readx;??? Napoleon's logistics model, although it suffered quite heavy losses in front of the Russians, there is no doubt that Napoleon's logistics model had a very far-reaching impact. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info please search for the most complete! The fastest updated novel

Even in World War I and World War II, considerable influence can be seen in the logistics indicators of military combat operations in some countries.

Not to mention, the U.S. military, during the "Civil War" in the mid-nineteenth century, believed that Napoleon's logistics had certain merits.

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Major Eben Swift of the U.S. Army once said that more than half of the thirty-five officers in a regiment were appointed generals in the frontline within the first few months of the American Civil War, and four of them were soon promoted to commanders. Speaking about the regiment, he said:

"This is an excellent regiment, and its officers are well equipped. In a way, its experience is remarkable, as it has done a lot of positive work in the pursuit of the Indians over a vast area throughout the country. ”

Speaking about these experienced officers who were promoted to generals, he said:

"When it comes time to apply what they've learned to solve bigger problems than they did when they went to the front or scouted the Indians, they find themselves inexperienced, untrained, and unprecedent. It was only after a year and a half that the troops they organized and commanded were able to fight really well, and financial, patriotic, and capable factors naturally played a role. ”

The problem is that our combat units are not organized in response to the demands of war. Although the war clouds have been in the South for a long time, the government officials responsible for keeping the war apparatus up to date with the political situation have never made even a cursory analysis of the situation, or in the terminology that is now in common fashion, they have not made a "situational judgment at all." "First of all, they did not seriously estimate the likelihood of the outbreak of war. Second, they also failed to consider the tasks they might face in the event of a war, the human and material resources that could be used to accomplish the tasks, and the specific problems of using these resources to achieve the goals of the war.

The lazy and negative style has almost fatal consequences. In the first two years of the Civil War, the apparent success of the rebellion (referring to the military rebellion in the southern states of the United States) is proof of this. At that time, authoritative commentators in European military circles described our armies as a "rabble" and described the two battles of Bourren (the name of a small river in northeastern Virginia, USA) and Charlotte (in Harding County, Tennessee, USA) (the latter battle was fought after a year of experience by our generals) as "a comedy full of errors."

If the Union Army had done a reasonable job of logistics, the rebellion would have been suppressed as quickly as a commotion. It seems that this is a conclusion reached by the military authorities after careful consideration. The enormous costs and major difficulties that come with protracted wars are the price to pay for neglecting logistics. If we can prevent this from happening and get the logistics right in advance, the subsequent expenses will be insignificant.

Since the science of war is the systematic arrangement of various matters, and the art of war is the use of troops in accordance with the principle of seeking truth, it is self-evident that in order to prepare the combat units and be able to meet the requirements of any possible war, the first step in practical work should be to summarize and arrange the relevant major matters.

The Confederates could have learned from the study of Napoleon's conquest of Russia and thus could have built a good organization of war sometime before 1861. But what we actually see is that it learned the same lesson from its own bitter experience, and it was not until 1864 that it applied it.

General Sherman, who was commander of the Union Mississippi River Theater, was well aware of the importance of logistics. Judging by the many orders he issued before and after the capture of Atlanta (northwestern Georgia in the United States), the logistics he envisioned were something useful but different from strategy and tactics. This is best illustrated by the careful planning of the establishment of the railway administration in the war zone and the surrender of the initiative to the railway inspector, a colonel and adjutant.

In this organization, the responsibilities of the subordinate units are clear, and there is a strict division of labor and good cooperation. The railway also remained open in very difficult circumstances. The sabotage of the railways by guerrillas and raiders of the Southern Alliance was often successful. In January, General Hood (one of the leading leaders of the Southern rebel army) succeeded in throwing his entire army onto the railroad line, killing and capturing many railroad workers, and completely destroying thirty-five and a half-mile roadbed and a 455-foot bridge. The railroad administration was proactive and a good organization, and even before Hood's men left the site of the destruction, the construction team began laying the tracks.

Hood destroyed supplies at the station, and to lay the rails, sleepers and rails had to be brought from the railroad south of Atlanta or from Nashville (nearly two hundred miles away). Despite these delays, it took only about seven days for the entire line to be restored and opened to traffic.

