Logistics Week at EagleSpeak Begins with a Plan

A hallmark of the U.S. Navy is its ability operate for long periods of time away from its own shores. The ability to sustain such operations involves logistics, which, as we all know, is what professionals talk about when amateurs are discussing other things.

How do we plan to sustain our forces? Is the current logistics force large enough to support a far-flung fleet?

Some say it is not - for example, Bryan McGrath in his "You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat": Principles for Getting the U.S Navy Right wrote:

Logistics, logistics, logistics. Because Navy leadership seems to agree that the Navy needs to grow and be more widely distributed geographically, it is rational to consider the logistics necessary to support such a fleet. Today’s logistics force is pitifully small to support even the peacetime operations of our too small Navy. Should that fleet be called into war, we would quickly realize that our reach exceeds our grasp and that the culprit is insufficient prepositioning, forward-based ship repair and re-arming capacity, and oilers and other logistics ships designed to supply the fleet. Navy leaders must account for both the actual requirement and combat attrition, the latter of which has been (in my experience) consistently hand-waved in previous force structure assessments.

Well, then, we'll spend a week looking at U.S. Navy logistics. A good place to start is with a plan:

U.S. Navy: Naval Logistics Integration 2011-2015 Strategic Plan by lawofsea on Scribd

Well, it's a start.

Other item of interest:
Naval Operations Concept 2010
A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower