Photo by Joshua Worth – January 15th, 2019
As Army Logisticians, we’ve all heard the horror stories: A tactical pause in Desert Storm to allow logistics to catch up to the maneuver force, or the 101stholding the line at Bastogne with no winter coats. But what does a failure of logistics look like in the War on Terror? Thanks to the post-WWII Bretton Woods System, the U.S. has absolute control of its logistics tail. Given enough priority we can project an unlimited amount of wartime supplies anywhere in the world at any time. I argue that in the current environment the only real failure is a failure to synchronize. There is almost always enough of the commodity the ground force needs; the problem is getting them to a specific place at a specific time to achieve the desired end state – synchronization. The failure to synchronize, specifically matching logistics to the tactical plan, is the most important lesson we can teach young logisticians. As a junior officer, I often believed that if I knew how to get the supplies from the operational level to the end user, I knew all I needed to know. That was far from the truth.
During my time as a Sustainment Brigade Munitions Officer, I filled requests as fast as I could, sending ammunition and munitions to the maneuver force as quickly as the contractors at the ammunition supply point could build the pallets. My team and I knew the system. We could reduce the Air Force’s planning timeline to the absolute minimum and knew who to call to bump up our pallet’s priority. I felt unstoppable, and absolutely indispensable to the maneuver force I was supporting.
A few months after my rotation began, I was asked to certify the forward ammunition storage areas and ammunition transfer points. I was eager to get on the ground and see the results of my hustle in the Division Support Area. The results were immediately apparent. Ammunition completely covered the flightline. Munitions were everywhere. The bunkers were full. The pallet staging area was full. The testament to my hustle was there, but I had created a huge hazard for those living on the base. The problem was, no one was shooting the ammo. The rules of engagement were so restrictive that it was next to impossible to fire. As a result, when the maneuver force requested a small resupply based on what they thought would be a very lengthy timeline and I sent half a combat load, in just a few days I was absolutely failing them. I hadn’t understood the actual fight, and even though my pallets made it out, I had failed.
My team stayed to work with the unit safety officer and create a safe way to store the munitions that were there, and my warrant officer developed better reporting procedures so the units could report their on-hand and projected balances. We implemented several significant changes as a result of what we saw, and my understanding of what synchronization truly means was forever changed by that experience.
Synchronization with the tactical plan, overlaid with the operational plan including Joint and Coalition partners is the order of the day. That is a tall order for us to ask of our junior officers, those battalion and brigade commodity managers. How do we empower our subordinates to synchronize the logistics plan with the maneuver plan to ensure that the failure of one does not lead to the failure of the other?
Twenty percent of the capstone grade at the Logistics Captains Career Course comes from the student’s linking of the maneuver plan and the logistics plan, resupplying right before and right after a breech, pre-positioning fuel and ambulances for the next phase of the fight. We’ve just changed the assessment criteria for this capstone, known as the individual concept of support, or ICOS. Students who do not create a synchronized plan fail. It is no longer enough to understand how to deliver a commodity. As my brush with failure shows, getting more to the front faster is not enough. Any graduate of our course must be competently able to integrate the logistics plan and create the simplest possible concept of support for their supported Brigade. Expect your company grade logistics leaders who have graduated our course to be able to do this. We, as instructors, would fail you if we did not ensure this was a graduation criterion.
The large-scale combat operations of the future will require logisticians to lead up the chain of command and influence their commanders to bring them into the planning process as early as possible. Understanding the maneuver plan, and where the natural pauses in the battle occur will allow our logisticians to harness the might of the Army supply chain and ensure logistics arrive in the right amount, at the right location, and in the right amount of time.
CPT(P) Stephanie Worth is currently a Small Group Leader for the Combined Logistics Captain’s Career Course at Fort Lee, Virginia. A Logistician, she has served in support of Infantry, Armor and Special Forces, with operational experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. She will be attending the Marine Corps Command and Staff College this summer.