I've been on a bit of a book-buying spree recently.
As a result of my recent interest in logistics, I went and bought Martin van Creveld's "Supplying War". I'll report back as I get through it. A quick scan looks fascinating - thanks to those who put me onto it.
Recent eBay wins have put me in posession of a number of new Blandford uniform books which I always treasure for their lovely plates.
Another gem was the Ian Weekly book on building wargames terrain. A cut above the "Touching History" series, I think!
Furthermore, I've also acquired about 30 White dwarf mags from all stages of their first 140 issues and so I feel I have the best of the series - certainly WD isn't really what it used to be.
Showing posts with label Logistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Logistics. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
More on Logistics
In the Austrian service, soldiers generally carried up to four days’ supply on them. Baking companies supported the army with ovens that were built up with brick over iron hoops that could be assembled and broken down with relative ease and were thus relatively mobile. This stands in fairly stark contrast with the permanent structures erected by the French.
More generally on food, the Austrian soldier was allowed 1 pound of meat (which he had to purchase for himself from regimental butchers - albeit at a reasonable cost) and 1.75 pounds of bread per day. In February of 1760, the Austrian troops in Saxony would work their way through 300 oxen per week, and the army as a whole would consume 700 in the same period.
Some notes on supply and Transport in the Bohemian, Silesian and Saxon areas.
The Prussians had certain logistic advantages:
*Easy river transport down the Oder and the Elbe Rivers.
*Strongly defended forward fortress depots at Cosel, Breig, Schweidnitz, Neisse and Glatz that could be replenished either directly from water transport or via short overland haulage.
The Austrians laboured under corresponding disadvantages:
*They had no secure magazines near the theatre of operations. Both Prague and Olmutz ware deep within Bohemia and cannot count at “forward” depots on the Prussian model. Dresden was more conveniently located, but was not always in Austrian hands!
The Austrian response was the creation of filial or ‘flying’ magazines of no fixed location which were established and re-established throughout the war in various locations in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Saxony as was convenient.
Leitmeritz and Lobositz in Northern Bohemia, were convenient to the headwaters of the Elbe as depots, although they themselves had to be laboriously stocked via overland routes running the four wheeled horse carts used by the Austrians. These carts could each carry a load a little short of a ton. The Danube was useful from bringing supplies out of Hungary, but was prone to icing in the winter months.
Source: primarily Duffy's last book on the Austrian Army.
More generally on food, the Austrian soldier was allowed 1 pound of meat (which he had to purchase for himself from regimental butchers - albeit at a reasonable cost) and 1.75 pounds of bread per day. In February of 1760, the Austrian troops in Saxony would work their way through 300 oxen per week, and the army as a whole would consume 700 in the same period.
Some notes on supply and Transport in the Bohemian, Silesian and Saxon areas.
The Prussians had certain logistic advantages:
*Easy river transport down the Oder and the Elbe Rivers.
*Strongly defended forward fortress depots at Cosel, Breig, Schweidnitz, Neisse and Glatz that could be replenished either directly from water transport or via short overland haulage.
The Austrians laboured under corresponding disadvantages:
*They had no secure magazines near the theatre of operations. Both Prague and Olmutz ware deep within Bohemia and cannot count at “forward” depots on the Prussian model. Dresden was more conveniently located, but was not always in Austrian hands!
The Austrian response was the creation of filial or ‘flying’ magazines of no fixed location which were established and re-established throughout the war in various locations in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Saxony as was convenient.
Leitmeritz and Lobositz in Northern Bohemia, were convenient to the headwaters of the Elbe as depots, although they themselves had to be laboriously stocked via overland routes running the four wheeled horse carts used by the Austrians. These carts could each carry a load a little short of a ton. The Danube was useful from bringing supplies out of Hungary, but was prone to icing in the winter months.
Source: primarily Duffy's last book on the Austrian Army.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Logistics - The French Army
I’ve started doing some research on the logistics of the Eighteenth Century.
I thought I’d share what seemed to me to be some of the more thought-provoking things I’d come across.
Just for a start, it’s all about bread. The horses could be fed from whatever fodder could be scrounged, munitions were probably one of the least bulky and troublesome things that could be transported, but without bread your army starts to starve.
An army of 100,000 men consume, in the French service at least, 200,000 pounds of flour per day.
The bread ration was issued every four days. Bread was nominally edible for nine days after it had been baked, although I imagine it’d be good only for toasting, and that after the mouldy bits had been cut out.
Again in the French service, the practice of the day was that field ovens were constructed no more than three days march from the grain stores and only two days’ march from the Army. Consider what this means for the French Army; the bread was baked in brick ovens. It was reckoned that 40 ovens were needed to bake the bread for 100,000 men. At times houses had to be demolished to provide the necessary raw materials. Construction of said ovens took as long as two weeks.
For these reasons it must have taken little to upset ones’ plan of campaign! Imagine your army leapfrogging in carefully planned steps from one laboriously constructed set of field ovens to the next, they themselves built laboriously at least two weeks beforehand and no more than three days from your magazines. You yourself, on receipt of your two-day-old bread knew you could march for no more than seven days before your bread became inedible and that your troops at the outset would have to hump the lot on their backs.
The upshot of all this is that ultimately, the French Army of the day could be no more than about five days from their magazines. An unexpected retrograde movement could send the Army along paths unprepared from a logistical point of view and this lack of supply could lead to every evil attendant upon maurauding, breakdown of discipline and desertion.
Almost entirely culled from Lee Kennetts' book "The French Armies in the Seven Years' War" - rarish and not too easy to obtain, but highly recommended.
I thought I’d share what seemed to me to be some of the more thought-provoking things I’d come across.
Just for a start, it’s all about bread. The horses could be fed from whatever fodder could be scrounged, munitions were probably one of the least bulky and troublesome things that could be transported, but without bread your army starts to starve.
An army of 100,000 men consume, in the French service at least, 200,000 pounds of flour per day.
The bread ration was issued every four days. Bread was nominally edible for nine days after it had been baked, although I imagine it’d be good only for toasting, and that after the mouldy bits had been cut out.
Again in the French service, the practice of the day was that field ovens were constructed no more than three days march from the grain stores and only two days’ march from the Army. Consider what this means for the French Army; the bread was baked in brick ovens. It was reckoned that 40 ovens were needed to bake the bread for 100,000 men. At times houses had to be demolished to provide the necessary raw materials. Construction of said ovens took as long as two weeks.
For these reasons it must have taken little to upset ones’ plan of campaign! Imagine your army leapfrogging in carefully planned steps from one laboriously constructed set of field ovens to the next, they themselves built laboriously at least two weeks beforehand and no more than three days from your magazines. You yourself, on receipt of your two-day-old bread knew you could march for no more than seven days before your bread became inedible and that your troops at the outset would have to hump the lot on their backs.
The upshot of all this is that ultimately, the French Army of the day could be no more than about five days from their magazines. An unexpected retrograde movement could send the Army along paths unprepared from a logistical point of view and this lack of supply could lead to every evil attendant upon maurauding, breakdown of discipline and desertion.
Almost entirely culled from Lee Kennetts' book "The French Armies in the Seven Years' War" - rarish and not too easy to obtain, but highly recommended.
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