Quartermasters, ration supervisors, and other staff officers also have a clear division of labor and have a great deal of authority.

The commander's orders were based on a clear concept, the objectives were clear to all, and the head of each department knew his own tasks.

General Sherman encountered many difficulties in order to have an independent body under his sole control and to work with him. This is evidenced by his correspondence with the authorities in Washington in April and May 1864. It seems that he wanted General Arun to be his quartermaster, and he wrote to Aaron:

"Draw up a plan for me, by which the War Department may issue an order that you will be my quartermaster, and that you will have the power to inspect on your own (or by inspectors) the various departments under my jurisdiction, and to direct the stockpiling and turnover of supplies, and the distribution of means of transport, and all other specific work which is entirely within your control, and I must have the ...... of a quartermaster who coordinates with me in my work. ”

Apparently, the U.S. government did not grant the request, for Sherman, in a letter to General Meggs dated 3 May 1864, added:

“...... I believe that Secretary Stanton (Secretary of the U.S. Army) made a mistake by refusing me to have the support of General Allen's work. He (Stanton), through the overall supervision of the entire War Department, was able to save the treasury more money than if he had personally reviewed a million invoices and expenditure vouchers of all kinds. Similarly, if a quartermaster is able to transport means in a very timely manner, and in the manner that the situation requires (changes in circumstances are not always foreseeable by us), he will play a role in facilitating the success of the operation. ...... You often like to talk to the commanders of the troops that they have not consulted with the experienced quartermaster. I would have liked to consult with the quartermasters, but the quartermasters were in Louisville, Nashville, and here, and although they were all under my command, they were all subject to conditions that prevented me from disturbing them. I know it's wrong. If a general commands an army like this, then he can only resign himself to fate. ”

In a letter to the Commissar of Military Rations dated April 6, 1864, he made the same argument:

"I should have by my side an officer of your ranks, who will have the same authority as I do. He can talk to me about my (operational) plans and the strength of my troops, the routes of the march, the characteristics of the supplies, and everything else; Now I have to deal with four military food overseers, none of whom have a recognized leader. ”

A study of the whole circumstances of the campaign clearly shows that, although General Sherman's estimate was only 100,000 men and 35,000 horses (plus traffic patrols), his logistical apparatus was not based on strong principles, that is, he would not have been able to sustain his troops if the heads of the logistical departments were not delegated considerable authority.

Here, strategic and tactical issues are minor compared to those raised in terms of logistics. It seems that General Sherman was his own general logistics officer. Because of the small size of his army, and because he was not under much pressure in terms of strategy and tactics, and especially because his logistics were well organized and the various departments served him excellently, he was able to assume the supervision of logistics.

Not surprisingly, it is precisely because of the good coordination of logistics that the commander's orders are a model of conciseness (and conciseness). In the order, there is no longer a need to recount in the course of a series of specific issues of various details that the commander must have in mind (through knowledge of his organs).

"The whole army must be ready to go on May 23 and travel lightly, but with enough ammunition and supplies for twenty days. ”

This is typical of his orders in the field.

There is reason to believe that the gendarmerie department, represented by the commander of the gendarmerie, was not as well organized as the supply and transport department before and at the beginning of the campaign. Some of the issues pointed out in Special Field Order No. 17, issued on 4 June 1864, would not have required the Commander-in-Chief to personally intervene. Criminal acts should have been prevented, or at least not allowed to develop to the extent indicated by the order. An example of this is the following:

“...... It is difficult to imagine the consequences of such heinous criminal acts as desertion, hiding, and falling behind in critical moments had it not been for the commander-in-chief's personal discovery and reports (some soldiers hid in the cabins of the ship and fled to the rear, as far as Kingston). The only deserving fate for such scoundrels is to be killed as a comrade in their line and a common enemy of the country. The officers and soldiers assigned to arrest them could be killed if they encountered the slightest confrontation or resistance. When they wandered to the rear, they turned their backs on their comrades who had gone down in history and dedicated their lives to battle. They deserve to be arrested, not transferred as good soldiers. It is the duty of every officer who discovers such deserters to be turned over to the pickets. Regardless of the type of military force to which they belonged, they had to serve as slaves or do hard labor such as building roads, digging ditches, and so on. If an officer is found to have deserted, he will be punished in the same way as a soldier, i.e., he will be immediately put to death or subjected to the heaviest hard labor or other punishment. ”

