The advance of the Marines in Cuba far exceeded pre-war expectations, which is a good thing, but also a bad thing. On the downside, due to insufficient advance preparations, there was a serious disconnect in logistics, which not only affected the Marines' attack on Bayamo and Holguin, but also affected the timing of Luo Yunchong's deployment of strategic bomber units.

There are many difficult problems in logistical support, and similarly, there are two factors that lead to problems in logistical support: one is inadequate preparation, and the other is too much combat consumption.

The pre-war material consumption estimate was made by Fu Shaofeng himself, and Han Shaofeng had made the estimate as large as possible to ensure that there would be no material disconnection in the event of an unexpected situation. But in reality, his estimates are still too little. At that time, Han Shaofeng believed that when the first batch of marines, that is, the six marine divisions directly transported by the landing fleet and the first transport fleet, arrived in Cuba, the average daily consumption of various materials was about 30,000 tons, and the average daily consumption of one division was 5,000 tons. After the arrival of the second landing force, the six Marine Divisions that were directly transported to the port of San Diego, they consumed an average of 70,000 tons of various materials per day, including the consumption of engineering troops, but also the basic living support materials needed to stabilize the civilian population. In the later stage of the campaign, that is, when Han Shaofeng sent a reserve, the average daily material consumption was 100,000 tons. At that time, the materials delivered to the front line, as well as the transportation capacity arranged, were also carried out according to Han Shaofeng's estimate. Every four days, a convoy of transports between 400,000 and 500,000 tonnes of material at a time, with an average of about 440,000 tonnes, which is about the same as the maximum estimate, with a margin.

After the battle began, the real material consumption calculated at that time far exceeded Han Shaofeng's estimate. Between the three and nine days, an average of 55,000 tons of materiel were consumed per day, mainly engineering materials, especially in the consolidation of the landing site. A large amount of engineering materials were consumed. During the seven days from the 9th to the 16th, an average of 94,000 tons of supplies were consumed every day, of which 12,700 tons were used to stabilize the daily necessities of civilians just by being delivered to the front line, and a large share of the supplies were sent to the ground to replenish equipment. From the 16th to the 20th, an average of more than 140,000 tons of materials were consumed per day. In other words, by the 20th, the Marine Corps had consumed a total of nearly 1.65 million tons of supplies. Then. Only five convoys arrived, and only about 2.15 million tons of supplies were delivered to the front, with a balance of less than 500,000 tons. Of the remaining materials, most of them are engineering materials, as well as supplies used to stabilize life and medical care in the occupied areas, and the combat materials that can really be used by the troops are quite limited.

These logistical support figures not only reflect the huge consumption capacity of the war, but also bring about a new problem, that is, the logistical support capability is difficult to meet Han Shaofeng's requirements for launching an offensive immediately. To make matters worse, the transport ships that were supposed to be used to transport equipment and supplies for Luo Yunchong to repair the airfield were all loaded with combat supplies. As a result, many of the occupied airfields cannot be repaired immediately. Likewise. Luo Yunchong had to send more transport ships to support Han Shaofeng, so that many of the supplies hoarded in Panama at that time could not be delivered to Jamaica immediately. By the twentieth day, the total amount of supplies stockpiled in Jamaica was barely enough to meet the needs of one convoy. That is, around 430,000 tons, and Han Shaofeng needs to obtain at least 1.5 million tons of war materiel by the end of the month, which necessitates the reallocation of transport capacity to transport the war materiel hoarded in Panama to Jamaica, or directly from Panama to Santiago.

At that time, Luo Yunchong was no longer the commander of the theater of operations, and became Han Shaofeng's logistics support commander. The Marine Corps is definitely the most powerful in the Imperial Legion in terms of consuming combat materiel, and its material consumption is more than five times that of the Army's face corps. It can be said that this is one of the major characteristics of the Marine Corps. Fortunately, Luo Yunchong is not just an aviation general. In the bombing of Japan, and later participated in the strategic bombing of Britain, Luo Yunchong participated in logistics support work many times, it can be said that the strategic bombing itself is also a logistics support capability, he is very familiar with logistics work, and he is very handy in scheduling, if there is another general at that time, such as Gu Xunlei. Even Han Shaofeng himself is afraid that he will be busy and cause a lot of trouble.

