A look at one of the early replacements for the horse

[Pat Holscher]

And here's an Imperial German officer examining alternatives to his broken down transportation.

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source ... id=3271834

Pat

[John Ruf]

Gentlemen:

You are being to hard on Renault on the radiator placement.

Think how nice it would be in the winter, especially with that open cab.

The driver could also brew a cup of tea or coffee, and keep it warm, right as they drove. (Fry an egg for that matter)

Logistically, it must have been a great improvement; imagine the logistical tail for the horses and drivers to pull that 155, demands that remained fairly constant whether the piece was static or not, and compare it to the logistical footprint of the tractor. I imagine it adds up to much less fuel than forage!


Regards,

John Ruf
Culpeper, Virginia

"God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses."
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham 1852-1936

[Pat Holscher]

Originally posted by John Ruf

Logistically, it must have been a great improvement; imagine the logistical tail for the horses and drivers to pull that 155, demands that remained fairly constant whether the piece was static or not, and compare it to the logistical footprint of the tractor. I imagine it adds up to much less fuel than forage!

I'd guess that's correct, but I've never been able to find any reliable figures on that.

I'd guess it must be capable of a rational comparison, although a lot of factors regarding it that at first my seem important might later prove not to be, but try as I might, I have not been able to find any figures comparing the logistical tails of motorized units with those of horse drawn units.

For what it's worth, I suspect, but can't prove, that one of the real differences might not come in the form of increased "work" to "work" (ie, horsepower to horsepower) or energy to energy (ie, BTU to BTU) comparisons, but rather in combat efficiency. That is, it might actually be the case that motorized units have less efficiency in terms of work or energy expended, but greater combat utility. Consider, for example, the massive amount of energy that's expended for a single combat air mission at the present. It's huge, nearly beyond belief, but it's efficient in combat.

Likewise, the tail of motorized units is much longer than those of non motorized units. The tail of the average horse drawn unit of WWI probably extended a couple of hundred miles, at most, for the forage, etc. For those using petroleum, however, the tail stretched to the United States, which was then a petroleum exporter (those were the days). In WWII, seizing control of the tail was actually the initial combat objective of the Japanese Empire, and so it extended thousands of miles across the sea to Southeast Asia, just to have a tail at all.

As another example, in WWII the Germans became less mechanized as the war went on. This demonstrates that the traditional methods of movement were simpler to supply that motorized ones in terms of fuel.

And in terms of parts. Mechanization requires a substantial industrial base, either your own or some other nations. Equine transport doesn't, but it does require an agricultural base. But feeding troops requires that anyhow.

Finally, another real difference is the rapidity of replacements. Horses take years, trucks take weeks. A huge difference.

By noting all that, I'm not arguing in any fashion that transportation should have been left horse powered. But, rather, I think that maybe the advantages of motorization are misunderstood. The logistical support might actually be much larger than it was before motorization. Certainly, in a modern army, the number of troops who are only support grossly exceeds combat troops, which is an example of that. The real difference is in the effectiveness of motorization on the battlefield.

Pat

[John Ruf]

Pat:

Excellent points, and important enough to bear closer examination.

The best concise work on the history of logistics I have read is <i>Supplying War</i> by Van Creveld. While brief, he does touch upon the transition from horse-drawn to rail logistics, on through to motor transport.

I also enjoyed <i>Moving Mountains</i> by Lt. General Pagonis for an account of modern logistical issues. It is telling that his account of Gulf War logistics was printed by the Harvard Business School.

In my mind, the incredible support structure in manpower and material resources required to support "the tip of the spear" in modern warfare is justified by the increased ability to project (and sustain) power.

An example for me would be when my wife's MEU/SOC was able to deploy 850 miles from the coast in a hostile environment and then conduct and sustain offensive opperations. That the ACE squadron was able to maintain flight operations in such conditions at close to 100% readiness is a tribute to the logistical expertise of our military.

The raw data for the comparison you envision is certainly available. I have touched upon it myself when studying the logistics involved in moving the army of the Potomac; they found it extremely difficult to sustain their momentum for more than a few days at a time without overreaching their supply and forage trains. While men adapted to the absense of full rations, horses tended to fair less well in these conditions, especially Artillery horses. But thats another story altogether!

Regards,

John Ruf
Culpeper, Virginia

"God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses."
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham 1852-1936

[Pat Holscher]

Originally posted by John Ruf


In my mind, the incredible support structure in manpower and material resources required to support "the tip of the spear" in modern warfare is justified by the increased ability to project (and sustain) power.

