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Published Airpower Journal - Fall 1988

THE OPERATOR-LOGISTICIAN DISCONNECT

by

COL GENE S. BARTLOW, USAF

OPERATORS and logisticians often do not understand each other. Logistics may be the least understood element in war planning. This article is an effort to foster mutual understanding through education.

A communications disconnect or gap exists between our operations commanders and our logisticians. Often our "operators" do not understand the play of logistics in warfare, and our "loggies" do not understand the operations planners' and commanders' estimates of the situation or concepts of operations. When each function operates narrowly to the exclusion of the other, we are courting disaster. "If a commander understands the play of logistics, then he or she can factor some logistics realism into plans and concepts without actually working on or solving particular logistics barriers (a fouled-up pipeline, depot, or what-have-you)."¹

However, the commander often simply does not know and does not appreciate the logistician's concerns. The "ops" types are usually able to practice their wartime skills in the execution of realistic exercises in peacetime, as is done in Red Flag training. But does the loggie have a chance to practice realistic scenarios? Usually the only opportunity is a shortened, simulation-laden, command post exercise using a simple status board and paper shuffling. We have our combat aircrews, but where are our combat logisticians?

Air Force logisticians often have the reputation of being the people who always tell the operational commander why his or her plan will not work. In fact, the logistician is seldom perceived as a positive go-getter. Why is the logistician held in such low esteem? One very important reason is that he or she is often not aware of (or educated in) a methodology for effectively approaching the problem presented by the operational commander. Logisticians (and some operators) are frequently not prepared to handle fluid operational-level situationsbecause their education and experience have not prepared them to compare the scenario they face to a principle or historical precedent. The result is the quick "no" answer rather than the more optimistic "Sure, let's try to figure a way to do it."

In an article in the Air Force Journal of Logistics, Lt Col William T. McDaniel, Jr., addressed this same concern:

Realistic logistics training is marginal at best. Most joint and Service exercises begin after deployment and end well before sustainment becomes an operational constraint. The magnitude and complexity of a major force deployment or sustainment have not been rigorously tested in either a field training exercise (FTX) or command post exercise (CPX).... The real danger of these training inadequacies is that commanders do not fully appreciate the impact of logistics on operations. And, logisticians will be unable to assist the commander because they have not been educated to handle the enormous detail of a major operation at the theater and global level.²

The Air Force is currently teaching logistics management, not wartime planning. This orientation may be appropriate for peacetime administrative tasks, but it is inappropriate for combat units and fighting commands. Rear Adm William S. Sims noted in an address to the Naval War College in 1919 that "an officer may be highly successful and even brilliant, in all grades up to the responsible positions of high command, and then find his mind almost wholly unprepared to perform its vitally importantfunctions in time of war."³

The official Air Force approach could be equated with MBA-style management. Officers and NCOs often do not take advantage of the full range of military educational opportunities open to them. Unfortunately, the Air Force community has forgotten about the historical perspective of wartime logistics planning.

Frequently, the missing link--both in the mutual understanding between operator and logistician and in education--is the knowledge of what historically has and has not worked and why. Missing is the conceptual framework required to think through the potential pitfalls in developing a line of communications to support wartime operations. Also missing is the essential understanding between operators and logisticians.

This missing link is very often reflected in the boilerplate or cookbook approach taken by our operators and logisticians in writing war plans. There is neither in-depth thought of the principles of logistics nor the conceptual understanding of the relationship of logistics to strategy and tactics. Development of this thought process must be taught to logisticians and operators in an environment designed to elicit innovation, conceptual thought, and adaptability. They must learn to make a distinction between how to think (education) and what to think (training) in support of our combat logistics requirements.

This critical thought process can perhaps best be learned through trial and error during an actual war, obviously not a practical solution. Attempts are made in operational commands to activate this thought process during major command post exercises. However, failure to learn in this environment is normal because participants train in accepted andpreplanned scenarios.

