readx;?? In a sense, the gradual rise of firearms, in addition to the corresponding advantages of firearms themselves, has another advantage that many people may not have thought of, that is, the logistical pressure of firearms is relatively smaller than that of cold weapons. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info∟★八∟★八∟★ Reading∟★ book,.2▲3.o》

This logistical pressure does not only refer to the situation of the firearms themselves, but even if the logistics and transportation of the firearms themselves are counted alone, the gap between them and the corresponding weapon volume of the cold weapons will not be too disadvantageous, and it can even be said that there is a slight advantage.

For example, the bow itself occupies more space than a firearm, and the space occupied by a hundred arrows plus the bow itself is larger than that of a weapon such as an arquebus.

If this situation is extended to an army as a whole, then the logistical needs of the army, the advantages of firearms will be more obvious.

And for artillery, a bed crossbow or even a trebuchet itself has no advantages.

The transportation of firearms may be much more dangerous than that of cold weapons, but it is undeniable that in terms of the operational pressure of a force, some logistical advantages may even affect the final victory or defeat of the war.

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Regarding the logistics of ancient warfare, later generations have an opinion:

The biggest difference between ancient logistics and modern logistics is that it is based on the principle of local supply, and the fundamental reason is that it is limited by technology, whether it is people, cattle or horses, they all have to eat grain and grass. By the 18th century, the level in Western Europe was about 7 days' carriage roads, and it became almost impossible to resupply from the rear. In other words, the numerous descriptions on the Internet, past and present, of the constant supply of food from the rear are themselves problematic.

There are two prerequisites for rear transportation: First, it relies on waterways. Water transport can avoid the consumption of the convoy itself, but is limited by the flow of water and the direction of the wind. This is especially true if there are no waterways at all, and secondly, in a well-regulated country, the establishment of warehouses in various places, on which they are relied upon, is considerable.

The limit to this is the number of local populations, and in ancient times, when everyone lived near the subsistence line, the higher the population density, the greater the ability to support the surplus population. If a place has a population of 400 people per square kilometer. Then 100 square kilometers can support people, of course, this only refers to the production area, if the consumption area such as the city, dozens of square kilometers are stuffed with hundreds of thousands of people, but will not provide any surplus food. In addition, even if you rely on the warehouse system, if the transportation distance is too long, then it will be limited by technology, such as in the Qin and Han dynasties, "only" from the Central Plains to the Saishang, the loss rate of grain can reach tens and one, or even one hundred. In the Central Plains, there was enough food for 1 million people, but when it came to the plug, it became only enough for 10,000 people.

According to the ordinary situation, such as good weather and good harvest every year, in general, the superfluous people who can be supported by a region for a long time will not exceed 10% of the local population, such as the area of the people mentioned above can support 4000 troops, which is considered the upper limit. It was not until the 19th century that this restriction was completely breached. For example, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Industrial Revolution had already taken place, and the theory of all-people war had been implemented, but a large country with a population of 20 million could support less than 500,000 troops in the vicinity of its own country, and it was "only" no more than 200,000 troops that could be commanded in a campaign.

Of course, it is possible to exceed 10% of the population if looting is carried out recklessly, but there are two serious problems: first, it is unsustainable. The army in front robbed it up, and the army in the back ate the air. Second, and more seriously, serious looting brings with it serious disorder, which is something more terrible than any brutal order. Reckless looting can only produce extreme disorder, in which the waste and loss of food far outweigh the gains. Needless to say, in ancient times, even in World War II, the disorderly plundering of the German and Japanese armies also caused the result of not having enough to eat.

Of course, it is impossible for any place to have a good harvest every year, so there would have been a smaller upper limit for ancient states to maintain their armies. By the 18th century, when production was greatly developed, the ratio of soldiers to civilians remained at about 3% in European countries. Among the data that China can have, there has been no one since the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties that has exceeded this number.

