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So I imagine like most of us I have stash of Osprey books on everything from Ninjas to Spartans to Vietnam. And yeah, sometimes I see them and just wonder if they haven't covered EVERYTHING already? I'd bet money they already have Uniforms and Equipment of Space Force (2018-2020) in the works.

So when I saw this one and would have sworn it was an early April Fools. But once I read the details I actually want it!

https://ospreypublishing.com/blog/Napoleons_Women_Camp_Followers/

Napoleon’s ‘Grande Armée’: what is left to say? How about a book on the women camp followers or cantinières who were an integral part of Napoleon’s armies? I thought this book was needed, and so did veteran editor, Martin Windrow, but! … what we were proposing was a Men-At-Arms title, not about men, not about arms, not even about women combatants, but the civilian wives of Napoleon’s soldiers. It was a challenging pitch, but its validity in this series is not as spurious as it might first seem.

When I hear the term camp follower my thoughts, like most folks I imagine, turned to more... prurient professions but apparently this is going to be about the important informal role women played in the supply and logistics of an army.

Chunks of that are covered in the Sharpe TV series.

It’s definitely commonly overlooked that an army on the March was essentially a mobile and quite fighty town.

Amateurs talk tactics, while professionals talk Logistics.

This makes perfect sense to go into the series, as the logistical arm of Ancient, Napoleonic, to modern armies are the true "war winners".

The supply chain of 18th century armies was massive, the baggage train of the armies on the march as corpulent and corrupt as anything 40k has to offer.

If you want an in-depth look into this I'd suggest Richard Holmes' Redcoat book.



It has several chapters on the "camp followers" through extensive archival material and it's truly fascinating. Soldiers are the most boring part of the army.

 Easy E wrote:
Amateurs talk tactics, while professionals talk Logistics.

This makes perfect sense to go into the series, as the logistical arm of Ancient, Napoleonic, to modern armies are the true "war winners".

The quote doesn't mean professionals don't care about tactics as is sometimes sadly thought, it means professionals have already been taught tactics (it's how you become a professional after all) so they move on to logistics, because at higher ranks that is what matters. A general doesn't have to concern themself with how to capture an individual bridge, that's what he has colonels and captains for.

Cronch wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Amateurs talk tactics, while professionals talk Logistics.

This makes perfect sense to go into the series, as the logistical arm of Ancient, Napoleonic, to modern armies are the true "war winners".

The quote doesn't mean professionals don't care about tactics as is sometimes sadly thought, it means professionals have already been taught tactics (it's how you become a professional after all) so they move on to logistics, because at higher ranks that is what matters. A general doesn't have to concern themself with how to capture an individual bridge, that's what he has colonels and captains for.

That is an interpretation of it.

I always interpreted it to mean that historians and armchair generals always talk about the wrong stuff. What wins wars is not who is better at fire and maneuver, standing in line and firing, or has the deepest Phalanx. It is about who can get the food, bullets, water, and first aid to his troops the best and most efficiently in the largest quantities.

Late WWII in Europe could be considered a classic example. The Germans were superior at the tactical level, but they still lost because it didn't matter how good you were tactically. They couldn't get cake (as an example) to the troops at the front lines. A gross over-simplification? Sure, but you get my point. There are a great many examples in history that illustrate the point.

That's the way I've always interpreted it; if your tank is twice as good as the enemies, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if the enemy can get four tanks into position for every one of yours. Even more so if your one, awesome, tank only has three rounds of ammo and no fuel...

Everyone likes to play Top Trumps, just looking at the stats for weapons and equipment, but that's a fairly minor consideration in actual military campaigns.

Have you seen Wargames Atlantic’s latest announcement?

Sculpted by Thieu Duong

Inspired by Osprey's recently released book by Terry Crowdy and Christa Hook, we would like to announce today WAANW000 Napoleon's Women Camp Followers.

This 48 figure set will give you everything you need to build a veritable army of camp followers including the vivandieres, cantinieres, laundresses, wives, mothers, lovers, their children, pets, and farm animals along with the necessary equipment and supplies to do their jobs.

We have just today started on this set so it will be some time before it arrives. Possibly not until next April 1st [2022]. But here is a preview of the first sculpt to tide you over.

This seems to be camp month! I notice that 28-35mm wargames often totally forget about logistics. Even a lot of GW's novels often overlook the logistical side of an army on the move or if they mention it its in passing rather than detailed.

Meanwhile jump to the 6-15mm and logistical elements and camps are often more part of the game and scenery. Heck Battle Valor is doing a whole host of camp followers and camp items and carts this month for fantasy in 15mm - which is again often overlooked.




It's certainly true if you look at the many failed invasions of Russia; the lack of ability to move supplies unmolested over vast tracks of land has defeated many an army. Something the Soviets of WWII knew well enough to tear down factories and strip towns in advance of the fast moving Nazi front line. Which of course encouraged the Nazi's to go faster and stretch their supply lines too long and too thin in that wild bid for Moscow.

One of my favorite books on war, Why the Allies Won went deep into this subject.

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Allies-Won-Richard-Overy-ebook/dp/B006N5OTW6

Basically he put out the theory that the Axis powers thought like warriors (we need the best guns, the best tanks etc) while the Allies thought like merchants (we need a lot of stuff and we need it fast).

Liberty Ships (forerunners for container shipping), trucks and jeeps might not sell as many models and toys, but in many ways there were Allies secret weapons that won the war.

Well, Stalin said it best.

Eventually Quantity will win over quality.

Something to that effect.

If I remember correctly it took like 100 personnel to support one 11B/Infantryman in WWII. Today time frame its 10 to 1. Maybe less now with with Iraq/Afghanistan experience of maxing logistic chain output

The quote is "Quantity has a quality all of its own" and it is often falsly attributed to Stalin, although it does have a nice ring to it.
History has plenty of examples of the opposite being true too of course!

I like the program 'War Factories' where it explains how the USA and UK managed to repurpose H. Ford style production lines used in automotive and aerospace peacetime industries to produce war materiel, whereas the Germans relied on skilled batch production style manufacturing that just couldn't keep up.

I did read a nice Osprey book recently; 'M48 Patton vs Centurion Indo-Pakistan War 1965'.
It didn't really give a good comparison of the tanks or a detailed history of the war, but it did inspire me enough to read further on the subject XD

I read the same book a long time back. It was easy converting the automobile lines to turn out track and wheeled vehicles for military use. The airline industry was though took a bit to overhaul to start churning out bombers and fighters. It was a good read. I grinned a bit when even the Mafia was used for counter espionage lol

Speaking of both Osprey Books and logistics...

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/147282251X/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1



Thinking of picking this one up next, a low tech solution that can turn any band of brigands into a mobile force.

At least link the actual Osprey website, the less people buy from Amazon the better!

https://ospreypublishing.com/technicals


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
I read the same book a long time back. It was easy converting the automobile lines to turn out track and wheeled vehicles for military use. The airline industry was though took a bit to overhaul to start churning out bombers and fighters. It was a good read. I grinned a bit when even the Mafia was used for counter espionage lol

Well you Yanks might have found producing tanks easy, but apparently we lacked the right steel facilities to build proper tanks at the start of the war which is why we ended up with wierd ones like the Valentine!

As an engineer, I do appreciate what a triumph specing the M4 Sherman was. They nailed down all the really important stuff, like interfaces, but allowed variation where it didn't matter.
So two factories might produce different front ends with different methods, but they would be the same in all the important aspects and be functionally interchangeable. Beautiful!