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Modern War Studies
Feeding Victory: Innovative Military Logistics from Lake George to Khe Sanh
An army, Lewis Mumford once observed, “is a body of pure consumers”—and it is logistics that feeds this body’s insatiable appetite for men and materiel. Successful logistics—the transportation of supplies and combatants to battle—cannot guarantee victory, but poor logistics portends defeat. In Feeding Victory , Jobie Turner asks how technical innovation has affected this connection over time and whether advances in technology, from the railroad and the airplane to the nuclear weapon and the computer, have altered both the critical relationship between logistics and warfare and, ultimately, geopolitical dynamics.
Covering a span of three hundred years, Feeding Victory focuses on five distinct periods of technological change, from the preindustrial era to the information age. For each era Turner presents a case the campaign for Lake George from 1755 to 1759, the Western Front in 1917, the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad from 1942 to 1943, and the Battle of Khe Sanh in 1968. In each of these cases the logistics of the belligerents were at their limit because of geography or the vast material needs of war. With such limits, the case studies both give a clear accounting of the logistics of the period, particularly with respect to the mode of transportation—whether air, land, or sea—and reveal the inflection points between success and failure.
What are the continuities between eras, Turner asks, and what can these campaigns tell us about the relationship of technology to logistics and logistics to geopolitics? In doing so, Turner discovers just how critical the biological needs of the soldiers on the battlefield prove to be; in fact, they overwhelm firepower in their importance, even in the modern era. His work shows how logistics aptly represents technological shifts from the enlightenment to the dawn of the twenty-first century and how, in our time, ideas have come to trump the material forces of war.
Covering a span of three hundred years, Feeding Victory focuses on five distinct periods of technological change, from the preindustrial era to the information age. For each era Turner presents a case the campaign for Lake George from 1755 to 1759, the Western Front in 1917, the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad from 1942 to 1943, and the Battle of Khe Sanh in 1968. In each of these cases the logistics of the belligerents were at their limit because of geography or the vast material needs of war. With such limits, the case studies both give a clear accounting of the logistics of the period, particularly with respect to the mode of transportation—whether air, land, or sea—and reveal the inflection points between success and failure.
What are the continuities between eras, Turner asks, and what can these campaigns tell us about the relationship of technology to logistics and logistics to geopolitics? In doing so, Turner discovers just how critical the biological needs of the soldiers on the battlefield prove to be; in fact, they overwhelm firepower in their importance, even in the modern era. His work shows how logistics aptly represents technological shifts from the enlightenment to the dawn of the twenty-first century and how, in our time, ideas have come to trump the material forces of war.
- GenresMilitary FictionHistory
400 pages, Hardcover
Published February 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 18, 2026
There is a book called Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army where the author, Donald Engels, goes through the arithmetic of how many men and beasts of burden it would take to supply an ancient army over land, even assuming the soldiers themselves carried as many supplies as possible on their back. The conclusion is that without supply from sea, ancient armies had to supply on fodder, and where that was the case they could not have been very large. Point in case, where Alexander enters inhosbitable territory his army must be broken up and the spearheading force must be reduced in size.
The premise of Jobie Turner's Feeding Victory is how armies leveraged technology to improve their ability to move large armies over long, broad distances of land. While I agree with other reviewers that the writing is dry, the premise is interesting.
The book is organized into a series of case studies: Lake George (mid-18th century), WW1's Western Front, Guadalcanal (WW2), Stalingrad (WW2), and Khe Sahn (Vietnam War). Lake George serves as a foil to show how overland supply routes were too inefficient in a pre-modern war, especially in rough terrain. WW1 introduces us to the logistical revolution of the railroad and how it allowed militaries to mobilize colossal forces at long distances. Guadalcanal and Stalingrad introduce us to mechanized logistics and, more importantly, the role of airpower in controlling lines of communication. Finally, Khe Sahn is used to illustrate the growing role of airpower in pure supply tonnage, as a means of moving supplies. Khe Sahn is compared to Stalingrad to show the evolution of air capacity. There is an underlying dialectic between sea and land supply, where supply by sea is more efficient, but one way or another, eventually an offensive force must be able to supply armies overland. This tension has defined the nature of military forces, campaigns, and objectives.
I think there is an opportunity to tell the story from a broader lens. By approaching the topic with case studies, the writing often gets bogged down in the superficial treatment of the combat history. A more holistic treatment of the evolution of military supply would help abstract from tactical details and also better connect changes in technology with changes in supply efficiency through experimentation in wars.
Not sure if that book already exists, but I'd read it.
The premise of Jobie Turner's Feeding Victory is how armies leveraged technology to improve their ability to move large armies over long, broad distances of land. While I agree with other reviewers that the writing is dry, the premise is interesting.
The book is organized into a series of case studies: Lake George (mid-18th century), WW1's Western Front, Guadalcanal (WW2), Stalingrad (WW2), and Khe Sahn (Vietnam War). Lake George serves as a foil to show how overland supply routes were too inefficient in a pre-modern war, especially in rough terrain. WW1 introduces us to the logistical revolution of the railroad and how it allowed militaries to mobilize colossal forces at long distances. Guadalcanal and Stalingrad introduce us to mechanized logistics and, more importantly, the role of airpower in controlling lines of communication. Finally, Khe Sahn is used to illustrate the growing role of airpower in pure supply tonnage, as a means of moving supplies. Khe Sahn is compared to Stalingrad to show the evolution of air capacity. There is an underlying dialectic between sea and land supply, where supply by sea is more efficient, but one way or another, eventually an offensive force must be able to supply armies overland. This tension has defined the nature of military forces, campaigns, and objectives.
I think there is an opportunity to tell the story from a broader lens. By approaching the topic with case studies, the writing often gets bogged down in the superficial treatment of the combat history. A more holistic treatment of the evolution of military supply would help abstract from tactical details and also better connect changes in technology with changes in supply efficiency through experimentation in wars.
Not sure if that book already exists, but I'd read it.
February 10, 2021
The book is riddled with typos, enough to distract me at least. The information is mostly solid, I’m sure. It’s a little dry. If you really love information on war I’m sure you’d like it more than I did. I was lead to believe there’d be information valuable to my job at the Army but I don’t think there was any. Parts are casually graphic and other parts are casually problematic. A lot of information about native Americans seems to lack nuance.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2021
The author clearly knows his stuff.
September 12, 2022
Great summary of how commanders have overcome logistical challenges
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews