War Logistics Quotes

[For gunpowder] we are so exceedingly destitute that our artillery will be of little use without a supply which is large and seasonable. What we have must be reserved for the small arms, and that managed with the utmost frugality.

The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory.

If was, increased by a lack of railways in Russia - for bringing up supplies to our advancing troops.

Where are they to get work, who is to feed them, clothe them, & house them? We cannot now give tents to our soldiers, and our wagon trains are now a horrible impediment, and if we are to take along & feed the negroes who flee to us for refuge, it will be an impossible task. You cannot solve this negro question in a day.

Generals know nothing about the economics of war.

Government acquisition of food supplies in time of war is no less important than conscription. Equity is the fundamental principle applicable to both these essential phases of war administration.

I don't like fantasy where a king snaps his fingers and suddenly a whole army appears and goes off to war - he's got to feed them, he's got to pay them, he's got to take care of the camp followers and the gamblers and the people who cause disorder.

My husband was in the war of the Crimea. It is terrible the hardships he went through, to be two months without going into a house, under the snow in trenches. And no food to get, maybe a biscuit in the day. And there was enough food there, he said, to feed all Ireland; but bad management, they could not get it.

Supplies of the most essential kinds find their way not only to British ports and British armies at a distance, but the armies in our neighborhood with which our own are contending derive from our ports and outlets a subsistence attainable if at all from other sources.

If you look at the question of expenditure in Iraq, you have got to start from the one fundamental truth: that every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.

There are no straight line projections of cost in a war.

Russia started the war [WWI] with 5,000 guns and reserves of 5 million shells. By the end of 1914, the Czar’s factories were producing 35,000 rounds a month, but the armies at the front were sometimes using 45,000 shells a day.

During his fifteen years in Italy, Hannibal never had enough elephants to suit him. Most of the original group succumbed to the climate, and he was always begging Carthage for more, but the people at home were stingy. They would ask if he thought they were made of elephants and what had he done with the elephants they sent before.

If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir.

I can make a brigadier general in five minutes, but it's not so easy to replace 110 horses.

In Afghanistan and Iraq [the wars], the Pentagon saw little value in making acquisitions that would be irrelevant by the time they were ready.

Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.

If we look at the Gulf War, the same is also true. Indeed, my work on the logistics of perception and the Gulf War was so accurate that I was even asked to discuss it with high-ranking French military officers. They asked me: 'how is it that you wrote that book in 1984 and now it's happening for real?' My answer was: 'the problem is not mine but yours: you have not been doing your job properly!'