Report

Assuring the tactical sustainment of land forces on the modern battlefield

This report from UK think tank RUSI examines the evolving threat and necessary mitigations to enable the tactical sustainment of land forces.

This paper examines the evolving threat and necessary mitigations to enable the tactical sustainment of land forces between the corps support area and last mile resupply.

It postulates three challenges that increasing battlefield transparency and ubiquitous long-range precision fires pose to logistics: Logistics must enter the theatre of operations where infrastructure is concentrated, and so key sustainment nodes can be struck throughout operational depth. Because supply is projected from known points of origin, it is susceptible to pattern-of-life analysis, enabling highly disruptive targeting.

Once forces are fixed in combat, the limited number of ground lines of communication to their positions makes them systemically vulnerable to isolation.