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Jason van Steenwyk has a great post on just what it takes to move an army. He posts a letter from a Marine that did logistics.
I tried to explain what a massive undertaking it is to move the National Guard into the Katrina affected area to my wife. I had very little success until I broke it down to one number. 8 pounds. It is a magic number. The planning weight for a gallon of water. Times two gallons per person per day minimum. Times 40,000 personnel for the National Guard to support itself. The number gets pretty staggering really quick. 320 tons a day. And that is just for the water.I don't know what the Guard uses for hauling general cargo these days so I'll use the good old 5 ton truck as my vehicle of choice. A five ton truck carries, well, not five tons. Not after you take out of its total people, fuel, equipment, spares and all the other "stuff" your average driver/A driver pair need to survive. But assuming you can get 5 tons of water on the truck that is 64 trucks (big trucks, not Ford F150 trucks) just to haul water for the relief forces. Still not a drop to drink for the survivors. Now double that number to add in one days worth of water for the 40,000 people in the Superdome. Now we are 128 water trucks.
Assuming that each truck is approximately 27 ft in length (w/wench) and that equals approx 3500 ft. of truck, bumper to bumper. At road march speed and distance, in a non-tactical environment, you are at approx 13,000 ft of trucks or about 2.5 miles of water for a single days supply of water for the relief force and the Superdome. There is nothing to eat, sleep on, or wipe your ass with in this convoy. Just one days worth of water. Pretty impressive number? It's worse even than that. This does not include any packaging, bracing, tiedowns, etc. to hold the water. Just 128 perfectly sealed water haulers.
Now multiply times 25 for the 1,000,000 people displaced by Katrina. And then do it all over tomorrow.
Amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics.
Posted by The Vorlon at September 28, 2005 9:07 PM