The Final Report of Army Service Forces, July 1947 stated that "for the most part, Army schools and the War Department General Staff in peacetime planned, trained for, and studied combat operations. To a great extent the Army neglected the logistics problemsof operation. This was a deficiency that proved to be costly."⁴ The study of logistics has often been neglected by operators and logisticians alike. Who was the world's greatest logistician and why? What was the critical error of the D-day invasion of Normandy? Can the average Air Force operator or logistician discuss the logistics problems faced by General Lee in the 1863 Gettysburg campaign or by Napoleon in his 1812 invasion of Russia?⁵

Would the average operator or logistician agree that the world's greatest logistician was Albert Speer, Hitter's armaments minister in Germany during World War II?⁶ Speer continued to produce and distribute military supplies and equipment in increasingly greater quantities during each year of a long war ("tripling armament production by July 1944 while reducing the number of workers per unit produced by nearly 60 percent . . . [and increasing] synthetic fuel production . . . by 90 percent")⁷ despite laboring under the most intense strategic bombing campaign ever inflicted upon any nation tip to that point in history.

"Know the enemy and know yourself." That statement by the great military sage Sun Tzu illustrates the long-recognized need to study military art and, particularly, that of the enemy.⁸ What does the average logistician or, for that matter, the average operator know about Soviet logistics principles and combat systems? Perhaps the operations and logistics war-planning communities have yet to study the issue adequately.

Soviet logistics is based on a tightly controlled supply-push model, with ammunition and fuel claiming first and second priorities, respectively. For example, Soviet fuel pipeline regiments can "lay field pipe in 10-meter quick-connect sections at a rate of 2 to 3 kilometers pet, hour. Once installed, a single pipeline can deliver 75 cubic meters of POL [petroleum, oil, and lubricants] per hour to virtually any distance, as long as sufficient booster pump stations and pipe sections are available."⁹ Does the United States have a similar pipeline-laying capability? Do we need one? When combat logisticians and operators participate in the logistics requirements process, are they aware of the enemy's capabilities and principles, and have they thought about the fall implications? Do we have a formal course of study in Soviet logistics?

Programming and planning logistics for war may be the most complex element in the operational art of war, perhaps even more difficult than strategy and tactics. Ernie Pyle, the World War II war correspondent, wrote in 1944 of logistics: "This is not a war of ammunition, tanks, guns, and trucks alone. It is as much a war of replenishing spare parts to keep them in combat as it is a war of major equipment."¹⁰ Again, in order for the operator to understand how the logistician works through these problems, it is important for him or her to gain a perspective of the principles and process of logistics.

Unless we understand the events of yesterday, the difficulties of today are distorted, and the successes of tomorrow may be delayed indefinitely. Operators need to understand basic logistics from the historical perspective in order to avoid repeating the errors of the past. Our operators' ignorance of logistics could lead to serious shortfalls in combat sustainability. From a historical perspective, that critical error of World War II mentionedearlier may be the most important logistics lesson available. This story is told by Col Harold L. Mack, US Army, Retired--the logistics planner who personally developed the lines-of-communications plans for Operation Overlord (the Normandy invasion). The following passage, extracted from an Air Force logistics management study, reveals the primary military objective of the operation:

What's not well known about Operation Overlord is that the direct military objective of Overlord was neither strategic nor tactical, but logistical. The primary objective of the plan read: "To secure a clear lodgement on the continent from which further offensive operations can be developed." Since it was clear the war would be a battle of industries, we had to be able to rapidly deliver our industrial output to the front lines.

The primary need, then, was for portfacilities. The Normandy location was selected because of physical characteristics and its location between two major port groups--Cherbourg and South Brittany. Until ports could be taken, refitted, and opened, the beach had to handle the influx of troops and supplies.¹¹

Colonel Mack relates:

There can be little question that a shortage of gasoline and ammunition, and other supplies, was primarily responsible for our failure to inflict a decisive defeat on the Germans before the close of 1944.¹²

He further states that

after months of planning, it became evident that, based on the original Overlord plan . . . we could not land and move enough tonnage to meet the demands of the various armies on their combat missions. The facilities, particularly the railroads and ports which would be captured . . . had not the capacity to enable us to move the tonnage needed to supply the armies in the field. . .

