Logistics and the Success or Failure of Major Campaigns

Introduction

The relationship between logistics and war fighting is complicated. In fact, unconventional warfare uses no conventional logistics system. This paper examines two major campaigns where military logistics led to success or failure. In Operation Barbarossa, the German logistics system failed; in Operation Overlord, Allied logisticians suffered from “analysis paralysis.” Why did Barbarossa fail despite having enough supplies? Why was Overlord successful even though logisticians were unable to identify appropriate invasion routes? These questions are answered by examining the factors that logistics planners and operations planners must consider.

Operation Barbarossa

The German invasion of Russia during World War II, called Operation Barbarossa, was initially successful: the use of Blitzkrieg tactics caught the Soviets unprepared. As the operation proceeded, however, the vast distances involved and the cold Russian winter were too much for the German’s supply lines, and the invading army experienced shortages of ammunition, fuel, and food. This slowed German progress and allowed the Soviets to regroup and counterattack.

German soldiers fighting in the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa, 1941.

Why exactly did Operation Barbarossa fail, and at what point should it have been clear to German military leaders that it was a lost cause? The answers to these two questions depend on the sources used.

Castano[1] notes that German generals were interviewed after the war, and that “these generals blamed everyone but themselves when stating why the invasion failed.” These generals blamed “Hitler, the War in the Balkans, the early onset of winter and the strategic debate between Hitler and the OKW [supreme military command] concerning there the primary thrust of the invasion should be directed.”[2]

Castano follows Van Creveld[3] in placing the blame squarely on the logistical planners. The German forces advanced faster than supply could be delivered to them, and ammunition and fuel were in short supply, even early on the invasion. German troops needed to obtain food from Russian and Ukrainian peasants, thus generating animosity. The resupply effort depended on the Soviet railroads, which were in poor repair. The roads turned to mud, leaving panzer and motorized infantry exposed. Finally, by “July 11, after just nineteen days, 25% of German supply vehicles permanently broke down.”[4], preventing ammunition and fuel from reaching where they were needed.

The ground froze in November, which allowed the tanks and other vehicles to resume movement, except that the Germans were lacking winter-weight oils and winter clothing. Castano notes that “troops started gasoline fires under their tanks to warm up the oil sufficiently so that the engines could turn over.”[5] On 4 December, the temperature fell to -25° F, and one regiment reported 300 frostbite casualties. The next day, the Soviet Army started a counter-offensive, and the German line fell apart.

Fenrick[6] analyzes the German defeat differently, using contemporary operational art and design. Hitler had identified Moscow as the operational center of gravity (COG) in that the four instruments of national power – diplomats, Stalin’s propaganda machine, military leaders, and industry – were all based there. Hitler also correctly identified the strategic COG – the Soviet military – but underestimated their strength. However, Hitler became distracted by Leningrad and Kiev, taking his eyes off the COG.

Fenrick notes that Hitler underestimated his own operational reach, the ability to project military capabilities to a specific time and place. Fenrick and Castano agree that German forces outran their logistical support due to the conditions of the roads and railways.

Finally, Fenrick faults Hitler with poor arrangement of operations. Hitler did not phase or sequence operations effectively. Instead of consolidating gains after initial successes, the Germans diluted their strength by engaging in simultaneous offences. For example, the encirclement of Kiev in September 1941 was a success, but it diverted resources from Moscow.

For Fenrick, the failure of Operation Barbarossa was due to multiple operational issues, of which logistics was only one part.

Operation Overlord

The Allied invasion of France, called Operation Overlord, involved 18 months of meticulous planning, with the central idea being to deliver troops and equipment into the theater faster than Germany. To this end, the planners developed a large model identifying all factors that would affect this rate of flow[7]. The four most crucial factors were:

1. Number of ships and landing crafts available on D-Day.
2. Size and number of beaches, their gradients, and the prevailing weather conditions.
3. Availability of deep-water ports close to the beaches, needed for ongoing troop and equipment delivery.
4. Feasibility of providing air support.

Examining maps of France, General Frederick Morgan soon discovered that no landing site matched those four factors, and in fact the factors are in some ways self-contradicting[8]. In the parlance of JP 3-0, the logistics planners narrowly focused on operational means (resources used to accomplish some goal). Morgan focused on ends (“the set of required conditions that defines achievement of the commander’s objectives”)[9]. In this situation, the end was to establish a presence on the continent from which the German forces could be evicted from western Europe. Morgan then realized that the real constraints were that:

1. The invasion must be launched from somewhere close to the Allies’ main base in Britain.
2. The landing sites had to be within range of the RAF’s Spitfires.

These two constraints instantly eliminated all but north-west France, namely Normandy and the Pas-de-Calais. From the standpoint of operational planning, the logisticians painted themselves into irrelevancy. The four factors the logisticians identified were sure to maximize the flow of troops, equipment, and supplies into the theater of operations – but that theater did not exist! Morgan was able to determine the theater and identify candidate landing zones without 18 months of analysis.

The Operation Overlord logisticians suffered from “analysis paralysis”: they provided schedules for delivering troops and materiel, but those schedules could not by themselves be implemented (operationalized). Their schedules and plans were useful to a certain extent, however.

