transportation

transportation conveyance of goods and people over land, across water, and through the air. See also commerce .

Transportation over Land

Land transportation first began with the carrying of goods by people. The ancient civilizations of Central America, Mexico, and Peru transported materials in that fashion over long roads and bridges. Primitive peoples used a sledge made from a forked tree with crosspieces of wood. The Native Americans of the Great Plains made a travois consisting of two poles each fastened at one end to the sides of a dog or a horse, the other end dragging on the ground; the back parts of the two poles were attached by a platform or net, upon which goods were loaded.

The first road vehicles were two-wheeled carts, with crude disks fashioned from stone serving as the wheels. Used by the Sumerians (c.3000 BC), such simple wagons were precursors of the chariot, which the Egyptians and Greeks, among others, developed from a lumbering cart into a work of beauty. Under the Chou dynasty (c.1000 BC), the Chinese constructed the world's first permanent road system. In Asia the camel caravan served to transport goods and people; elsewhere the ox and the ass were the beasts of burden. The Romans built 53,000 mi (85,000 km) of roads, primarily for military reasons, throughout their vast empire; the most famous of these was the Appian Way, begun in 325 BC

Four-wheeled carriages were developed toward the end of the 12th cent.; they transported only the privileged until the late 18th cent., when Paris licensed omnibuses, and stagecoaches began to operate in England. In the United States the demands of an ever-extending frontier led to the creation of the Conestoga wagon and the prairie schooner , so that goods and families could be transported across the eastern mountains, the Great Plains, and westward.

The great period of railroad building in the second half of the 19th cent. made earlier methods of transportation largely obsolete within the United States. Where just a self-sufficient settlement might have been established before, a metropolis would come into existence, with isolated farms tributary to it. After World War I, however, automobiles, buses, and trucks came to exceed the railroads in importance.

Transportation across Water

Little is known of the origins of water transportation. As long ago as 3000 BC the Egyptians were already employing large cargo boats. The first great system of transportation by sailing vessels, that of the Phoenicians, connected the caravan routes with seaports, chiefly those in the Mediterranean area. Goods of high value and little bulk, such as gems, spices, perfumes, and fine handiwork, made up the cargoes; to King Solomon came "ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks" (2 Chron. 9.21). As metropolitan centers developed, the transportation of grain became important. In addition to the network of paved roads they built throughout their vast empire, the Romans made much use of ships.

In the late Middle Ages, leadership in transportation by sea passed to Spain and Portugal. Maritime transportation between Europe and North America in the Age of Discovery began the English dominance of the seas that lasted until World War I. The forests of New England encouraged the building of wooden sailing vessels, and American schooners and clippers came to carry a large share of the world's shipping , until they were supplanted by steel-hulled steamships in the late 19th cent. Diesel power soon replaced steam, and in the mid-20th cent. the first nuclear powered vessels were launched. Inland water transportation grew with the extensive canal construction of the 16th and 17th cent.

Transportation through the Air

The first practical attempts at air transportation began with the invention of the hot-air balloon in 1783. However, transportation by air didn't become a reality until the beginning of the 20th cent. with the invention of the rigid airship (or Zeppelin) in 1900 and the first heavier-than-air flight by the Wright brothers in 1903. Although passenger flights were inaugurated after World War I, air transportation did not blossom until after World War II. The modern jet airplane now makes possible comfortable travel to virtually any point on the globe in just one day.

See airship ; aviation .

Bibliography

See J. R. Rose, American Wartime Transportation (1955); C. I. Savage, An Economic History of Transportation (1962, repr. 1966); W. Owen, Wheels (1967); T. De la Barra, Integrated Land Use and Transport Modeling (1989).

Transportation is the key to successful military operations in peace and war. At both the strategic and the tactical level—on land and sea and in the air—transportation provides the essential means for assembling men, equipment, and supplies at the critical time and place. Military transportation includes planning and executing the movement of personnel, equipment, and supplies to the theater of operations (strategic transportation), within the theater (operational transportation), and on the battlefield (tactical transportation). Effective and efficient transportation involves movement control and the use of all modes of transportation: human and animal, transoceanic and inland water transport, rail, motor, air, and such other methods as pipelines and aerial tramways.

Movement control encompasses the planning, coordination, and supervision of military movement of all types and includes such subfunctions as scheduling personnel and cargo movement to maximize the use of available carriers and ensure that men and materiel arrive when and where needed; tracking the progress of movement; and regulating the frequency, speed, and density of movement in order to avoid congestion at any point along the route.

