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Old 12-18-2012, 10:00 AM
dragoon500ly dragoon500ly is offline
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Default Transport & Logistics, Chapter Thirteen

An examination of the European Theater of Operations logistics operation best illustrates the U.S. approach to logistics. By 1944 the U.S. transportation and logistic network was heavily strained by limitations resulting from the lack of available ports and damage to the road and rail system in Europe. Rear area communications and transportation were the responsibility of the Communications Zone (COM-Z), under the command of the irascible, autocratic and efficient Lieutenant General John C. H. Lee (better known as “Jesus Christ Himself Lee”). COM-Z moved supplies from the ports to the forward supply depots within the geographic limits of the COM-Z (roughly 100 miles behind the front lines). The supplies would then be picked by the Quartermaster truck companies of the field armies and dispersed to the main army supply dumps and to the corps forward supply dumps. Corps and army truck units and divisional organic transportation would then move the supplies forward to the divisional units. Ammunition supply was performed in a similar manner, but its transportation and distribution was the responsibility of the Ordnance Corps. On many occasions, divisions or lower echelon units would draw their supplies directly from the main supply dumps, bypassing the intervening chain.

With so much of the French road and rail network damaged or destroyed, novel methods were adopted to insure that the supplies were brought forward as quickly as possible. One example was the Red Ball Express which used a one-way loop highway system, in which roads were reserved exclusively to Red Ball vehicles. At its peak (August 29, 1944), Red Ball Express had 132 truck companies, running 5,958 trucks and delivering 12,342 tons of supplies per day. Air resupply was also used, when the U.S. Third Army was pushing into Austria and Czechoslovakia, some 22% of its POL and 11% of its rations were delivered by air between March 30 and May 8, 1945.

During the September and October operations, Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL) had been in short supply, but in December, the near-static front, combined with the opening of the cross-Channel pipeline and its extension across France, had allowed for the stockpiling of huge quantities of POL.

Although POL supplies were no longer a problem in the ETO, ammunition was a nagging worry to Allied planners. In the early stage’s of the Army’s expansion there were plans calling for a high priority of 105mm artillery shells of all types as these were the standard divisional field piece. Ammunition for the heavier guns had been accorded a lower priority, under the assumption that mobile warfare would reduce the need for the more unwieldy big pieces. Congressional criticism of the large overstock age of all types of artillery ammunition that had accumulated in Tunisia in 1943 had forced the Army to scale back production. As a result, by late 1943, priorities had changed. Many ammunition plants were retooled for other types of ordnance production while some 105mm production lines were closed completely. Events in France and Germany changed all of these assumptions as Allied staffs in Europe discovered that the determined German resistance encountered in Normandy and the Westwall had placed a premium on all types of ammunition, just as stockpiles of the 105mm rounds, already short after the Normandy campaign, had almost disappeared. Rationing was introduced and captured German weapons and ammunition were utilized; two field artillery battalions were re-equipped with German field pieces. By January 1, 1945, stockpiles of 105mm ammunition had fallen to a twenty-one day supply (2,524,000 rounds). This dire situation has exacerbated by the miserable flying weather that prevented Allied airpower from filling in the gap. Emergency measures taken in the theater and in the United States improved matters, but shortages of artillery ammunition were to remain a problem until the end of the war.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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