In conclusion, we can say that Sherman's organization was a great step forward in logistics; Sherman gave his principal logistical officers greater authority and worked closely together to meet the needs that might arise during the operation, thus ensuring that the spirit of initiative and cooperation was fully developed. But if his logistical organization had been set up earlier, and if it had been supported by equally well-organized logistics in the War Department, the cost would have been much less. For, it is said, that the criterion for measuring a method is not "how much it will cost", but "whether it can be accomplished, regardless of the cost".

If this preparation is not done well before the combat unit confronts the enemy, the ensuing battle will not be an expression of the art of war, but only a melee (especially if both sides are not well trained). The American Civil War was mostly a mix of many dogfights. But the experience is a good school (despite the expensive tuition fees paid). Both the North and the South have acquired some knowledge of the science of war mainly through the practical study of what non-scientific methods of warfare are. Since the two sides of the war are advancing at roughly the same rate in mastering the knowledge of the science of war, it is natural that the side with more abundant resources will be able to win the war in the end.

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Judging from the description of this aspect, although the logistics model of the Napoleonic period was gradually valued after the start of the Civil War, in the early stage of the Civil War, several disastrous defeats of the American army in the North proved that its war preparation was not adequate at all, let alone the logistics could be fully prepared:

April 1861 to September 1862 was the "Limited War" phase. Both sides concentrated their forces on the eastern battlefield and fought fiercely for the other side's capital. The commander of the southern army was Robert Lee, an outstanding military strategist, who, in light of the disparity in strength between the two sides, formulated a strategy of attacking as defensive, concentrating his forces to find and annihilate the main force of the northern army, and forcing the north to sign an alliance under the city. The North, on the other hand, was ill-prepared for the war and adopted the so-called "Great Snake Plan", which dispersed its forces on a 0-mile-long front, and the passive tactics adopted by the sympathetic commander McClelland, which caused the Northern army to suffer one defeat after another.

The Lincoln administration fought in the early stages of the Civil War to restore the unity of the North and the South, fearing that triggering slavery would push some of the border slave states over the side of the Southern rebels, thus losing the border states as an important strategic area. Because the northern government refused to declare the emancipation of the slaves. Thus, in the first phase of the civil war, the North suffered a series of military defeats.

In July 1861, the Battle of Manassas was held in the Eastern Theater. On July 21, the North launched an offensive on the southern capital, Richmond, with 35,000 Northern troops marching to Richmond in a neat formation to the sound of military music. Because the North had made a big fuss in advance, believing that the Southern army was vulnerable, and that it was a Saturday, many Washington citizens, congressmen, and reporters dressed up in costumes, brought their wives and children, and carried baskets containing picnics.

The 22,000 troops of the South lined up at the railway junction of Manassas. The Northern Army attacked the Southern Army amid the cheers of the spectators, and the heavy artillery fire shrouded the Southern positions in smoke. The Northern Army then crossed the Boer River and attacked the opposite bank. Who would have thought that the commander of the Confederate Army was the famous General Thomas Jackson, who commanded calmly and repelled five charges of the Northern Army, so he earned the nickname "Stone Wall". The battle was fierce, and because the uniforms of the two sides were almost identical, it was difficult to distinguish between friend and foe for a while, and the battlefield was chaotic. Soon, 9,000 reinforcements from the Southern Army arrived and launched a counteroffensive. The poorly trained Northern Army collapsed at the touch of a button, leaving behind a large number of ammunition and fleeing back to Washington. In this battle, the northern army lost 3,000 soldiers, and the southern army lost less than that

It is likely that it was the fiasco at the Battle of Manassas that led to Sherman, a famous American general who was not directly involved in the war at the time, to realize the impact of adequate logistical preparation on the war.

This led to the gradual change of logistics and corresponding preparations for war by the US military in the North during the war. (To be continued.) )

hp:..