"Logistics win wars"
alan_...@comcast.net
I did a quick google search and came up dry.
Thanks
Alan
Don Phillipson
news:Xns9B25CE8D...@216.196.97.136...
> Does anyone know who first said this and what the rest of the quote is?
> I did a quick google search and came up dry.
1. If of WW2 date, this was obviously said by an
American, since "logistics" was not then a word used
elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
2. But the thought is not new. Napoleon is widely
supposed to have said "The army marches on its
stomach" but may have been anticipated by other
commanders e.g. Julius Caesar.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
narrl...@hotmail.com
I'm not sure. A variant more familiar to me goes: Amateurs talk about
strategy, professionals talk about logistics. See if that leads
anywhere, Googlewise.
Narr
Bill Shatzer
> On Sep 26, 11:39 pm, alan_nor...@comcast.net wrote:
>
>>Does anyone know who first said this and what the rest of the quote is?
>>I did a quick google search and came up dry.
> I'm not sure. A variant more familiar to me goes: Amateurs talk about
> strategy, professionals talk about logistics. See if that leads
> anywhere, Googlewise.
Or, perhaps more appropos, "Tactics may win battles but logistics wins
wars".
Though I've no idea where that maxim originated either.
Bill Shatzer
> Does anyone know who first said this and what the rest of the quote is?
> I did a quick google search and came up dry.
There's a large collection of logistics quotes here:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/navy/log_quotes_navsup.pdf
While many express a similar sentiment, none seem to precisely mirror
your suggested language.
Cheers,
alan_...@comcast.net
news:18449d63-200a-4c2f-bb1b-
465c38...@y71g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:
that's it! I googled it,
http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/JulAug06/protect_civilian.html
attribute it to Omar Bradley. I guess I first heard it when I read "A
Soldiers's Story". I wouldn't be surprised if he were paraphrasing an
earlier quote by someone else.
Thanks guys!
Alan
Michael Emrys
> "Amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics."
> that's it! I googled it,
>
> http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/JulAug06/protect_civilian.html
>
> attribute it to Omar Bradley. I guess I first heard it when I read "A
> Soldiers's Story". I wouldn't be surprised if he were paraphrasing an
> earlier quote by someone else.
Neither would I. I've also seen it attributed to Patton, but I don't
think he originated it either. The version I am more familiar with
goes, "Amateurs *study* strategy, professionals *study* logistics." I
think Patton's version substituted "...professionals study the road
net." But unless you can find a solid quote, I would not depend on any
of these as the ultimate form or source for the line. Whoever said it
first, it got picked up and passed around, modified and repeated until
the original parentage is likely lost.
Michael
alan_...@comcast.net
> think he originated it either. The version I am more familiar with
> goes, "Amateurs *study* strategy, professionals *study* logistics."
I
> think Patton's version substituted "...professionals study the road
> net." But unless you can find a solid quote, I would not depend on
any
> of these as the ultimate form or source for the line. Whoever said
it
> first, it got picked up and passed around, modified and repeated
until
> the original parentage is likely lost.
>
> Michael
>
Some time ago I read a book that compared the various WWII Allied
Generals. One of the things that I remember from it {I didn't agree
with
most of what the author said} was the author saying Patton was a great
traffic cop. At the time I read it I thought, "What a great complement
to give to a general!" though from the text it was obviously meant as
a
slur. As I remember the only General he thought any good was
Montgomery.
When I think of Montgomery the first thing that comes to mind is
"slow".
Eisenhauer's biggest error was allowing Montgomery to mount
Market-Garden before the aproaches to Antwerp had been secured. Even
SACEUR can forget logistics and be blinded by strategy.
Don Phillipson
news:Xns9B2C8A18...@216.196.97.136...
> Eisenhower's biggest error was allowing Montgomery to mount
> Market-Garden before the aproaches to Antwerp had been secured. Even
> SACEUR can forget logistics and be blinded by strategy.
Problems:
1. As commander of an Army Group Montgomery probably
needed no one to "allow" him to launch Market Garden i.e.
Eisenhower could have advised him to do something else
but not ordered him to do something else. A probable
contributory factor was use of Gavin's airborne division,
idle for months and anxious to jump into action, i.e.
Eisenhower no doubt knew this and probably approved.
