Now you've gone and reminded me of something I read/wrote years ago. In a paper on the Duke of Marlborough, I uncovered that in the 16th/17th century, one of the most effective ways to organize a campaign was to send parties of officers ahead of your line of advance to buy up food & supplies and stockpile them in "magazines" along the way. This worked for long marches, such as the 1704 campaign, when Marlborough took his English army up the Rhine from Netherlands to fight alongside Prince Eugene at Blenheim.
I wonder if something might reappear in 2000: even if your unit isn't leaving its cantonment, you may be tasked by higher headquarters to set aside some stuff for some other unit's move through your area.
Hmm, now there might be something of a game idea: one of your PCs (or an NPC) is the staff officer charged with preparing a march, heading across several cantonments to check up on preparations, while the rest of the party are his escort, say prior to the summer 2000 Third German Army offensive. They could be on horse or motorized, but they've got a lot of ground to cover. There could be:
- marauders
- unhelpful cantonments (your own army or an ally's) Maybe a side mission of the party is to spy out who's holding back?
- enemy raiders, hoping to find just such a party. If they could capture the guy who knows which way the army is heading, or even his papers, that would be a prime intel coup!
- smugglers, who might be able to help, or might be competitors for the business of supplying the army?
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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