Legion Logistics
The Legions of the Realm are required to fight wars against all manner of foes across the length and breadth of Creation. This requires a complex system of logistical support and operational procedure, unmatched by any other army in Creation, based as with most Imperial Legion policies on the maxims of the Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier.
Supporting the Legions while Deployed
Legionnaires need to eat, they need to be watered, they need to be equipped, they need to be paid, and they need to fuck. These are the Five Needs of Military Logistics according to the Thousand Correct Actions. There are several ways that a Legion campaign can approach the difficulty of supplying those needs.
Ravaging & Looting
A systematic campaign of loot and rapine is a valid tactic for breaking a foe, with a number of other benefits: all food and supplies from the area go to meet the needs of the Legion force, enslaved locals provide funds to pay soldiers and loot adds a bonus to reward them for service, and rapine satisfies the lusts of soldiers far from wives and husbands.
Heavy Loads
A Legion soldier moves with his own support. Each Legionnaire carries with him several days of rations, plus stakes for his camp palisade, tools for constructing fortifications, weapons and armour, and other tools totaling some 60lbs. The baggage train of a Legion carries further supplies including food, leather tents, and sometimes even herds of livestock to be slaughtered for food, as well as camp followers to see to the myriad needs of the army.
Foraging
Not so lucrative as Ravaging, foraging can assist in supplying a Legion marching through the wilderness where there are no settlements. The Thousand Correct Actions advises that hunting parties bringing back venison and fowl to add to rations are important both for the food they supply but also because such food is flavourful and increases morale. Such meats are supplemented by gathering plants, roots, and other natural supplies.
Requisition
A well-funded Legion force, or one passing through friendly territory, may obtain supplies through commercial channels by bargaining and purchasing goods and services from local suppliers. The Thousand Correct actions advises that such deals ought be 'fair', which some interpret as paying full price and others see as license to force sales at reduced rates or even to demand goods be donated without any payment. More rarely, manual labour and even new recruits may be conscripted to fill the needs of the Legion force.
Settlement
Where a Legion force is garrisoned for some time, soldiers may engage in practices to supplement their resources, such as engaging in agriculture and herding or homestead industries. Some will marry and raise families, who either join the force when it moves out as camp followers, or more commonly remain behind awaiting the soldier's retirement.
Legion Camps
Before dawn, in the Hour of the Bear, the officer commanding the Third Watch rouses the bannerman, who sounds the horn to wake the camp. The soldiers rise, wash if there is ready water, and put on their armour, before gathering around the cooking fires to be served breakfast. Each fang carries the utensils needed to prepare its own meals: in addition to ingredients, these include a pan for preparing bread and a pot for boiling grains, as well as a frying pan and a kettle for hot water and tea. Each scale also ensures the transport of a large cauldron for soup and tea… often it serves one until empty, then is quickly washed to serve the other. It is a common complaint amongst Legionnaires that their soup tastes of tea and their tea tastes of soup.
Fangs prepare their own breakfast of bread or porridge, while a soup of salt meat and legumes is served from the cauldron of the unit assigned to kitchen duty that day, followed by black tea. Once breakfast is complete, the dishes are scrubbed by the Legionnaires, their leather tents are folded, and their palisade is disassembled. This all takes place in the Hour of the Bull and Hour of the Spider.
As the sun rises in the sky, at the start of the Hour of the Bear, the unit marches out, travelling for six hours without stopping. Legionnaires are sometimes insulted as ‘mules’ by soldiers of Threshold armies, for they travel under heavy loads, but they take pride in their endurance. A Legion unit can cover some 20 miles each day, doubling that under a forced march (though this speed wears down the unit and cannot be maintained for long). The favoured formation of a Legion march is in a column, surrounded by scattered scouts, with the bannerman at the fore and the best units making up the rearguard, the wagons and pack animals taking up the middle.
At the end of the march, the troops set up their camp for the night, usually at the start of the Hour of the Basilisk. The optimal location for a Legion camp is on a flat, raised piece of ground surrounded by open terrain, with water and timber available nearby.
Construction of the camp is a lengthy process, taking some three hours (from the start of the Hour of the Basilisk to the end of the Hour of the Cat). Some units are assigned to guard duty, and the rest take the shovels carried amongst their standard load and begin to dig out a deep trench, at least three feet deep and five across, surrounding a square area. On the inner side of the trench, the earth dug up is piled and packed into a berm, and topped with tall wooden stakes (two at least carried by each Legionnaire on the march) to form a palisade at least 8 feet in height. Watchtowers are erected at each corner and a gatehouse at the gate (opening southward). At the gate, the trench stops to leave a bridge for troops to enter and exit. A second ditch is dug beyond this bridge, connected to one side of the gate, forcing an enemy to bend its course if it wishes to carry out a charge over open ground.
Behind this ditch and wall stretches an open area, used for movement and also to place the tents out of range of attacking missile weapons. At the center of the camp is placed the unit banner, the tent of the unit’s commanding officer just to the north of it. Around the banner are grouped the tents for senior officers, the Immaculate mikoshi, and the quartermaster tents for market & payroll. An avenue runs through the center of the camp North-South, from the gate through the commanding officer’s tent to the opposite wall. A second avenue bisects the camp East-West.
Each regular unit has a set location within a camp. The 1st Fang of the 2nd Scale of the 3rd Talon of the 1st Wing of the 6th Dragon will be found in the same spot regardless of which Legion or where the camp has been constructed. This allows quick access for messengers and easy organization as needed. Unit banners fly before the tents of the commander of each unit, allowing further certainty of identification.
Legion tents are made from leather, capable of shrugging off rain, harsh weather, and even some arrows or other missiles. This means they are weighty, and too large to be carried by the troops themselves, instead borne on wagons. Wagons and pack animals are stabled in larger tents at the northern and southern ends of the tent-filled area.
When construction is well underway, the unit assigned to mess duty for that day, assisted by units of skirmishers, goes out to forage. They attempt to gather kindling, edible plants, and game animals, and may also leave Legionnaires behind to slaughter herd animals brought with the Legion on the march and to spit-roast animals. While foraging and meal preparation is underway, other units will be run through training drills on most days, and on some days will be given a brief time for relaxation and amusement… many soldiers take such times for ball games or strategic board games or card games. Gambling is discouraged, but on campaign is often chronic.
The evening meal is taken in the Hour of the Wolverine. It often contains meat and fresh produce gathered during foraging, as well as boiled grains such as rice or millet or barley. Legionnaires are also served a ration of watered alcohol, either grain or potato spirits.
Once Legionnaires have eaten and cleaned up their dishes and equipment, three sets of units are selected and assigned to take the First, Second, and Third Watches, while the rest attempt to get some sleep. First Watch stands guard for the Rat, Carp, Serpent, and Dolphin hours; Second Watch for the Siaka, Squid, Mospid & Hawk hours; and Third Watch for the Hybroc, Eagle, Raiton, and Boar hours.