2. The thread about logistics is relevant. In order to
capture Antwerp or to launch Market Garden Montgomery's
armies did not require the port facilities of Antwerp. These
facilities were logistically prequisite to any campaign in
calendar 1945. Montgomery however gambled that
rapid victory in Holland would prompt German surrender,
or at least rapid withdrawal, before Xmas 1944. (Either
that, or both Montgomery and staff either forgot or
deliberately disregarded the port of Antwerp and what
was required to use it to supply Montgomery's army group.)
Michael Emrys
> As commander of an Army Group Montgomery probably needed no one to
> "allow" him to launch Market Garden...
Well, if he wanted to use any part of the Allied First Airborne Army he
did. The 1st. Airborne Army was part of SHAEF's reserve.
Michael
David H Thornley
> but not ordered him to do something else. A probable
> contributory factor was use of Gavin's airborne division,
> idle for months and anxious to jump into action, i.e.
> Eisenhower no doubt knew this and probably approved.
>
doing anything, and there was a good deal of pressure to use
them.
The difficulty of using an airborne force is that it needs
a good deal of advance planning, and needs to be relieved fairly
fast, and it's hard to find cases where the front is fluid
enough to allow rapid relief, and stable enough to allow
advance planning. During the advance through France, airborne
operations had always been preempted by the ground troops, who
captured the objective before the drop could happen.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
alan_...@comcast.net
> 1. As commander of an Army Group Montgomery probably
> needed no one to "allow" him to launch Market Garden i.e.
> Eisenhower could have advised him to do something else
> but not ordered him to do something else. A probable
> contributory factor was use of Gavin's airborne division,
> idle for months and anxious to jump into action, i.e.
> Eisenhower no doubt knew this and probably approved.
>
> 2. The thread about logistics is relevant. In order to
> capture Antwerp or to launch Market Garden Montgomery's
> armies did not require the port facilities of Antwerp. These
> facilities were logistically prequisite to any campaign in
> calendar 1945. Montgomery however gambled that
> rapid victory in Holland would prompt German surrender,
> or at least rapid withdrawal, before Xmas 1944. (Either
> that, or both Montgomery and staff either forgot or
> deliberately disregarded the port of Antwerp and what
> was required to use it to supply Montgomery's army group.)
>
Of course he needed Eisenhauer's approval. As has already been pointed
out, the FAAA was SHAEF reserve and most importantly, Montgomery was
directly subordinate to Eisenhauer. Eisenhauer almost relieved him
during the Battle of the Bulge. It would have been a big mess, but
Eisenhauer would have been well within his rights as supreme
commander. Do you think Churchill would have endangered the alliance
to keep Montgomery if Eisenhauer had said "I fired him, either he goes
or I go."
As for your second point, that is exactly my point, Eisenhauer allowed
himself to be dazzled by a bold plan forgetting the logistical
necessities of the situation. Even if Arnhem had been captured, with
the supply situation as it was, would the Allies have been able to
exploit it? I doubt it.
alan_...@comcast.net
> needed no one to "allow" him to launch Market Garden i.e.
> Eisenhower could have advised him to do something else
> but not ordered him to do something else. A probable
> contributory factor was use of Gavin's airborne division,
> idle for months and anxious to jump into action, i.e.
> Eisenhower no doubt knew this and probably approved.
I have a direct quote from Eisenhauer, from P 518 of _The Supreme
Commander_ by Stephen Ambrose.
"I not only approved ... I insisted upon it. What we needed was a
bridgehead over the Rhine. If that could be accomplished, I was quite
willing to wait on all other operations."
Clay Blair in _A Bridge Too Far_ says capturing the German V-1 sites
in Holland and using the long dormant airborne force were also
contributing factors. Also according to Blair, Eisenhauer was
intiailly against any operation that delayed opening the port of
Antwerp.
Don Phillipson
news:Xns9B2DDA8A...@216.196.97.136...
> > Eisenhower no doubt knew this and probably approved.
>
> . . . Eisenhauer, from P 518 of _The Supreme
> Commander_ by Stephen Ambrose.
> . . . according to Blair, Eisenhauer was intiailly
We should agree to spell proper names the same
way their owners spelled them.
narrl...@hotmail.com
> <alan_nor...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> news:Xns9B2DDA8A...@216.196.97.136...
>
> > > Eisenhower no doubt knew this and probably approved.