I was always intrigued by the possibility of utilizing the excellent ports and railroads on the southern coast of Brittany fronting on theBay of Biscay. Quiberon Peninsula, jutting out into the bay, seemed to offer excellent beaches for the landing of supplies becauseit could be approached from different directions in any kind of weather. One of the best freight railroads in France ran along the coast and, straight from there, east to Paris and Germany.¹³

A major change in Overlord would thus be required. "It involved the capture of Lorient, either the capture or isolation of Saint-Nazaire, and the reduction of the German installations on the islands facing the coast--a combined military and naval operation of major proportions." After many strategy meetings the plan "then was changed to include the capture of Quiberon Bay. . . The operation was given the code name Chastity and was a very closely guarded secret."¹⁴

The Chastity mission was assigned to Gen Omar N. Bradley's 12th Army Group. For various reasons, General Bradley and his subordinate, General Patton, relegated the logistics plan to a low priority:

As a result, Lorient and Quiberon were not captured; the Chastity plan of supply was never put into operation, and, although St. Malo and Brest finally were captured, they proved to be completely useless from a logistical standpoint. . . .
While General Bradley planned classical campaigns, slow and methodical, General Patton displayed a quality of original thinking, improvising, hitting hard and fast, and anticipating in advance the enemy moves. General Patton later wrongly claimed, however, that the indications were that it was a deliberate withholding of gas from his army by higher authorities. He was wrong in this respect. There just wasn't enough to go around. . . .
Unfortunately for all concerned, his genius was curtailed and his victorious advance stopped because of the initial failure to carry out the Chastity plan, needed to keep him supplied. By September 1st, his army was short of everything-gas, rations, blankets, winter clothing.¹⁵

General Bradley "underestimated the logistical need for obtaining the use of Quiberon Bay and the railroads running east from there. These were most costly mistakes."¹⁶

It was the combat operators who failed to give logistics a coequal status with strategy and tactics. Or, as Rear Adm Henry E. Eccles pointed out, "Strategy and tactics provide the scheme for the conduct of military operations; logistics provides the means therefor."¹⁷

Logistics thus became a critical factor in one of the most important military campaigns of the World War II European theater. There are many historical lessons to be learned in logistics; we must learn and never forget them.

The classic logistician's lament is that operators don't listen. The different experiences of operators and logisticians constitute one important reason for this situation. The disconnect is not a new one, as is shown in the following passage from the Army Logistician:

Logisticians are a sad embittered race of men, very much in demand in war, who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace.
They deal only with facts, but must work for men who traffic in theories.
They emerge during war because war is very much fact. They disappear in peace because, in peace, war is mostly theory.¹⁸

The solution to the operator-logistician disconnect is through increasing mutual understanding. Although the two are faced with different tasks on a daily basis and thus find the need to develop different solution methodologies, each has the same mission. Without that mutual understanding, they are unlikely to succeed.

Admiral Eccles, a noted author on modern combat logistics, writes the following about the operational-logistical relationship:

[The operational commander] should retain cognizance and authority throughout the entire range of his responsibilities. He should avoid the common tendency of some commanders to concern themselves almost entirely with the so-called "operational" matters (either strategic or tactical) at the expense of concern over those logisticalmatters which form the very basis for "operations." In other words, once a commander thinks of the strategic, logistical, and tactical elements as individual or isolated matters he has lost his perspective.¹⁹

He has put this relationship in the form of a chart that considers the critical elements of war planning and execution, strategy, tactics, and logistics coupled with the communications and intelligence interface (fig. 1). According to Admiral Eccles, "In the field of military planning, for instance, it has been found that at the highest level of military thinking it is not always possible nor desirable to distinguish between what is strategic and what is logistic."²⁰

An important basis of mutual understanding involves the operator's knowledge of how the logistician approaches a problem and thinks through the task. The following discussion provides a macroperspective of modern combat logistics planning for the layman or novice war planner.

Logistics can be thought of as a continuum, as an open-ended support concept from industry to combat. Consider the spectrum of logistics as illustrated by figure 2. Logistics provides the means to create and sustain combat forces and is the bridge between the national economy and the operation of combat forces. In an economic sense, it limits the combat forces that can be created; in an operational sense, it limits the forces that can be employed.

Logistics, strategy, and tactics must be studied in equal depth. It is only after both the operator and logistician become familiar with past military campaigns, including those seemingly trivial or accidental elements, that they can begin to understand why things happened the way they did.

