page_title: Military logistics
section_title: Modern developments
hierarchical_section_title: Military logistics / Modern developments
caption_attribution_description: English: The Military Sealift Command medium, large roll-on/roll-off ship USNS Pililaau (T-AKR 304) passes Diamond Head Crater in Honolulu, Hawaii, July 12, 2008. Pililau is transporting U.S. Soldiers from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division and equipment from 45th Sustainment Brigade, 8th Theater Sustainment Command from Hawaii to Camp Pendleton, Calif, in support of Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) 2008. The joint exercise tests the military's ability to transfer war fighting and humanitarian equipment to shore from ships at sea.
context_page_description: Military logistics is the discipline of planning and carrying out the movement, supply, and maintenance of military forces. In its most comprehensive sense, it is those aspects or military operations that deal with:
  Design, development, acquisition, storage, distribution, maintenance, evacuation, and disposition of materiel.
  Transport of personnel.
  Acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities.
  Acquisition or furnishing of services.
  Medical and health service support.
context_section_description: Logistics, occasionally referred to as "combat service support", must address highly uncertain conditions.  While perfect forecasts are rarely possible, forecast models can reduce uncertainty about what supplies or services will be needed, where and when they will be needed, or the best way to provide them.
  Ultimately, responsible officials must make judgments on these matters, sometimes using intuition and scientifically weighing alternatives as the situation requires and permits. Their judgments must be based not only upon professional knowledge of the numerous aspects of logistics itself but also upon an understanding of the interplay of closely related military considerations such as strategy, tactics, intelligence, training, personnel, and finance.
  However, case studies have shown that more quantitative, statistical analysis are often a significant improvement on human judgment.  One such recent example is the use of Applied Information Economics by the Office of Naval Research and the Marine Corps for forecasting bulk fuel requirements for the battlefield.
  In major military conflicts, logistics matters are often crucial in deciding the overall outcome of wars.  For instance, tonnage war—the bulk sinking of cargo ships—was a crucial factor in World War II. The successful Allied anti-submarine campaign and the failure of the German Navy to sink enough cargo in the Battle of the Atlantic allowed Britain to stay in the war and the ability to maintain a Mediterranean supply chain allowed the maintenance of the second front against the Nazis in North Africa; by contrast, the successful U.S. submarine campaign against Japanese maritime shipping across Asian waters effectively crippled its economy and its military production capabilities and the Axis were unable to consistently maintain a supply chain to their North African forces with on average 25% fewer supplies than required being landed and critical fuel shortages dictating strategic decisions.  In a tactical scale, in the Battle of Ilomantsi, the Soviets had an overwhelming numerical superiority in guns and men, but managed to fire only 10,000 shells against the Finnish 36,000 shells, eventually being forced to abandon their heavy equipment and flee the battlefield, resulting in a Finnish victory. One reason for this was the successful Finnish harassment of Soviet supply lines.
  More generally, protecting one's own supply lines and attacking those of an enemy is a fundamental military strategy; an example of this as a purely logistical campaign for the military means of implementing strategic policy was the Berlin Airlift.
  Military logistics has pioneered a number of techniques that have since become widely deployed in the commercial world. Operations research grew out of WWII military logistics efforts.  Likewise, military logistics borrows from methods first introduced to the commercial world.
  The Kargil Conflict in 1999 between India and Pakistan also referred to as Operation Vijay (Victory in Hindi) is one of the most recent examples of high altitude warfare in mountainous terrain that posed significant logistical problems for the combating sides. The Stallion which forms the bulk of the Indian Army's logistical vehicles proved its reliability and serviceability with 95% operational availability during the operation.
caption: Roll-on/roll-off ship USNS Pililaau during Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) exercise.
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