Human and animal transport have been used to move military forces since prehistoric times. Well into the twentieth century, most armies relied almost entirely upon human and animal bearers. Even today in more primitive areas, porters and pack animals are still the most effective means of moving military supplies. Able to operate under most weather conditions on all sorts of terrain, a human bearer can carry 60–80 pounds for fifteen miles in a day. Pack animals (horses, mules, bullocks, and camels) can carry about 200–250 pounds, and the standard U.S. Army four‐horse wagon of the Civil War period could haul over 1 ton of cargo. Human and animal transport is often critical to the success or failure of a military campaign. The terrible privations suffered by Washington's Continental army at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777–78 during the Revolutionary War were due more to the lack of adequate teams, wagons, and teamsters than to any absolute lack of food, clothing, and fuel in the rebellious colonies. However, by the end of the Civil War less than 100 years later, wagon transport had become a particularly effective means of moving supplies under the control of competent logisticians.

Water transport is essential to move men and materiel overseas, and both transoceanic and inland water transport can move large numbers of troops and supplies in bulk over long distances. However, most water transport is relatively slow, and its effective utilization depends upon adequate loading and unloading facilities. Water transport has played an important role in all America's wars, especially since 1898, when overseas campaigns became the norm for U.S. forces. Beginning in 1948, the U.S. Navy assumed responsibility for managing water transport for all military services, but until after World War II, the army operated its own fleet of seagoing transports and cargo vessels under the direction of the Quartermaster Corps and, after 1942, the Transportation Corps.

Rail transport can haul large tonnages over great distances in all sorts of weather, but it is manpower‐intensive, restricted to established routes, and quite vulnerable to enemy attack. Railroads were first used for military transportation in the United States during the Mexican War of 1846–48, and they became an important factor in strategic and operational mobility during the Civil War. American railroads carried almost all military troops and cargo within the continental United States in World Wars I and II, but in recent years military rail movements have been largely supplanted by motor and air transport. Until the formation of the Army Transportation Corps in 1942, U.S. military railroads were operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Motor transport is now the principal mode of military movement at the operational and tactical level. Such transport is flexible but requires a high expenditure of manpower and other resources, not only to operate and maintain the vehicles themselves but also to maintain roads capable of handling sustained military traffic. Motor transport is also relatively vulnerable to the effects of weather and enemy interdiction. The U.S. Army, which purchased its first motor vehicles in the 1890s, was one of the first armies in the world to achieve full mechanization of its tactical and logistical forces. Until 1942, motor transport was the responsibility of the Quartermaster Corps, although a distinct Motor Transport Corps existed for a short time in World War I.

Air transport first became a factor in modern warfare during World War II and has since assumed great importance. The rapid long‐distance movement of substantial numbers of men and large quantities of cargo by air has revolutionized the strategic mobility of military forces. At the same time, tactical mobility has been enormously improved by the use of helicopters. But air transport is very expensive and generally requires improved terminal facilities. The air force provides U.S. military forces with worldwide strategic airlifts and tactical airlifts of men and materiel, effecting deliveries by both air landing and parachute drop. The other services also operate their own tactical airlifts, principally in the form of troop and cargo‐carrying helicopters. The Persian Gulf War demonstrated the capabilities of adequate and properly managed air transport.

Pipelines, aerial tramways, hovercraft, and other means of transport supplement the principal modes. Pipelines, operated by the Army Quartermaster Corps, are particularly useful for the movement of bulk liquids and solids suspended in liquid (e.g., coal dust). They are, however, relatively inflexible, vulnerable to enemy action, and require substantial resources to build and maintain.

Since most modern military movement of any consequence involves more than one service, management at the highest levels is a joint undertaking. The U.S. Transportation Command, a joint headquarters established in 1987, provides movement control and the allocation of strategic transportation resources for all the services. Close links are maintained with civilian enterprises (shipping and trucking companies, the railroads, and commercial air carriers), which in fact own and operate under government contract most of the equipment and facilities needed to meet military requirements, particularly within the United States and to the overseas theaters.

Modern military forces possess great destructive power, but that power must be positioned at the decisive time and place if victory is to be attained. The only means for achieving the necessary concentration is transportation—by land, sea, or air. A military force without adequate transportation cannot achieve overwhelming superiority on the battlefield and is thus doomed to failure.
[See also Armored Vehicles; Logistics.]

Bibliography

Headquarters, Department of the Army , Field Manual 55‐15: Transportation Reference Data, 1963.
James A. Huston , The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953, 1966.
Headquarters, Department of the Army , Field Manual 54–10: Logistics—An Overview of the Total System, 1977;
Headquarters, Department of the Army , Field Manual 700–80: Logistics, 1982.

Charles R. Shrader