I quite agree, but the part of that which is often missed is that for a modern industrial army, there's a long shaft to that spear. It does make those armies potent, but it's forgotten that it is an intentional investment in expensive technology to achieve weapons efficiency.

Not all armies, of course, can make that choice, and, presently, the US Army is the most dramatic example of heavy investment in technology, and therefore heavy dependency on logistics support.

I'm not arguing this is a bad thing. What it allows is the resource rich army to spend money and equipment, over men, which is a preferable option, to say the least. It is, however, an intentional choice.

The raw data for the comparison you envision is certainly available. I have touched upon it myself when studying the logistics involved in moving the army of the Potomac; they found it extremely difficult to sustain their momentum for more than a few days at a time without overreaching their supply and forage trains. While men adapted to the absence of full rations, horses tended to fair less well in these conditions, especially Artillery horses. But thats another story altogether!

Still, even comparisons such as that can be deceptive however. Two W.W.II examples come to mind. One is the very long truck based supply system that the US Army depended upon in Europe in W.W.II. The "Red Ball Express" is often given an example of how well this worked, but it is actually the opposite. The US, with a very long truck based supply system, consumed a huge amount of fuel to deliver supplies, and nearly had it's advance halt as a result. This doesn't argue that a horse based one would have been more efficient, to be sure. It would not have. But the cost of the enterprise, in terms of resources it consumes just to exist, are often missed in the case of W.W.II. Suffice to say, however, we've gotten much, much, better at this since then.

Another example is provided by the German advance in the Ardennes in December 44, which is one of the two final offensives of the Wehrmacht, both occurring simultaneously. It was a remarkable endeavor, but the Wehrmacht estimated that it would only last three weeks. In that time, the breakdown rate of mechanize equipment would halt it. Had it worked, it would have been a significant advance, no doubt. But even the Wehrmacht thought the equipment breakage rate would halt it pretty quickly

All this is not to suggest that the old equine based system was superior, but, rather, to show how logistics has taken up more and more of the total picture. Logistics drives wars, and is the business of armies, to a degree hardly imaginable.

Pat

[Pat Holscher]

By the way, on the bicycle featured in this thread, A History Of The British Cavalry has a photo of one in use. Interesting how the rifle cliped in behind the seat with the muzzle cliped in on the handle bars.

Pat

[Pat Holscher]

Another example of the mounted infantry alternative.

http://cache.corbis.com/CorbisImage/170 ... 051336.jpg


French Troops in the Ruhr, 1923.


Pat

[Pat Holscher]

Is the trooper who is about to fall off his bike working on lunch?

http://creative.gettyimages.com/source/ ... esultID=89

Pat

[Trooper]

Pat,
Links don't seem to work.

[Pat Holscher]

Pat,
Links don't seem to work.

Getty and Corbis links won't work directly. Corbis and Getty wisely do not allow that, which means that their photos aren't easily pirated.

[Couvi]

I had some success copying the Getty number from the link and running that through their search feature.

[Pat Holscher]

This is post WWI, I think, but what is it?

[Couvi]

This is a 75mm High Velocity Gun, but I don’t know the model, it may be the M1, circa 1925. I think it is mounted on a high-speed wheel-track carriage designed by J. Walter Christy. Note the track steering levers on either side of the steering wheel.

The carriage for the towed version of this piece eventually became the 105mm Howitzer, M2A1/M101A1 of WWII/Korea/Viet Nam fame.

[Pat Holscher]

[Couvi]

I don't know what this particular one is, but there are photograph books from the 1920's that show dozens of these prototypes, some hilariously and impractically complicated.

Look at that tank in the background.

[Pat Holscher]

Another WWI example:

http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/D ... 4782th.htm

[Couvi]

Another WWI example:

http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/D ... 4782th.htm

Imagine the off-road capabilities of an FWD truck with solid tires. Chains were added for additional traction, but could be brutal on the passengers and, I suspect, on the drive train. I would imagine that dual-wheels and all-terrain balloon tires were a great leap forward in our quest for off-road transportation.

Imagine how fast vehicles with solid tires would be on the Interstate.

[Pat Holscher]

And then there was the early alternative to mounted infantry:



British military bicycle.

Pat

And speaking of bikes:


From German Federal Archives, as uploaded on Wikipedia Commons under license only to Wikipedia Commons, and to be found at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... A4dern.jpg

[Pat Holscher]

The early alternative to something. The bus, maybe.

http://cas.awm.gov.au/photograph/J05770

[Pat Holscher]

Motor Transport Co. 554 enroute to Santa Cruz, August 29, 1919 to escort the Pacific fleet to San Francisco.