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  1. #81
    Merely a Setback Reeve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by McTurbo View Post
    it wasn't thought of in that manner.. thats what outposts and the roads were for. logistics were huge. you moved or staged material in advance to enable your forces to move or operate. do not count out foraging (foraging means more than hunting, but taking crops, or merchant goods usually with little to no pay)as this was one of the main reasons an army moved so slow back in the day. setting up a city sized camp wasnt as simple as saying stop here beside the road.

    a continuous supply of materials and goods brought up from different Providences along the way toward where ever they were fighting was usually bought by the ton or bushel by a quartermaster who then had to verify and justify the expense, the bigger the army the more quartermasters and pursers you needed. without paperwork like we had now you took a man at his word.. waste was frowned upon and so was starving your army.. so you got good at what you did and learned how much so many men could eat in a day along with how much fodder you would need for the animals and so on..

    what they didnt do was track individual purchases like we do today. our detailed records would have astounded a record keeper back in the day and Arabic numerals allows us to use larger numbers and more specific numbers than roman numerals in a smaller amount of space. accounting just wasn't the same as your use to.
    That's the part that amazes me. I make one calculation error, and even with all my modern equipment and accounting processes, I can be out a million bucks or more. It's gobsmacking that pursers and quartermasters with their primitive tools could manage these sorts of operations without accidentally bankrupting the empire or starving soldiers, either of which would probably REALLY piss off people the purser/quartermaster doesn't want pissed at them.
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  2. #82
    The Patient
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    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    That's the part that amazes me. I make one calculation error, and even with all my modern equipment and accounting processes, I can be out a million bucks or more. It's gobsmacking that pursers and quartermasters with their primitive tools could manage these sorts of operations without accidentally bankrupting the empire or starving soldiers, either of which would probably REALLY piss off people the purser/quartermaster doesn't want pissed at them.
    I think some of it is simplified by the modularity of Roman armies. Each quartermaster is only responsible his cohort (not sure the the relevant unit level here is). He has standard quantities of certain supplies he needs and an idea of what substitutions can be made. He manages his own wagon train and is allocated a budget that's standardized.

    It's horribly inefficient by modern standards with a dozen people or more replicating the same kind of work for each individual sub-unit but it keeps the quantities involved low enough that a human can track it without resorting to pen and paper (or more likely stylus and clay) to perform calculations.

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