NOTE: Long Not specifically model-related question
I need some help with logistics issues. I've been trying
for years to model a full mech infantry battalion in 1/87 and one of the trickiest parts has been making sure that I have enough/the right proportion of trucks. I've had to freelance most of this part, since I have been completely unsuccessful in finding an authoritative TO&E that includes support elements like number of HEMTT, PLS, etc. Which leads me to the question. I can work out easily enough (for my purposes) the requirements for food, ammunition, etc. (and therefore the requisite haulage), but I am completely stumped by the issue of water. H-two-Oh. Whenever I calculate even just potable water requirements, I get weight figures that seem just unsupportable, in terms of the number of trucks that would be required. So won't somebody with real world experience bail me out here? If a grunt needs 4.4 gallons/day (or worse still, 6.6, as some sources claim), do you carry it all with you? That's a whole BUNCH of trucks, and I just can't believe that the logistics tail is THAT long. I can see I'm on some wrong track , so I hope someone can help me.

When I was in Iraq in 03 and 04 as a supply sergeant, each soldier was alotted 6 liters of water a day. The liters were commercially purchased 1 liter bottles of water that were bought from manufacturers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey. When available we would draw additional water for our water trailers and water tankers from US military ROWPU (Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit) units.

There were days when ROWPU water wasn't available and you made due with the commercial bottles of water. During one period, convoy travel was so disrupted that we were down to 4 liters per day.

The commercial bottled water was hauled on anything that could carry it. Some was even flown in on pallets. Trying to determine the logistic "footprint" for that is futile without a multitude of details being examined.

So, I would stick with trying to find an MTOE or TOE and use it. I don't have any experience in an infantry unit but my combat engineer unit had one 2-1/2 ton truck for all logistic requirements. The maintenance section had a 5 ton cargo truck for hauling tools and spare parts.

Hope this helps some.

Obviously, the "requirements" for supply have changed considerably over time. I was assigned to a Self Propelled Field Artillery Battalion (part of a Mech Infantry Division) in Germany in the early to mid 70s. I can tell you that at NO time during the 3 years I was in the battalion did we ever have any water provided to us in "commercial" form. Don't know exactly when bottled water started to became so ubiquitous, but it was a total non-issue for us during this period. I was in uniform for 30 years and I know that hydration requirement when I retired were very different than the good old days of having to take salt tablets with lunch!!!

The size of a 155mm Battery at that time was approximately 100 soldiers, so you'd have to make adjustments for the differences with say a Mech Infantry Company which would be larger. Our MTOE provided for a single 2 1/2 ton truck for the supply section, and one 2 1/2 ton truck for the mess section. The HQ platoon also was also authorized a 2 1/2 ton truck for the Maint. Section. Additional assets in the battery were 3 M54 5 ton ammo trucks, each authorized an ammo trailer. (The commo section had 2 M561 gamma goats).

Each of the three 2 1/2 ton trucks in the HQ platoon was authorized a trailer as well. Our operational procedure had the mess and maint sections towing a 1 1/2 trailer, with parts etc, in the maint trailer, and rations and stuff like the immersion heaters in the trailer pulled by the mess truck. Each of these vehicles had a shelter built from plywood (definite field mod) in the back and used as a maint office and a working kitchen/serving platform. Unless the maint truck had to go to the site of a disabled vehicle, both of these vehicles were almost always located at the battery CP and only displaced when the entire unit moved.

The 2 1/2 ton supply truck was a regular canvas covered rig, and carried what supply stuff we figured we'd need and could manage to carry, (like the GP small tent and heater that the Battery Commander/1sgt used as a CP/hootch, and the GP mediums for the rest of the battery) and the supply section also towed a 400 gal "water buffalo".

In the normal course of going to various places to pick up supplies, the supply section was tasked with the responsibility to haul the water buffalo back to a water supply point to refill as required, and pick up rations as well.