The situation is similar for nomads, who have to consider how much of a population they can support if they want to maintain an army. This has nothing to do with the spirit, military system, etc., it is purely a practical problem, a grassland can feed 100,000 people, so the dried meat that can be cured down for men to fight can feed 10,000 soldiers at most. In other words, if the enemy comes in, if it exceeds 10,000 men, they will also have great logistical problems.

Therefore, the existence of the Great Army was possible only by relying on the warehouses of the Taiping period. For example, the Greco-Persian War, the hundreds of thousands of armies of Issus and Gaugameiran relied on the good roads and state management of Persia, and if the war was prolonged, or the country fell into chaos, then the support capacity would be extremely reduced. Even a man as logistical as Alexander lost a large number of troops on his way back from his expedition to India.

This view is correct in a certain sense, but in a certain sense, it largely ignores the impact of a country's corresponding policies on logistics and transportation.

From the ancient Central Plains to the plug or along the Great Wall, the consumption of grain and grass transported is indeed very amazing, but don't forget that this situation is often the consumption that must be spent on the initial control of some unfamiliar areas.

For example, the Great Qin Empire, after sweeping the Six Kingdoms, the Great Qin Empire took over the Great Wall defense of Yan and Zhao, at this time, at the beginning, the Great Qin Empire certainly needed to use a large amount of grain and grass transportation to maintain the consumption of these garrison officers and soldiers, and the logistical pressure was certainly huge, but after gradually restoring or formulating the tuntian system in some new areas, the pressure in this area will be less and less, and even be able to achieve self-sufficiency.

And these things, under the premise of the effective operation of the corresponding system, only need enough time.

Therefore, the logistical and transportation capacity of an army depends to a large extent on the corresponding policies of the state, rather than on the simple question of what an army itself can change.

......

And some time before the nineteenth century in the West, European history was about to enter the famous Napoleonic era.

Prior to this, Napoleon had his own deep understanding of the problems of the logistics system at that time:

Napoleon's army was enormous, and the logistical problems raised by his new strategy were unprecedented. As we have said earlier, even in the eighteenth century, long-distance strategic marches were by no means unattainable, as most people might think. As for the fact that the scale of the march at that time was always small, the problem was by no means a logistical factor, but a comparison of the forces of the offensive and defensive sides. A field army has a fair chance of victory when it engages another field army of equal size, but it is generally accepted that a numerical superiority of no less than 7 to 1 is necessary to besiege a strong, well-fortified fortress. As a result, sieges were only possible with large armies, such as Marlborough's concentration of 120,000 men around Lille in 1708.

Without such a large force, the only way is to fight in the movement, which is undoubtedly to compensate for the lack of numbers with speed. But even then, if the enemy's fortress is not touched, there is still little hope of a decisive victory. During this year, Marlborough and Prince Eugene won successive victories in field battles, but the strength of France remained undestroyed, and finally a peace treaty was concluded in favor of it.

Thus, Marlborough marched 40,000 men into the Danube, and Eugene with 30,000 men on Toulon, reflecting not only their attempts to "get rid of logistical constraints," but also, to a greater extent, the fact that such a small force could not win even a first-class fortress. Indeed, with such a small army, in order to advance forward, it is impossible to divide forces to encircle the fortress on the way. This is why such strategic marches usually begin with an advance along the edge of enemy territory, rather than deep into enemy territory, and not in the dependence on supplies from warehouses, as some might think.

If Marlborough had been forced to blockade even a mere fortified fortress during his march from Flanders to the Danube, the whole famous strategic maneuver would have come to naught.

Changing the relative relationship between siege warfare and field warfare, and changing the relative importance of enemy fortresses and their field armies as strategic objectives, was Napoleon's most revolutionary contribution to the art of war. At the beginning of the 18th century, Vauban counted 200 sieges in the last two centuries, compared to only 60 in the field. But Napoleon fought only two sieges in his life. His experience of supplying the army besieging Mantua, Italy, showed that the logistical problems of siege were not easy to solve even for the man surnamed Bonaparte.

