More than 2,000 years ago, Hannibal crossed the Alps with 40,000 men and 50 war elephants trained for battle. A stroke of logistical genius, but which can be jammed, as we saw with Napoleon, Hitler, and perhaps Putin.
Logistics have always been at the heart of military strategy
“The army must intervene so far from its bases that there is a moment when the lines of communication become so stretched that the logistics lines also no longer follow, explains Olivier Renaudeau, curator at the Army Museum. Napoleon left for Russia with more than 500,000 men. Before dying of cold, Napoleon’s soldiers died of hunger: on the way back, apart from a few potatoes that the soldiers had at the bottom of their bag, there was no longer any overall logistics.
If military logistics has now been modernized, it is nonetheless necessary. Patrick Dutartre, General of the Air Force, and former leader of the Patrouille de France, underlines: “Each army has its needs: a naval fleet cannot stay too long at sea without being supplied. The same goes for planes, which need enough fuel to do all of their missions. From the moment it lasts, logistics are strictly essential.”
tomorrow’s war
Even the missiles that rain down on the buildings require, there too, logistics in men and materials. There are all kinds of missiles, some self-guided, which are called “Fire and forget”. They are programmed for specific objectives, while others are hypersonic and fly at 10,000 km/h. All this to avoid to send the soldiers to expose themselves in street fights, because even if they are connected or helped by robots, they can be victims of snipers – a sniper recently shot down a Russian general at a distance of 1,500 meters.
“There are a series of experiments that are being done with mule robots that will serve as a logistics system for transporting ammunition. A fully equipped American soldier receives 60 kilos of equipment on him. The robot can help make the soldier more agile and enduring.”
Joseph Henrotin, political scientist and editor-in-chief of the review “Defense and National Security”at franceinfo
Without forgetting that a psychological war rages on the populations, according to the different motivations between attackers and attacked, and that an economic war also invites itself: it is estimated today that the loss in materials has already cost nearly 5 billion dollars to Russia.
Full interview with Joseph Henrotin