Tweet of the Day: SF Obscure: Galactica 1980
An Army walks on its stomach.
Napoleon Bonaparte
But people carrying jerry cans, fueling tanks, handing out ammunition, driving trucks or loading ships is not very sexy. Better to get on with the action, hence you go an deploy the trope of Easy Logistics. That is, ignore all that boring, messy stuff and get right to the action or hand wave it away and leave it as part of the background for someone else to deal with. But as Napoleon noted an army walks on their stomach, or it used to. Today it runs on jet fuel, spare parts, ammunition for dozens if not hundreds of different weapons platforms (from soldiers all the way to heavy bombers), and of course food/water. Which means that a good way to heighten the tension is to avert this trope and dig into the consequence of inadequate supplies. After all even the most powerful tank is useless without fuel or ammunition. A million men underarms are a waste if you can’t get them to and from the battlefield.
So as tempting as as this trope might be, oh gentle writer, should consider giving it a pass.
Neither Here nor There.... 