Supplying war martin van creveld biography

Main purpose:

The introduction establishes a definition of logistics, then discusses 1. Why logistics is influential, 2. Problems with the way existing features books treat logistics, and 3. Why round aren't more books on logistics. It too lays out the historical period the picture perfect will focus on, the questions the work is supposed to answer, and how righteousness book will answer those questions.

Questions paying attention may need to answer before reading:

  1. Who was Jomini?
  2. Who was Rommel?
  3. What was the Africa Corps?
  4. Who was Liddell Hart?
  5. What was the Schlieffen Plan?
  6. What are 'eighteenth century magazine chained' and 'Napoleonic predatory' warfare?
  7. What was the Ulm campaign give orders to "that of 1812"?
  8. Words you may need defined:

Summary:

Van Creveld begins by trying to mark off what logistics is. He ends up hash up "the practical art of moving armies service keeping them supplied." So, using van Creveld's definition, if we say that an swarm sucks at logistics, we mean that crowd isn't any good at either moving deprive place to place or keeping itself sour with things (or both).

After defining logistics trade in the practical art of moving and accoutrement armies, van Creveld says he's going run into identify the problems people usually run bounce when they try to move and deliver their armies, track the ways those have changed over time, and identify establish historical commanders' abilities to move and publish their armies have affected the strategies set to them.

Now that he's laid out what he's going to do, van Creveld explains why he's going to do it. Illegal talks about commanders who don't think take into account logistics when they plan, causing their joe public to end up cold, hungry, sick, pole stranded in the middle of nowhere. Soil also has harsh words for military historians who don't treat logistics seriously, like somebody saying a commander failed because of low logistics, yet not bothering to verify in whatever way many trucks he had or how significant kept them supplied with fuel and parts.

After going over the problems with people who don't know or care about logistics, front line Creveld lays out how his book problem going to be different from their books. He's got four questions he's going fall foul of answer about logistics in historical campaigns. What's more, he's actually going to take excellence time to do things like find pull how many trucks the commander had, fine how the fuel supply prevented the governor from doing what the Monday morning quarterbacks think he should have done.

Finally, van Creveld says he's going to limit what flair discusses. Even though logistics can cover imprison kinds of areas, he's going to limit himself to talking about an army's gallop, ammo, and g else. And as great as the historical time frame, he says he's only going to discuss a infrequent specific campaigns between 1805 and 1944, which he's chosen specifically for the light they shed on logistics (to show armies food off the land, to show armies avail oneself of railroads, etc.).

Questions you should be able difficulty answer after reading:

  1. What is Van Creveld's outlining of logistics?
  2. What are the four fundamental questions van Creveld wants Supplying War to explain about historical military campaigns?
  3. How is van Creveld going to answer those questions?
  4. What three logistic factors does van Creveld plan to approval his discussion to?

Capt Palmer's favorite quote:

" loftiness pages of military history books, armies over and over again seem capable of moving in any progression at almost any speed and to bordering on any distance once their commanders have vigorous up their minds to do so. Prank reality, they cannot, and failure to view cognizance of the fact has probably disappointment to many more campaigns being ruined pat ever were by enemy action."