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Ancient Logistics General Thread? Logistics General Thread 06/07/26(Sun)20:34:03 No. 65216931
Ancient Logistics General Thread? Logistics General Thread 06/07/26(Sun)20:34:03 No. 65216931
Ancient Logistics General Thread? Logistics General Thread Anonymous
06/07/26(Sun)20:34:03
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65216931
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File: bt_logistics2.gif (234.8 KB)
This is a thread to share ideas, facts, theories, and interesting stories about ancient warfare logistics. For the sake of this thread, let's go with anything prior to the Early Modern Period. Logistics has almost always been the primary factor in deciding who wins wars, thus making it a kind of weapon all on its own.
I'll admit that I personally only know the general "gist" of how logistics worked back then; primarily involving animal drawn carts (when available) and third-party merchants/tradesmen who would follow armies around. Basically, whenever an army marched, a villages-worth of go-betweens would march behind for profiteering. Blacksmiths, Prostitutes, Entertainers, Cobblers, Cooks, Tailors, Armorers, Herders, Doctors, Priests, Merchants, and even Bankers.
I've tried to break down exact numbers for food consumed in a day by the average soldier as well. It's fairly simple but, I'm still trying to wrap my head around just how many animals you'd have to bring for a marching army's baggage train. It's wild to think about a baggage train being almost like a cattle drive in terms of how many live animals you'd be bringing with you. That doesn't include the various staple dry goods an army might bring, like grain for bread or army biscuits.
It's mind boggling to imagine an army of 50,000 and how huge their baggage train would have to be to keep them all fed. An army that size would consume 125 heads of cattle per day, assuming each soldier gets a pound of meat a day. I think the figure was, for every one soldier, there were 3-6 non-combatants along the baggage train. There's also the whole "pillaging" of the locals for extra supplies. Even when it was peaceful trade, it often drove up inflation wherever armies marched and created shortages that could take months or even years to recover from. There's so much insane stuff to think about in regards to this topic.
Also, please recommend any good books on classical or ancient logistics.
Showing all 14 replies.
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How many medieval armies had 50,000 troops per side? It wasn't common to have that many troops even with both armies combined.
Anyway, like you said there would be a sizeable baggage train with grain and livestock, foraging from the land, stealing from the locals, stealing from the enemy and dispersing forces when battle wasn't imminent so the logistical footprint was spread out.
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>>65216931
Pillaging is the "logistics" of the time. In friendly territory, the marching army will buy stuff from the locals but in enemy territory, everything is fair game. Most commoners join up for this very reason. Real baggage trains only became a thing in the Napoleonic wars.
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>>65216931
Well with a fleet of 2000 ships you can sustain a pretty big army anywhere on a coastline, which IIRC is how xerxes did it. You can also just not feed your guys meat every day, empty the granaries of anyone who surrenders early, and otherwise be a pest. Sun tzu has a bit to say about it.
The better question is how many animals your land can sustain in the first place, you need the cattle ready to go before you can actually put any supplies on them
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>>65216931
During the Marian reforms they made soldiers carry their kit on them in standardized fashion, did medieval armies do the same thing? Like a soldier would have a stick a ruck, a bedroll, specific items in specific backs like how the romans did? When the western roman empire fell, did the Byzantines carry this standardized fashioned kit to the fall of Constantinople?
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>>65218317
>did medieval armies do the same thing?
No, they expanded the train instead, with private soldiers bringing along at least one personal servant. Their general attitude was that performing menial tasks was an attack on a fighting man's honour.
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>>65216931
>It's mind boggling to imagine an army of 50,000 and how huge their baggage train would have to be to keep them all fed.
There wouldn't have been an army that size outside the crusades really. Anything that approached that size would often be a temporary force as in a bunch of peasants that fight only when its not the harvest season, really most armies are temporary levies that would essentially fight for a weekend then go home. As for what was keeping an army fed well hardtack and salt pork were staples for the well equipped but really it was about whatever they could get a hold of.
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>>65216931
Shelf stable foodstuffs such as various fermented bean products, dried meat, saurkraut, pemmican (and similar mixes) were a huge component of pre-industrial war.
Water was almost always sources locally for obvious reasons. The horses and other animals needed mostly grass which even today is a great advantage (Mule corps for the win).
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>>65218337
Foraging and pillaging/raiding are essentially the same thing. You are not going to feed an army on picked berries.
>>65218454
>The horses and other animals needed mostly grass
Weren't oats the main feed for animals?
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The most based part of Ancient Chinese logistics was figuring out that you could actually carry large amounts of shit with one wheel which led to the invention of wheel barrows.