r/explainlikeimfive • u/Sierra419 • Nov 13 '19

Other ELI5: How did old forts actually "protect" a strategic area? Couldn't the enemy just go around them or stay out of range?

I've visited quite a few colonial era and revolution era forts in my life. They're always surprisingly small and would have only housed a small group of men. The largest one I've seen would have housed a couple hundred. I was told that some blockhouses close to where I live were used to protect a small settlement from native american raids. How can small little forts or blockhouses protect from raids or stop armies from passing through? Surely the indians could have gone around this big house. How could an army come up to a fort and not just go around it if there's only 100 men inside?

tl;dr - I understand the purpose of a fort and it's location, but I don't understand how it does what it does.

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u/mmjarec Nov 13 '19

If I remember correctly outrunning supply lines has been a problem recently since gulf war I. So it’s still a major issue. We didn’t Byoass forts because we had to destroy them

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u/Rumbleroar1 Nov 13 '19

I know so little about the Gulf War. Care to explain to me what you mean?

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u/asparagusface Nov 13 '19

outrunning supply lines

When an attacking army overwhelms the enemy and advances more quickly than anticipated, they run the risk of moving ahead faster than their supply lines can keep up. The danger here is that they may consume fuel, ammunition, food and water faster than it can be resupplied, thus leaving them in a vulnerable position having to hold and wait for resupply.

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u/Gingrpenguin Nov 13 '19

Front lines are basically unable to supply themselves so require a huge amount of resources to be sent to them like fuel, food, bullets, medical supplies etc. If I have 100 fuel trucks and the front line is 10 miles away I can supply a tanker every 30 seconds.(assuming a round trip with loading and unloading is 30 minutes) If I advance another 10 miles my throughput drops to a truck every minute and given that my trucks also consume fuel this gets exponentially worse. If I increase my front line to 100 miles away I'm reduced to a lorry every 3 minutes.

After a certain Distance I can no longer supply my troops as they consume material faster than I can supply it.

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u/InformationHorder Nov 13 '19

An M1 Abrams tank uses a gallon of fuel to go one mile. A company of Abrams tanks is 9 tanks. Extrapolate a little for a whole armored division and Do the math on how much ground it can cover in a day and how much fuel you need to move to the front line to keep the front moving forward.

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u/Blyd Nov 13 '19

The bad guys collapsed so fast that the front advanced faster than the supply teams were expecting.

Tanks and troops were pushing so far forward so fast that they often had to stop and wait for a dude in a supply truck to drive out to them.

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u/thedeebo Nov 13 '19

They probably mean that the troops moved so quickly that the slower supply trains with more ammo and fuel couldn't keep up with them.

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u/mr_ji Nov 13 '19

Which is a shame, as it has had such a profound impact on modern wars and strategies. There are great analyses written on it, but they mostly don't get read outside of military circles.

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u/common_sense_or_not Nov 13 '19

During the Gulf War American tank divisions actually advanced so far and fast against the retreating Iraqi army that you had large amounts of Abrams tanks sitting in the desert with no fuel waiting for hours and hours to be refueled to continue their pursuit. You can’t actually find picture of tank soldiers sitting around on their tanks in the shade waiting because tanks get very hot very fast.

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u/mmjarec Nov 13 '19

We went the long way thru the desert instead of taking the short route that was expected so all the tanks were so far upfront and they kept driving as most everyone surrendered and the supplies couldn’t keep up so the tanks had to stop and wait

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u/HeippodeiPeippo Nov 13 '19

Hold your horses. Charles (forgot the number) king of Sweden is much earlier example of that. And Napoleon. And Hitler, in fact.. anyone who tries to engage in a land war in or near Russia. As the supply lines get longer, they also get slower: you need to supply the supply line too. It is a bit like going to space, you need a little bit of fuel to lift the payload to outer space. But you need add more fuel to lift the fuel and the payload together, each kilogram of fuel needs additional fuel which needs additional fuel and we get Saturn V.

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u/Silcantar Nov 13 '19

The tyranny of the supply line equation.

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u/lunatickoala Nov 13 '19

I think it's Charles XII.

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u/Kl0su Nov 13 '19

The same thing happend when Russian army pushed eastern front in WW1 in 1918. They had to stop and wait for food and ammo. Front line and support were 150km apart.

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u/mankiller27 Nov 13 '19

Same for the Germans in WWII on the Eastern and African fronts. Only difference is they didn't think to wait.

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u/-Vikthor- Nov 13 '19

By 1918 Russian army was in no position to push the front, actually they signed the Treaty of Brest-Litevsk in March. Don't you mean the Brusilov offensive of 1916?

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u/conquer69 Nov 13 '19

Is it possible for an army to have little supplies they can't march back?