>
> > . . . Eisenhauer, from P 518 of _The Supreme
> > Commander_ by Stephen Ambrose.
> > . . . according to Blair, Eisenhauer was intiailly
>
> We should agree to spell proper names the same
> way their owners spelled them.
For that matter, the author of ABTF was Cornelius Ryan, wasn't it?
Narr
Joe Osman
The broad area landing with quick ground reinforcement is only one way
to use airborne troops.
>From my wiki contribution on "Air Assault":
The Luftwaffe tactic in Holland and Crete was to establish an airhead
at an airfield using parachute and glider infantry similar to a
beachhead in amphibious operations and rapidly reinforce the airhead
with specially trained troops, such as the
22.Luftlandeinfanteriedivision, in military transport aircraft. In the
Pacific Theatre, Allied forces performed a similar airborne landings
of the 7th Division at Nadzab, west of Lae, between 7-9 and 12
September, with American paratroopers of the 503rd Parachute Infantry
Regiment taking the airhead and the Australian 7th Division providing
the reinforcing infantry in conventional transports.
The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
wasn't tried in the ETO.
Joe
Donald White
> The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
> wasn't tried in the ETO.
>
> Joe
>
From what my father told, the plan for Tempelhof in Berlin was to be
like this. He was in the 82nd ABN, headquarters company, G2, and said
they were training for this mission when the Germans attacked in the
Ardennes. After that they were infantry headed to Stavelot.
Don
Bill Shatzer
-snip-
> In the
> Pacific Theatre, Allied forces performed a similar airborne landings
> of the 7th Division at Nadzab, west of Lae, between 7-9 and 12
> September, with American paratroopers of the 503rd Parachute Infantry
> Regiment taking the airhead and the Australian 7th Division providing
> the reinforcing infantry in conventional transports.
> The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
> wasn't tried in the ETO.
I suspect because in the Pacific Theater, the airborne and air landing
troops were roughly as well armed and equipped as the defending Japanese
forces - unlike the Germans, the Japanese possessed few or no tanks and
heavy artillery and even medium artillery was scarce as compared to
German forces in the ETO.
Mostly the Japanese forces were light infantry augmented by a sprinkling
of light artillery of indifferent quality and airborne and air landing
troops, with their limited heavy weapons, were not overmatched. That
would not have been the case had they been pitted against Wehrmacht units.
Also, unlike the ETO, the transportation infrastructure in New Guinea
and Burma didn't really allow the Japanese to rapidly move
reinforcements against the air head lodgments. The Japanese were
basically required to defend with the forces they had in the immediate
airhead area - additional defensive forces could be brought in only
slowly and with great difficulty, if at all.
Cheers,
Rich
> The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
> wasn't tried in the ETO.
Hi Joe,
It was contemplated at least twice and planning for the second
operation got pretty far advanced.
The first was the alternate airborne plan for NEPTUNE, which envisaged
dropping three divisions in and around Paris to secure Paris-Orly and
the satellite fields there for an airlift. The object was to secure
the city and the Seine crossings, cutting communications to Normandy,
Calvados, and the Cotentin. It was dropped in favor of the airborne
operation actually executed since the paramount goal of NEPTUNE was
establishing the beachhead rather than defeating the Germans west of
the Seine.
The amusing thing is that it was precisely that operation that Geyr
von Schweppenburg feared and which drove him to contend with Rommel
over the placement of the Panzer reserves in France.
The second was a massive operation planned in March 1945 that was to
involve up to six Allied airborne divisions and possibly nine
airlifted infantry divisions. IIRC it was intended to seize an area
around Frankfurt a.M. to facilitate a drive on Berlin. I'll check my
sources for references later since I am going by memory on this one.
Michele
news:bbf3076f-61a1-4c4a...@64g2000hsu.googlegroups.com...
> The Luftwaffe tactic in Holland and Crete was to establish an airhead
> at an airfield using parachute and glider infantry similar to a
> beachhead in amphibious operations and rapidly reinforce the airhead
> with specially trained troops, such as the
> 22.Luftlandeinfanteriedivision, in military transport aircraft. In the
> Pacific Theatre, Allied forces performed a similar airborne landings
> of the 7th Division at Nadzab, west of Lae, between 7-9 and 12
> September, with American paratroopers of the 503rd Parachute Infantry
> Regiment taking the airhead and the Australian 7th Division providing
> the reinforcing infantry in conventional transports.
