MILITARY MOVEMENTS AND SUPPLY LINES AS COMPARATIVE INTERDICTION TARGETS
Abstract
An initial attempt to provide a quantitative basis for comparing military unit movements with unit-supply lines as targets for interdiction. Based on U.S. Army unit tables of equipment and standard supply planning factors, the analysis shows that a division movement is considerably more vulnerable to attacks directed against road capacity than that division's supply line would be. Even with all assumptions biased in favor of mobility (no traffic congestion, no vehicle breakdowns, no command control problems, POL available as needed), road movement of an infantry division consumes 6 to 8 times as much of a road's surge capacity as its daily combat resupply consumes of the road's average steady-state capacity. For rail movement, the redeployment/resupply ratio is very large, varying from 127 to 145 times the railroad capacity needed for resupply.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1970
- Accession Number
- AD0711639
Entities
People
- J. W. Higgins
Organizations
- RAND Corporation