The 3 M54 5 ton ammo trucks performed a similar function, shuttling back to the Ammo supply point to bring forward ammo. I always found it interesting that we were allocated 3 five ton trucks for ammo and a single 2 1/2 ton truck and trailer for food and water

Hope that helps some, but getting a correct period MTOE is the best bet.

Tom


Tom

My first introduction to bottled (comercial) water was during the first Gulf War....second was while in Bosnia.

IIRC, our Battery had two(?) water buff's when we were in the field? Been a long time, so....

Using the TOE is probably the best way to go to build your "Grunt" Battalion.....TOE is safe, of course you have to realize they "add" necessary things and get rid of unnecessary things in times of war. My Battalion CSM was kinda opposite during the Gulf War....he gained a motorcycle and side-car....

Mike

Not surprising. Did you have an 8 gun battery? At the time I was on Active Duty, the TOE called for 6, and other than an infrequent occasion when we sent one gun out for a special mission, the battery was not designed to operate as other than a single unit. If you had a battery with 2 four gun platoons, having two water buffalos would seem to make sense.

Another thing to factor in would be the ALO level. Even though we were in Germany during the Cold War, we were not at ALO 1, so we wouldn't have had all the equipment in every line that would have been authorized at ALO1. Not having a copy of the MTOE available, it may well have said we were Required 2, but only Authorized 1 due to our ALO.



So the best advice is try and find a copy of some TOE and realize that there's a WAY better than average chance that any given unit didn't actually reflect on the ground what the paper says. And at the same time, it's highly unlikely that anyone would ever come up to you and say what you have depicted is wrong!!! (It's what my dad used to call "Ewell's Rule" )

Tom

My thanks to Brent, Tom, Gary, Mike...this is great intel. For me, a career squid, it -is- something of a challenge. Don't ask me how I wound up in the Navy, since I have been "Tank Crazy" since my Dad got me my first Roco (an Honest John, it was, on a deuce-1/2 mobile launcher) Minitank when I was about 6/7. Anyway I really appreciate the input, particularly the 'real world' elements. I just could not see how this roughly 5 gallons / day / man (excess of 40lbs) was getting carted around.

On the TOE topic, believe me I have searched hi and lo for one and either I'm just not reading them right, or what I would refer to as "logistics elements" are hidden off somewhere. The FAS.org website has pretty good TOE references for what I assume are Cold War era units, but is it true that a 6-gun batttery gets by with just (counting on fingers and toes) with just over 25tons worth of organic lift? How long a period is the battery supposed to be able to sustain itself in the field? Are there some more numeroud logitic elements squirreled away at a high echelon?

I'm probably boring you by now, but I do appreciate the help.

I was in around the same time as Tom. In fact I was in the same place and for a period of time I even served in the same unit. Primarily though I was an armor officer. We carried a couple of 5 gallon cans attached to the outside. We had canteens full, and we had a 1/4 ton buffaloe that kept us supplied. I am sure that the Mech battalions (on 113's ) pretty much did the same as we did. Take a look at MTOE and look in HQ company to see if they show a few bufaloes. I would imagine there was at least 1- 2 1/2 ton as well as in the cmmpanies a 1/4 ton one. Food and ammo and fuel acme in on big huge GOERS which were generally a CSS BN asset.

I Mech BN doesn't get all of its supplies internally. It gets a lot of support from CSS units, such as Forward Support BN (FSB) attached to divisions, and other Corp level logistic assets that get pushed down the line. Of course that's the old model and the new Brigade Unit of Action may very well change all that. We'll soon see.

Jeff

While what follows is not a modern example, it seems to still fit the mould.

During WW II Commonwealth combat units (Battalions, companies, etc.) had a small number of trucks assigned to them, mostly 3/4 ton & 1.5 ton. These were for local hauling of goods that the unit needed to keep with them and some supplies. However most supplies were delivered to the unit in the field by elements of the Royal Army Service Corps whose task it was to transport all the daily goods to the unit. Ammo, food, mail, spare parts, everything went up via the RASC, which is a completely separate part of the service than the infantry, armoured corps or artillery so their units do not show up at all when you get a war establishment (or TOE for you Yanks) for a combat unit. You start to see them when you look at the organisation of the division, corps or army where these service units are assigned.

