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66 australian maritime issues 2009: spc-a annual
The risk of always relying on modifying or stretching the transfer system beyond its
inherent design will eventually produce diminishing returns – particularly under
combat conditions where ordnance expenditure, for example, invariably exceeds
plans or expectations.
The need for improvisation
One particularly outstanding, if perhaps self evident, lesson of wartime logistics was
that logistic mistakes often do not become evident until sometime after they are made,
which usually meant they could not be corrected quickly. It was therefore inevitable
that for both the RN and US Navy the words ‘improvisation’ or ‘extemporisation’
became synonymous with any logistic exercise and this applied no less at the highest
levels of command.
False logistics planning
There is a direct analogy between, for example, the accumulation of ships or materiel
in reserve and preparing logistic plans. Even if they are obsolete, their mere existence
risks giving planners a false sense of security. Particularly by 1944-45 the naval
strategists, often in their attempt to retain flexibility, were often found to ask too little
rather than too much from logisticians. In peacetime, though, planning generally
imposed fewer limitations, less pressure, and more time, so efficiency was actually
rarely tested. Yet, as the size of combat forces is increased, the logistics problems
not only increase in size but also change their nature. The caveat then (and now)
is to inculcate close relationships between the strategists and logisticians to avoid
marginalising all logistic implications at the altar of the more exciting strategic or
tactical imperatives. That requires logisticians to be capable of envisaging needs
beyond the purely operational or procurement/supply logistics. 11
Controlling mission ‘downtime’
Volume and velocity are key variables for controlling mission ‘downtime’. This variable
applies as much to warship receiver rates as delivery pumping rates. It was even evident
through to the 1960s that, in terms of flow rate, many evolutions (and therefore by
definition increased exposure to risk from enemy attack and delay in mission) were
increasingly being extended to accommodate the growing proportion of aviation fuel
requirements for each evolution, notwithstanding having to rely on the traditional
smaller hose size for aviation fuel and smaller receiver trunk intakes.