Once the invasion got underway, the Allies received all the supplies they initially needed, but after the breakout from St. Lo, the U.S. Army spearheads were moving 75 miles per day and required 200 tons of supplies per day. Ensuring the ongoing delivery of fuel to maintain this rate was difficult. The initial plan was to capture Cherbourg and other ports along the British Channel for use for fuel resupply. Those ports were not captured.

According to Williams[10], 7 million long tons of POL (petrol, oil, and lubricants) were stored in the U.K. for use by the Allies, but there was no way of getting that to the forces. The initial plan was to use jerricans to move POL from fuel distribution points to where the POL was needed. Unfortunately, jerricans were in short supply[11]. To partially ameliorate this situation, pipelines were laid under the English Channel as part of Operation PLUTO (Pipeline Underwater Transportation of Oil). These pipelines were slow in coming online, so Normandy beaches continued to be used for offloading.

Williams notes that “Logisticians assured TUSAG [Twelfth U.S. Army Group] and SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force] that they could sustain the attacking armies with only the ports of Brest, Quiberon Bay and Cherbourg.”[12] Brest was captured on 19 September but was too badly damaged by the Germans for it to be usable. Quiberon Bay became irrelevant due to its distance from the Allied armies[13]. Cherbourg was captured six weeks behind schedule, and at the time of the breakout from St. Lo, the only operational harbors were Cherbourg and an artificial harbor called “Mulberry A.”[14]

Conclusions

In considering these two operations, it is clear that logistics alone does not determine the success or failure of a campaign. Poor logistics planning may result in the failure of an operation, but it is no guarantee (for example, the Campaign of 1870 of the Franco-Prussian War had logistical failures but was a success for Von Moltke[15]).

With Operation Barbarossa, logistics problems became apparent 19 days after the start and persisted throughout the campaign. The failure of this operation can be attributed in whole or in part to logistics.

The problems encountered in Operation Overlord were of a different nature. The meticulous planning of the logisticians failed to produce any candidate landing points. It took General Morgan thinking of the operation in a strategic and operational way to identify Normandy. Operation Overlord was certainly a success, but the contribution that the initial logistics plan played in that success is minimal.

A viable logistic plan must involve reliable supply chains, a reliable transportation network, schedules for delivering and allocating resources, and be adaptable to changing campaigns[16]. Both Barbarossa and Overlord lacked a reliable transportation network, but the logistics plan for Operation Overlord was too inflexible. The speed at which the Germans and the Allies moved were faster than the supply chains could deliver, leaving little to no possibility of delivering materiel.

From a planning perspective, operations must involve correct calculation of the enemy’s center of gravity (and the degree to which the enemy is willing to defend that COG). Operational reach is of course important. Operations must be phased, which means that victories must be consolidated. Operation Barbarossa failed to consider those aspects, whereas Overlord did make use of those factors.

Most importantly, logistics and operational planning must be synchronized with tactics and the commander’s strategy for achieving the desired goal[17]. Both Barbarossa and Overlord failed in this, but in different ways. The logistics planning done in preparation of Operation Overlord was detached from the desired end state and the tactics and strategy used to achieve that end state. Once the desired end state was determined (removing German forces from western Europe using an established presence in France), the strategy, operations, tactics, and logistics became aligned. Operation Barbarossa suffered from over-optimistic logistical planning as well as a lack of a clear end state. Hitler chose three targets, but with competing priorities: military and industrial control were both desired, but with no plan for how one would support the other. As such, the operation was detached from logistics and the end state was left unspecified.

Footnotes

[1] Castano, p. 17.
[2] Ibid, p. 23-24.
[3] Van Creveld, p. 148-154.
[4] Castano, p. 26.
[5] Ibid, p. 27.
[6] Fenrick, NCO Journal, 2 May 2022.
[7] Van Creveld, p. 207.
[8] Ibid, p. 207-208.
[9] JP 3-0, GL-9.
[10] Williams, p. 12.
[11] Williams, p. 12.
[12] Ibid, p. 19.
[13] Denny, p. 7-9.
[14] Williams, p. 17.
[15] Von Creveld, p. 103.
[16] JP 5-0, I-7.
[17] Ibid, I-3, I-5, I-6, etc.

Bibliography

Castano, V. “The Failure of Operation Barbarossa: Truth versus Fiction.” University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 11 April 1997. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncp/f/Castano,%20Vincent.pdf

Denny, N. “Seduction in Combat: Losing Sight of Logistics After D-Day.” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 2003. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416387.pdf

Fenrick, P. “Operation Barbarossa: A Lesson in Hubris and Strategy.” NCO Journal, 2 May 2022. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2022/May/Operation-Barbarrosa/

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Operations (JP 3-0). 22 October 2018. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_0.pdf

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Planning (JP 5-0). 01 December 2020. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp5_0.pdf

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Williams, P. “A Marine Corps Logistician Examines Logistics Planning and Execution During Operation Overlord: A Study in Effectiveness and Implications for Today.” Marine Corps University, 20 March 2013. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA601695.pdf