Maj Gen Jonas L. Blank, in his study of logistics and strategy, makes the following observations about the campaign in North Africa during World War II:

The Germans frittered away their early gains after coming to within an eyelash of making the Mediterranean a German lake. Again, brilliant tactical execution [by Gen Erwin Rommel] was undone by inadequate logistics support. Only about 10 percent of Rommel's fuel requirements for his tanks was delivered during the critical days when the fate of North Africa hung in the balance. What he needed could have been delivered. This was proved the next year when German equipment and supplies poured into Tunisia in response to the American landings in Africa, but by then it was too late. Field Marshal [Albert] Kesselring, the German commander in chief in Italy, and Rommel disagreed on many aspects of the North African campaign. They did agree, however, after it was over, that it was primarily a logistics battle and that their promising opportunity for decisive victory evaporated because transportation had been badly planned and clear organizational channels for logistics support had never been established.²¹

Quite frequently, seemingly trivial events were actually very important, even critical, and what seemed to be accidental occurrences were actually the natural result of the campaign. An ongoing historical analysis should become the basis for the development of logistics theory, doctrine, and the associated principles of logistics. As Admiral Eccles has stated, "The search for comprehensive theories is the best way of shedding light on these [logistics] problems and of developing the understanding of principles and of cause and effect relations which may guide the responsible men who must choose among conflicting ideas."²²

James A. Huston, in his book The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775-1953, wrote about the principles of logistics. A few of them are summarized below:

• First with the most: And be there with the best if possible.
• Dispersion: Storage and other logistical activities should be dispersed and multiple lines of communications used when possible.
• Feasibility: Strategic and tactical plans depend on logistical feasibility; logistical plans depend on the national economy, availability of resources, and limitations of secondary logistical requirements.
• Timing: This principle is relative to the objective and is the key to all logistics, whether high-level procurement or tactical supply.
• Unity of command: Control of logistics is essential to control of strategy and tactics. A single authority, identical with command authority, should be responsible for logistics.
• Forward impetus: The impetus of supply is from the rear forward. An automatic supply system should exist that frees forward commanders of details without impairing their control of their own logistics.
• Information: Accurate, current information is essential to effective logistical planning and to supply distribution.
• Relativity: All logistics is relative to time, place, and circumstances; logistical factors are relative since there are always "opportunity costs" in every decision made.²³

These principles are interrelated and in some cases are scenario dependent. For example, if all communications are open in the battle area and information is flowing freely, the principle of forward impetus would not be applicable, in that only specifically required materiel should be pushed to the operational base.

The experience of the past must be conveyed to developing professionals through the theory of the present. The Air Force has only recently addressed the concept of logistics principles, called combat support principles in chapter 3 of the 1987 edition of Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-l0, Combat Support Doctrine .²⁴ These new principles are a "proven basis for deciding on a reasoned course of action."²⁵ The following eight principles cited in AFM 1-10 are somewhat different from Huston's. The debate over principles has only just begun:

• Objective: Know what you want to do before you do it and keep reminding everyone until it's done.
• Leadership: You are the single most important factor in achieving military victory.
• Effectiveness: Do only those things that improve combat capability.
• Trauma/friction: Understand: War is hell! (What Clausewitz referred to as "friction in war" describes why things naturally go wrong in war. . . Friction is bad weather during the Battle of the Bulge, contagious panic in France in 1940, an empty prison at Son Tay, or a dominant characteristic of the Iranian rescue mission. Clausewitz considered friction to be the central factor that distinguished real war from theoretical analyses.)
• Balance: Get the right thing in the right amount to the right place at the right time.
• Control: Never lose contact with your resources.
• Flexibility: Create aerospace forces that can operate in any combat environment.
• Synchronization: Combat power equals the combination of combat operations and combat support.²⁶

These principles are actually a litany of the lessons distilled from the experience of warriors. The debate should continue over which lessons from past conflicts should constitute basic principles and thus contribute to Air Force doctrine. The list is incomplete. This debate can best continue through a dialogue among experienced warriors and new members of the war-planning community.

A logistician must be concerned about virtually everything bearing on operations. The chart on logistics planning and execution (fig. 3) is a decision matrix used in combat logistics problem solving. It provides structure and can assist in the development of concepts for applying principles and theory in judging logistics feasibility and effectively executing a plan. This chart can be the vehicle by which the logistician derives the logistics objectives from the overall operational mission objective.

