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el cid again -> RE: logistic analysis (10/23/2005 1:39:07 PM)
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quote:
As to Logistics, Yamato hugger is correct. Water use alone for a combat infantryman in action would probably amount to a MINIMUM of several gallons (21+ pounds) per day (including drinking water, coffee, and water used to prepare rations). This would be true of either the Japanese or US forces. Of course, if water is locally supplied this does not need to be shipped....
Which, in the mountains of Northern Luzon, it is supplied by a number of fast flowing fresh water rivers. The rivers serve as defensible barriers in their own right, but also as sources of water. This is rice country - and rice is a very water intensive crop - you could not produce lots of rice if there was not lots of water. Bataan was very different in that era (today it is cut over). There were a few coastal villages - and not much civil population - none at all in the interior. There are places like this today in the Visaya's - villages hemmed in by the jungle into which people seldom go - in spite of having some genetic tolerence for the endemic diseases. It probably would have been better to stay in Manila - no need to move supplies then - no diseases either - and the creation of the "open city" to "save" it turned out not to be meaningful. Mac used eight inch guns on the place in 1944, and Manila was more damaged than any other Asian city - even including those subject to firebombings and atom bombings.
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