Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/News/May 2023/Op-ed
Latest comment: 1 year ago by Hawkeye7
- Thank you for covering this topic. It's rather relevant in the modern world, considering the current conflict in Ukraine and the urgency of supplies and ammunition, for both belligerents. I learned while overhauling Uganda–Tanzania War of 1979 that logistic constraints led to interest choices and unexpected outcomes. Eg. Tanzanian forces were more numerous but largely without vehicular transport for most of the war, while Ugandan forces were more motorized. This led to creative choices; Tanzanian forces marched on foot all the way to Kampala, so they could choose to take back-swamp paths and outmaneuver their enemies such as at the Battle of Simba Hills, while the Ugandans stuck to major roadways to exert their armoured vehicles' potential (without much success, as history decided). Even later in the war, the Tanzanians were more creative with their logistics than their enemies, which paid off. -Indy beetle (talk) 08:59, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for this article. Great observations and suggestions. The importance of logistics and communication have been demonstrated not only in modern times but farther back in military history. The Saratoga campaign in the American Revolutionary War and Napoleon's invasion of Russia come to mind. Here is a quote from Miller, Donald L. Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign That Broke the Confederacy. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4516-4139-4. First published in hardcover 2019. p. 381: "Civil War battles are often described in minute detail without attention to how men and animals are fed, or how guns and ammunition reach the front. Had Grant not been acutely attentive to logistics, his army would never have reached Vicksburg." A recent book about American Civil War logistics is Hess, Earl J. Civil War Logistics: A Study of Military Transportation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2017. ISBN 978-0-8071-6750-2. Donner60 (talk) 06:06, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
- Hess has another book out, Civil War Supply and Strategy: Feeding Men and Moving Armies, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2020. ISBN 978-0-8071-7332-9 Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:57, 31 May 2023 (UTC)