Lt Col G. T. Reach, US Army, writes of a concern for logistics structure:

For many years, the notion has been perpetuated [by the layman (nonlogistician) that logistics estimates are little more than moderately complicated exercises in basic mathematics. Several generations of logisticians have calculated short tons of dry cargo, gallons of fuel, stackage objectives, order-ship times [mobility flight times] and transportation time-distance factors. This data is of value in the preparations of the [logistics] estimate [of the situation], but it is not the estimate itself.²⁷

The data merely provide background to give the logistics planner some idea of the requirements of the force and the support capability. The information does not tell the planners how best to employ the available logistics assets. The logistics planner must determine this by examining the figures and then asking, "So what?" The answer to that restively straightforward question is all too often elusive because the logistics estimate lacks a guiding structure.²⁸

Colonel Reach explains that
the structure used in the operations estimate is composed of a number of doctrinal factors. The logistics estimate structure should be similar in form, with factors extracted from logistics doctrine [or principles, as applicable] as the components. These tenets, lifted from the essential axioms of logistics, provide a framework within which to evaluate either tactical courses of action from a logistics standpoint . . . or concepts of support.²⁹

How would a logistician use this planning and decisionmaking chart (fig. 3)? First, he or she should use the left column's list of issues to analyze the mission and circumstances and then develop the logistics concept of operations, particularly keeping in mind the principles of logistics. Moreover, the logistician and operator must coordinate their actions by means of an estimate of the situation, considering possible options and courses of action. They must also determine the development of the best solutions for each of the elements listed in the left column of figure 3.

Most operational commanders have been taught the classical use of the estimate of the situation as a methodology for analyzing the options to mission accomplishment. Not well understood is the complementary need of the logistician to structurally develop a logistics estimate of the situation and apply those findings to the mission. This need can perhaps be better understood by way of a historical example.

During the planning of the Japanese invasion of Midway in 1942, Vice Admiral Nagumo estimated the situation as follows:

1. The enemy fleet will probably sortie to engage once the Midway landing operations are begun.
2. The enemy is not yet aware of our plan, and he has not yet detected our task force.
3. There is no evidence of an enemy task force in our vicinity.
4. It is therefore possible for us to attack Midway, destroy land-based planes there, and support the landing operation. We can then turn around, meet an approaching enemy task force, and destroy it.
5. Possible counterattacks by enemy landbased air can surely be repulsed by our interceptors and antiaircraft fire.³⁰

In this situation Admiral Nagumo was wrong about each element of the estimate. His error resulted in what some historians describe as one of the greatest sea battles of the modern age. The US Navy had a general idea of where Nagumo's fleet was, when he planned his attacks, and what his objectives were, and our fleet was closing on his as his estimate was being written. Nagumo's losses were staggering. The Japanese defeat at Midway led to a complete turnaround in the course of the Pacific war and the eventual mastery of the sea by the US Navy. The lesson to be learned is that an accurate estimate of the situation, both operational and logistical, is critical to success.

By using the center column list of planning factors in figure 3, one can analyze the logistical support calculations--a step that is critical to the later judgment of feasibility. Determining how requirements are designed is important in the development of planning factors. Erroneous analysis and faulty methodology for development can become a weak link in the logistics plan.

The right column, listing entries related to scenario execution, reflects an analysis of the ways, means, and requirements. One can use this data to place the procedural and feasibility information into the various logistics annexes of a war plan. Occasionally, the logistics planner will erroneously use only the third column as the source of analysis and attempt to determine requirements and concepts from a microperspective.

The chart is only a tool for highlighting and guiding the thought process; it is certainly not the sole vehicle for war plan development. It is scenario dependent and must be used in conjunction with the essential principles of logistics, the applicable strategy and tactics, and the lessons of history.

Colonel Reach maintains that
through this framework, we are able to give additional meaning to the quantitative elements of our data base. . . The factor framework allows us to combine calculations with logistics doctrine in support of maneuver forces. This synthesis ensures that optimum use is made of austere resources to satisfy force requirements. Logistics units are organized, positioned and given missions whichmaximize efficiency and minimize risk. Concepts of support become more precise. In the final analysis, we have determined not only what must be done but also how best to go about it. . .