Franco-Prussian-War

The Invisible Army ← Series Home Key Takeaways Railroads enabled industrial war: Mass armies of 100,000+ men became sustainable because railroads could deliver thousands of tons daily—something impossible with wagons. Rails created new vulnerabilities: Fixed routes made supply lines predictable. A single raid could cripple an army. Dependence on rail tied armies to tracks. The "last mile" problem: Railroads delivered to depots, but the final movement to troops still required wagons and horses—often the system's weakest link. Infrastructure became strategy: Who controlled the rail junctions controlled the war. Destroying enemy railroads became as important as destroying enemy armies. The Promise of the Iron Horse In 1830, the world’s first passenger railroad opened in England. Within thirty years, railroads had transformed civilian logistics so thoroughly that the previous millennia of horse-and-wagon transport seemed primitive. ...

The Kinetic Chain 1 Part 1: Alexander's Invisible Army 2 Part 2: Napoleon's Fatal Calculation 3 Part 3: The Railroad Revolution 4 Part 4: The Crimean Catastrophe 5 Part 5: Barbarossa and the Battle of the Gauges 6 Part 6: The Battle of the Bulge and the Tyranny of Fuel 7 Part 7: Wholesale Distribution and the American Way of 8 Part 8: The Pacific Logistics Challenge 9 Part 9: Victory Through Logistics 10 Part 10: Vietnam and the Tyranny of Terrain 11 Part 11: Giap's Bicycle Brigades 12 Part 12: The Ho Chi Minh Trail 13 Part 13: American Largesse in Vietnam 14 Part 14: The M16 Debacle and Logistics Failure 15 Part 15: The Falklands Logistics Miracle 16 Part 16: Desert Storm and the Logistics Miracle 17 Part 17: The Future of Contested Logistics ← Series Home Key Takeaways Railroads enabled industrial war: Mass armies of 100,000+ men became sustainable because railroads could deliver thousands of tons daily—something impossible with wagons. Rails created new vulnerabilities: Fixed routes made supply lines predictable. A single raid could cripple an army. Dependence on rail tied armies to tracks. The "last mile" problem: Railroads delivered to depots, but the final movement to troops still required wagons and horses—often the system's weakest link. Infrastructure became strategy: Who controlled the rail junctions controlled the war. Destroying enemy railroads became as important as destroying enemy armies. The Promise of the Iron Horse In 1830, the world’s first passenger railroad opened in England. Within thirty years, railroads had transformed civilian logistics so thoroughly that the previous millennia of horse-and-wagon transport seemed primitive. ...