> The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
> wasn't tried in the ETO.
>
It came close to be used in the proposed Operation Giant, the landings
around Rome. The problem is, obviously, that you have to be damn sure you
can hold the airfields. Note how at Crete the Germans almost failed, and if
they had failed at that, the entire operation would have been a failure. In
the case of Rome, the Allies lacked a reasonable certainty of that, and that
is exactly what scrapped the operation.
Stephen Graham
> On Oct 7, 12:31 am, Joe Osman <Joseph.Os...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
>> wasn't tried in the ETO.
>
> Hi Joe,
>
> It was contemplated at least twice and planning for the second
> operation got pretty far advanced.
And, of course, Market-Garden as planned included this as well. 1st
Airborne was to secure Deelen Airfield and 52d Division would be flown
in to further secure the area.
David H Thornley
> On Oct 4, 10:28 am, David H Thornley <da...@thornley.net> wrote:
>> The difficulty of using an airborne force is that it needs
>> a good deal of advance planning, and needs to be relieved fairly
>> fast,
>
> The broad area landing with quick ground reinforcement is only one way
> to use airborne troops.
Quick reinforcement is essential, if there are substantial enemy forces.
(If there aren't, then why not a ground drive?)
>>From my wiki contribution on "Air Assault":
> The Luftwaffe tactic in Holland and Crete was to establish an airhead
> at an airfield using parachute and glider infantry similar to a
> beachhead in amphibious operations and rapidly reinforce the airhead
> with specially trained troops,
In the Netherlands, this worked, since Dutch opposition was not
all that heavy. In Crete, this worked, but just barely, against
lightly armed soldiers who were planning to evacuate the island.
The Germans were typically better prepared to fight airborne troops
than the Dutch or the Allies on Crete.
In the
> Pacific Theatre, Allied forces performed a similar airborne landings
> of the 7th Division at Nadzab, west of Lae, between 7-9 and 12
> September, with American paratroopers of the 503rd Parachute Infantry
> Regiment taking the airhead and the Australian 7th Division providing
> the reinforcing infantry in conventional transports.
The Japanese had lightly armed troops, with limited mobility. The
airborne would not be faced with well-armed formations any time soon.
In both this case and Crete, there were significant barriers preventing
an overland advance.
> The airhead idea was also used in Burma as well. I don't know why it
> wasn't tried in the ETO.
>
Airborne troops were dropped to secure the rear of the Normandy
beachheads, which is a similar role.
The problem with leaving airborne troops in an isolated position
for long in the ETO was that the Germans could come up with forces
that the airborne simply couldn't fight successfully, given even a
fairly short period of time. Against them, the only potentially
successful combination would be the drop and reinforce.
alan_...@comcast.net
coming in through google now.
Sorry for spelling Ike's name wrong. Sorry for misidentifying the
author of "A Bridge Too Far". Also sorry for misidentifying Bradley's
biography, I said "A Soldiers Story", I meant "A General's Life".
I need to have this stuff sitting in front of me while I'm writing
these posts.
I'm sad to see no one took the bait and discussed what might have
happened if the Allies had successfully captured the bridge at Arnhem.
Thanks Alan
narrl...@hotmail.com
> Sorry, for the delay. My ISP no longer supports usenet access, I'm
> coming in through google now.
>
> Sorry for spelling Ike's name wrong. Sorry for misidentifying the
> author of "A Bridge Too Far". Also sorry for misidentifying Bradley's
> biography, I said "A Soldiers Story", I meant "A General's Life".
>
> I need to have this stuff sitting in front of me while I'm writing
> these posts.
Not a huge deal, man, but we all face having our mistakes pointed out
when we post here.
> I'm sad to see no one took the bait and discussed what might have
> happened if the Allies had successfully captured the bridge at Arnhem.
It's been a long time since I've looked at all closely at the
situation. I'm inclined to think--based on how the advance -to-
Arnhem was handled and the -generally- plodding nature of other 21st
AG advances--that the Germans would find some way of containing the
bridgehead, and that even if a Monty-esque "full-blooded thrust" was
in the offing, it could not be sustained. Certainly it would be a
different situation all along the northern part of the front through
the fall of 1944, but different enough? I dunno.
Narr