In 1809 he wrote to his adopted son: "The large number of troops is concentrated in one place, and the method of supply on the march will not work", so in addition to collecting grain directly from the nearest place, it is necessary to have a supply convoy to carry it forward from afar. Napoleon thought that "this is the best way", to which Maurice of Saxony would have gladly agreed.

Napoleon recognized that it was the 18th century's preference for siege warfare that caused endless logistical difficulties. And it was precisely because he was able to get rid of the siege that there was basically no need for logistics like in the 18th century.

This is the reason for the fact that, at first glance, it may seem incomprehensible that Napoleon, although he was no superior to his predecessors, was able to propel huge armies across Europe to build a great empire from Hamburg to Sicily, irrevocably shaking the whole world.

Napoleon's idea of a change in logistics had a lot to do with the wars he had experienced, as well as his political experiences:

The French Republican Army, which began to be established after 1789, did not attach great importance to the specifics of its organization and logistics. When Napoleon first took over, he found that the army, in his own words, was "short of food and clothing...... There are many difficulties". Although the French army had come a long way from then on, its logistical organization was still far from perfect by 1805.

All logistical matters were under the jurisdiction of the Army's Organization Department, which at the time was headed by De Ran, who was primarily responsible for the army's supplies, clothing, and transport, but his authority was limited to the French borders. On the battlefield, logistics — including supplies and transportation — are the responsibility of the army's quartermaster's director, but his authority is limited to the combat zone. Although logistical organization and material supply were well arranged at both ends of the supply line, there was no fixed organization to manage the logistics zone and use the resources of this zone, which was common to the war at that time.

Here, the Emperor often made special arrangements, usually to put commanders who had poor results and who were not satisfied with him in charge, and these commanders were transferred to such tasks, if not as a substantive punishment, but at least a derogatory punishment.

In 1805, the Quartermaster General of the Army was Pettier. He had four overseers and the heads of the supply departments. But Napoleon always bypassed these central agencies and gave orders directly to his army commanders about transportation and supplies.

The corps command had an adjutant, whose duty was to direct the supply of the army in accordance with the principle of the Quartermaster General of the Imperial Command. At each division headquarters there was a station officer, who was under the orders of both the lieutenant and his immediate superior, the division commander, and the two could and sometimes conflicted.

The materials and equipment at the disposal of these officials are very inadequate. This is not because of the preservation of the tradition of the Republic's hungry tribal army, which survives on looting, or because it does not understand the importance of establishing regular baggage corps. Exactly, this is due to the fact that this army has been preparing for an invasion of Britain for almost a year and a half. In view of Britain's superior maritime power, the invasion of Britain could not be counted on a regular supply line from the European continent.

Once the French had crossed the Channel, they could only rely on local supplies, and the French army's hopes of returning to France depended entirely on a quick victory on the battlefield and a sub-city alliance with the British. As a result, the army in the port of Boulogne was almost completely devoid of means of supply and transport. But even if we conceive of Napoleon's plan to invade Britain as a mere feint, he could not have built up his war machine on the continent without alarming the enemy. The battle of Austerlitz was different, as was usually the case when Napoleon made the logistical preparations for the battle, and one of the main considerations was the need to maintain the suddenness of the battle at all costs.

When the tide of war came in 1805, the War Office and the Army Quartermaster Department were faced with the enormous task of gathering all the transport and supply agencies for the 170,000 French troops in a matter of weeks. The problem is compounded by the fact that the troops for which these institutions served were largely not stationed throughout this period, but were on the march from the Boulogne camp to the Rhine area.

In addition, the reorganization of 80,000 new soldiers was carried out until the army was in full swing, which made it even more difficult. Indeed, mobilization and deployment, which are usually carried out in separate phases, are now condensed into a complete integrated operation.

This "tactical revolution", which was Napoleon's first attempt at a logistical change, ultimately led to Napoleon's victory in the war against Austria-Hungary.

Merely...... This logistical approach is very immature and has a lot of loopholes.