Transformational Logistics Within the Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT): Solutions or Shell Game?

The purpose of this monograph is to examine the logistical transportation gap in the tactical segment of the U.S. Army distribution system of the Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) and to provide recommendations for future capabilities and requirements necessary to reduce the current logistical transportation gap. The U.S. Army has struggled with logistical distribution at all levels since the Revolutionary War. This logistical distribution problem often leads to culmination or tactical pauses of an operation. The loss of capability or freedom of action due to logistics results from the inability to distribute supplies at the far end of the logistical supply chain, the last 1,000 yards. The Army historically has overcome logistical gaps by temporarily supplementing additional capabilities or resources to solve the immediate problem - essentially playing a shell game. As the Army transforms to a campaign quality force with an expeditionary capability, these shell games will no longer enable the desired effectiveness of the Modular Force. The methodology of this monograph consists of establishing critical components of the distribution gap through a historical lens and following these components through the transition of doctrine from the current Legacy Force to the emerging Modular Force. The identified critical components of the logistical transportation gap are transportation platforms, labor forces, and materiel handling equipment. The evaluation of these transportation pillars against the desired capabilities of the Modular Force forms the basis of the solution set required to address the logistical transportation gap. This monograph finds the IBCT's logistical transportation gap to be expanding not contracting under the emergent design of the Modular Force's logistical distribution system. To reverse this expansion process and bridge the logistical transportation gap, the proposed solution set incorporates changes across the spectrum of doctrine, organization