In order to consolidate the occupied area in southeastern Cuba and allow Han Shaofeng to win the ground battle as soon as possible, Luo Yunchong had to delay the deployment of strategic bomber units to Cuba. And another reason for his decision was that he would not be able to get enough heavy bombers by the end of August.

At that time, a batch of "Peng" bombers that Han Shaofeng needed had already arrived on Oahu and could directly transfer to the scene at any time, and according to Luo Yunchong's arrangement, when this batch of bombing arrived in late August, they would first be deployed at airfields on the Yucatan Peninsula to focus on bombing important industrial targets in the Gulf Coast region of the United States, especially oil refineries and drilling platforms in the oil-producing areas of the Mississippi River.

Bombers can fly over, and even fly over with a batch of bombs, but the large amount of ammunition and fuel needed for strategic bombing cannot fly, and they must rely on shipping, and most of the shipping forces at that time were allocated to the ground forces of Han Shaofeng and Gu Xunlei, and the transport ships that can be used to transport bombs, incendiary bombs, and aviation gasoline required by bombers are quite limited. After Luo Yunchong continued to send dissatisfied telegrams to the naval headquarters, he was able to guarantee that at most he would arrange two fleets for transporting ammunition and fuel at the beginning of September, transporting about 400,000 tons of ammunition and 550,000 tons of aviation gasoline, and these materials were only enough for 1,000 bombers at most, which would be consumed for about two months according to the two-day attendance rate. If attendance improves, it may run out in a month.

In addition to the supplies, the "Wolf Dove" bombers that were planned to be deployed to Cuba and Jamaica at that time could not fly directly from Oahu to Central America, so they had to rely on sea transportation, and they had to be broken down into several sections and assembled after being delivered to the airport, so they had to transport a number of engineering maintenance personnel and a large amount of engineering maintenance equipment. All of these have to rely on sea transportation. And these bombers will only arrive in September at the earliest, and it is quite good to be able to enter combat before the end of September.

This is also a way out of the way, mainly because the full-scale production of the "Peng" bomber has just begun, and soon after the start of the factory, there is a shortage of sufficient skilled workers, and there are still three production lines that have not been built. The output has not been able to keep up with the demand, so Luo Yunchong had to use the "Wolf Dove" bomber, which was already a little old, to carry out the bombing mission. Of course, these bombers also need to consume a lot of ammunition and fuel, and the replenishment and delivery of these materials is also a troublesome matter.

It can be said that the strategic bomber consumes no less, if not more, than any other army. The maximum take-off weight of the "Wolf Dove" bomber is 32 tons, and the fuel carrying factor is 0.27, that is, it can be loaded with 8.6 tons of aviation gasoline. In this case, it is possible to load 3 tons of bombs. Without taking into account the remaining fuel, a single sortie consumes 11.6 tons of ammunition and fuel. This does not include the supplies needed by pilots, the shells of machine guns consumed against enemy ground fighters, the spare parts consumed by battle damage repair, the supplies needed by ground crews, and so on. If calculated on average, excluding the remaining fuel that must be retained for the return voyage, the average cost of a single sortie is 12 tons. The "Peng" bomber is even more amazing, its maximum take-off weight reaches 66 tons, and the fuel carrying factor is 0.33, that is, it can carry up to 21.8 tons of aviation gasoline. In this case it is possible to carry 45 tons of bombs. Counting other consumption, and deducting the remaining fuel at the time of return, an average of 27 tons of supplies is consumed in one sortie.

Calculated according to this data. A fleet of 450,000 tons can only guarantee 37,500 sorties by "Wolf Dove" bombers, or 16,666 sorties by "Peng" bombers. But in fact, this standard cannot be reached at all, because bombers will be damaged in combat, and sometimes damaged bombers even account for about 40% of the total sorties, which requires spare parts for damaged bombers. In addition, it is not possible to achieve optimal efficiency when loading cargo, especially when it comes to transporting large quantities of "light" cargo (i.e. cargo that is small in density and must be damaged to avoid), and therefore it is impossible to achieve maximum transport efficiency. Judging by the data of the empire's statistics during the Great War. In fact, a fleet of 50 10,000-ton ships can only transport 4,500 sorties by the "Peng" bomber or 8,000 sorties by the "Wolf Dove" bomber. According to the deployment of 1,000 bombers, an average of once every two days, then every two days, or four days, a convoy of transport ships must arrive, otherwise the bomber group will be forced to ground due to lack of supplies.

True military logistics statistics were born during the Great War, as early as the bombing of Japan. There have been many cases where bomber groups have been collectively grounded due to a serious shortage of materials, especially when incendiary bombs are used on a large scale, and the speed at which the Imperial Arsenal produces incendiary bombs is not a consumption, and there are even "strange" things that have not been able to make bombers dispatch for more than a month. That is, when summing up the lessons of the bombing of Japan, the personnel of the Logistics Department of the Imperial Navy summed up the "statistics of logistics support", of course, this name was added later. At that time, the discipline was not yet recognized, but it developed quite rapidly due to the needs of the war. If nothing else, how to allocate the cargo of a transport ship is very knowledgeable. In the past, it was basically a single cargo ship that was loaded with a single cargo, which would happen when the cargo hold was full, but the maximum dwt was not reached, or when the maximum dwt was reached, the cargo hold was still more than half empty. At that time, it was the Navy that first proposed to mix cargo, and try to ensure that the maximum deadweight tonnage is reached when the cargo hold is full, or close to the maximum deadweight tonnage, so as to improve the efficiency of sea transportation as much as possible. Of course, that's all for later.

In mid-August, after Tan Renhao returned to Panama, he has been assisting Luo Yunchong with logistical problems. At that time, he almost didn't need to worry about the affairs of the combined fleet, Hao Dongjue and Zhu Rongzhe used to have a superior-subordinate relationship, and now they cooperate very tacitly, and the maintenance of the third task force is arranged by Chang Jianxin, with the assistance of Huang Xiaotian. And most importantly, in the short term, the combined fleet has no other tasks. Tan Renhao has a lot of free time, and he had a long-term relationship with Luo Yunchong before, and it was he who helped Luo Yunchong solve the logistical problems at that time, and now, it is naturally his turn to help Luo Yunchong deal with these thorny problems.

At that time, Tan Renhao was mainly responsible for liaising with the Navy Command and arranging the affairs of the transport fleet. Dealing with the delivery of materials is definitely a meticulous job, as soon as he gets started, Tan Renhao has a headache, although he also did similar work when he bombed Japan, but that was several years ago, and now the Navy's logistics support system and system have changed a lot, he still has to learn from scratch.

With Tan Renhao's help, Luo Yunchong was mainly responsible for dispatching his strategic bomber force. By the end of August, the first batch of "Peng" bombers had already arrived at the airfields in Central America, but Luo Yunchong did not immediately arrange for the bombing mission, but asked this unit to organize training, first, to familiarize themselves with the battlefield environment, and second, to let the officers and men adapt to the tense atmosphere on the battlefield as soon as possible. By 8 September, this unit had only participated in a few bombing operations in support of the Army Expeditionary Force, and did not achieve obvious results, but lost a few bombers in the battle, which made Luo Yunchong's heart ache.

It was not until September 5 that the first flotilla with ammunition, fuel arrived in Panama. Instead of stopping in Panama City, the fleet passed directly through the Panama Canal, with its final destination being the port of Chetumal on the Yucatan Peninsula, which would also be the first convoy to enter the port of Chetumal. On 7 September, the flotilla entered the port of Chetumal, and the next day ammunition and fuel were delivered to a nearby airfield. On the night of 7 July, Luo Yunchong deployed a combat mission to this unit of 493 bombers to bomb Baton Rouge, the capital of the US state of Louisiana, on the night of 8 July, officially opening the prelude to the strategic bombing of the United States!

Tan Renhao did not participate in the planning of the strategic bombing, he was not a member of the theater command, and there was no need to interfere in Luo Yunchong's actions. The most important thing is that at the beginning of September, Han Shaofeng had already defeated Bayamo and Holguin, and the Marine Corps began to build a defensive line and did not rush to advance to the central region of Cuba. Sea Soul Volume 24 Sea Overlord Section 47 Strategic Bombing