Also, where did you get 4 or 6 gallons per man per day? Brent was discussing 4-6 liters per day, wihch is a heck of a lot less. 4-6 gallons is a huge amount of water and may be a peacetime amount to include showers & the like for peacetime infrastructure purposes.

Just a thought.

Paul

Dalnz, what time period are you trying to show for the 1-87 IN? I do have access at my work of TOE/MTOE's that could give you the info.

Each company would have a light truck (M35A2 2 1/2 ton or LMTV [light medium tactical vehicle] that hauls a 1/2 ton water trailer - water buffalo. As stated the combat vehicles would have one or two 5 gallon 'cans' of water on them for crew use.

The HEMTT (Heavy Expanded Mobile Tactical Truck) series would be in the battalion support platoon. These would be cargo and tanker types with a HEMTT wrecker. Also at battalion are the M88A1 recovery vehicles and the maintenance contact teams in M113A3 APC's. The PLS (Palletized Load System) is used at the brigade support battalion in the transportation company. Also the PLS vehicles are in seperate transportation companies under 'Corps' level support battalions.

Tell us what you need and I will get the info to you.

The 4.4-6.6 (range) gallons/day figure came from some Boeing Future Combat Systems contract requirement. I agree with Paul that it probably includes laundry/showers/medical contingency, etc. I will plan on the troops in "my Battalion" getting about 2 gallons/day, combat rations. Let me know if that seems to make sense. Tom mentioned hydration requirements. If one of you remembers what that figure is/was, I'd take that as a baseline, too.

So the secret to this seems to be that the "teeth" are pretty scantily equipped with _organic_ cargo vehicles, but there's plenty back in the rear echelons, and that's probably why I've been confused, I've been tryng to push all the lift down to the battalion level. Well, maybe if Jeff is right and the new oganization divvies things up in a different way, I'll find out I've been ahead of the curve!

Duane,
What I'm trying to model is very late Cold War unit(s) c. late eighties. If you could find some TOE that covered a Mech Inf batallion, I would be eternally grateful!

You originally said you wanted to do a full mech battalion in 1/87. I'm assuming you meant that as 1/87 scale, and not 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry, which would also be written as 1/87 Infantry in "armyspeak". Oddly enough, 1/87 Infantry was one of the three Mech Infantry battalions in 2nd Brigade of the 8th Infantry Division in Baumholder Germany when Steve and I were both assigned there.

In any event, as others have stated, an Armor/Mech Infantry/SP Field Artillery battalion generally does not have the assets to carry around a large amount of the various classes of supply on its organic vehicles. While the Headquarters Company or Service Battery (in the FA units) will have additional assets, it is the role of the Forward Support Battalions to "push" the supplies down to the units, and at higher echelons there are Transportation and Logistics units which move the supplies ultimately from where they come into the Theater of Operations to where they need to be.


At the Battery/Company level, we typically ate two "A" ration meals a day (prepared from fresh food) and one C ration meal (the forerunner of MRE). The mess section would only have about 1 or two days worth of food on hand. Rations were constantly being "pushed down" from higher levels, and our supply truck would make a daily run to re-stock. We did NOT have fuel at the battery level, and required the tankers from battalion to come to our location (or provide an enroute fuel location when we relocated). We also typically only carried about a 1 or 2 day supply of ammunition. We would send our three 5 ton trucks back to a designated ammo supply point to pickup more. In fact, one of the "planning factors" used when preparing for any operation was the number of rounds per tube per day which could be pushed forward, and any operation which would require more than that to be expended would have to be modified since it wasn't logistically supportable.

You hit the nail right on the head when you stated that the "teeth" don't have a lot of the assets to carry around and deliver supplies. That's the job of the "tail" units. (Or REMFs as they are loving referred to!!!)

Here's another way to think of it in "navyspeak". The warfighters need to have an UNREP just about every day.





Tom