. 122.
23 J. Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics 1775–1953, Office of the Chief of Military History, US Army, 1966, p. 669.
24 Ibid., pp. 672–73.
25 USMC, Expeditionary Operations, p. 3.
26 T. Farrell, S. Rynning and T. Terrif, Transforming Military Power Since the Cold War, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 46.
27 E. Shinseki, United States Army Chief of Staff, ‘Intent of the Chief of Staff’, 23 June 1999, p. 1; Committee of Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2001, US Congress, 2001, p. 10.
28 US Army, ‘Concepts for the Objective Force’, 2000; US Army, ‘Transformation campaign plan’, Department of the Army, p. 5.
29 Committee of Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2001, p. 11.
30 US Army, ‘Concepts for the Objective Force’, p. 15.
31 Farrell et al., Transforming Military Power Since the Cold War, p. 48.
32 US Army, ‘Concepts for the Objective Force’, p. 15.
33 Ibid.
34 Corps-level logistic capabilities equate to what might be found in Australian ‘general support’ capabilities within 17th Combat Support Service Brigade.
35 D. Tilzey, G. Kasvicha and C. Rote, ‘Stryker Brigade Combat Teams Need Forward Support Companies’, Army Logistician, July–August 2008, p. 27.
36 Ibid., p. 27.
37 R. Taylor, ‘Logistic Risk in the Stryker Brigade Combat Team’, US Army, http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/JanFeb04/LogisticsRiskintheStryker….
38 A. Vick, D. Orletsky, B. Pirnie and S. Jones, The Stryker Brigade Combat Team: Rethinking Strategic Responsiveness and Assessing Deployment Options, RAND, Project Air Force, USA, 2002, p. 115.
39 Tilzey et al., ‘Stryker Brigade Combat Teams Need Forward Support Companies’, p. 26.
40 M. Reardon and J. Charlston, From Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War, Center for Military History, US Army, 2007, p. 26.
41 Tilzey et al., ‘Stryker Brigade Combat Teams Need Forward Support Companies’, p. 31.
42 It should also be noted that the substantial cost of the GDLS-A contract may have lent added impetus to this initiative. Ibid., p. 30.
43 D. Butler, K. Bradford and J. Schwetz, ’Successful Implementation of Logistics Support Teams in an SBCT’, Army Logistician, July–August 2008, p. 33.
44 Ibid., p. 36.
45 Tilzey et al., ‘Stryker Brigade Combat Teams Need Forward Support Companies’, p. 29.
46 These forward support companies perform a similar function to the ‘A2’ echelon in the Australian Army.
47 Farrell et al., Transforming Military Power Since the Cold War, p. 56.
48 J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958,
p. 52.
49 M. De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, USA: Zone, 1991, cited in Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics, p. 28.
50 The Hon J. Gillard, Prime Minister, ‘2013 Defence White Paper: Plan Beersheba – Restructuring the Australian Army’, Media Release, 3 May 2013, http://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/browse. php?did=19308.
51 Vick et al., The Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
52 Australian Army, ‘Project LAND 400’, Canberra, 2014, http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/ Projects/Project-LAND-400.
53 Van Creveld, Supplying War, p. 254.
54 The survivability of CSS elements on the modern battlefield is explored at length in D. Clarke, ‘Only the Strong Survive – CSS in the Disaggregated Battlespace’, Australian Army Journal, 11: 1, 2014, p. 20.
55 This problem was articulated in a comparison between the expeditionary components of the French Army which served in Mali during 2013. See M. Surkin, France’s War in Mali: Lessons for an Expeditionary Army, RAND, USA, 2014, p. 46.
56 A. Love, ‘You can’t ride a concept to the beach’, Australian Defence Force Journal, 186, 2011.
57 Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics, p. 25.
