Rethinking logistics
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From industry access to strategic advantage: why competition for industry and logistics will shape success in and out of war.
By David Beaumont For years Western strategic policy has seemed built for short, limited, wars, but strategic trends and concern for national industrial preparedness are taking planning in new directions. The notion that a concept for industrial mobilisation is now… Continue reading
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Do Defence logisticians need a new professional narrative?
By David Beaumont Ten years ago, I wrote a short article on the Australian Army’s then ‘Land Power Forum’ arguing the case for an Army logistics narrative. This article was written in the wake of a shake-up of the Army’s… Continue reading
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Military solvency and signs of a system that might not work – why militaries must reimagine how they support and sustain forces in a future war
By David Beaumont Western militaries find themselves at a crossroads, as new pressures force a revaluation of assumptions about how they prepare for, and subsequently sustain, operations during a conflict. As the diet of these militaries expands – driven by… Continue reading
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Leading small-team logistics
By Chris Paparone. Steven Menschelyi recently described in a great article how armies can manage combat service support units best if it sees them as they really are: a collection of mission-focused teams. As a CSS Bn Cdr, I came… Continue reading
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Survive first, sustain later: exercising dispersed logistics in the close fight
By Mark Baldock A logistics element not capable of surviving and operating in a threat environment is a battlefield liability. Armies knew long before ‘multi-domain battle’ was developed that logistic capabilities are easy to identify, target and destroy. They are… Continue reading
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Adapting Atlas – The cost of combat power: Part Two
By David Beaumont. Most Western land forces are beyond the point where a ‘protection versus mobility’ argument has short-term usefulness. In recent years due to a range of threats upon typically Middle-eastern battlefields militaries have found protection as essential; protection… Continue reading
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A Response to ‘Logistics in War’ – Sustaining the multi-domain battle
By James Davis You may have seen exerts of this post in the comments to previous articles, or at James Davis’s personal blog ‘The Armchair Colonel’. This post, reflecting a succinct list of change activities required within the Australian Army,… Continue reading
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The cost of combat power – weapons, weight and sustainment in the multi-domain land battle
By David Beaumont. In ‘Sustaining multi-domain battle’ I articulated a number of challenges that land-force military logisticians must address in developing their sustainment concepts for multi-domain battle. Some may not yet be persuaded that the idea of multi-domain battle is … Continue reading
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Sustaining the multi-domain battle
‘Multi-domain battle’ is the topic of the moment amongst land force (Army and Marine) concept writers in a number of Western armies. ‘Multi-domain battle’ is an evolution of joint warfare which exploits the capacity of domain ‘owners’ (land, sea, air… Continue reading
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Fighting in the void – combat operations in the logistic vacuum
By David Beaumont. Logistics has emerged from a decade-long hiatus to reassert its relevance. As Western militaries turn their attention from operations with a generally consistent logistic tempo, to strategic challenges that necessitate a substantial shift in force posture, logisticians… Continue reading
The Paper War: Logistics... and everything but the fighting. 