Discussion Main / EasyLogistics

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by Peteman on Jul 9th 2012 at 2:48:14 AM

Just how would fuel suddenly becoming relevant in The Last Jedi go under this trope? On one hand the fact that they acknowledge it would make it an aversion, however the fact that the first order who are supposed to be this small splinter group of the empire never seem to run into these problems either plays it straight or the entire fuel situation of the Resistance is actually an inversion since all capital ships in Star Wars run on reactors and the closest real life equivalent, The Nimitz-class Aircraft Carrier can go between 20-25 years without going back to port to refuel. That is not even getting into cases such as the Katana Fleet from the Thrawn Trilogy which spent maybe 30-40 minimum laying dormant before the events of the books.

So, regarding the Modern Warfare 2 example, while it is a headscratcher as to where the enemies get their fuel, can't they just steal the food they need from American towns and cities they invade? Hell, you even encounter a soldier raiding an abandoned house's fridge pretty early on if memory serves correctly.

While I was doing Example Indentation clean up, I came across this example, which I removed:

• In the Harry Potter Expanded Universe, different wizarding schools serve vastly different-sized areas. While Hogwarts only serves the UK, Uagodou serves all of Africa while Ilvermorny serves all of North America. Though it's unclear what percentage of the human population has magic, this still leaves individual schools serving populations several times larger than Hogwarts.

It's incorrect because these are not the only wizarding schools, just the largest and most prestigious. It's like saying Stanford serves all of the west coast; it's not quite wrong, but it's not completely accurate, either.

Deleted.

Delete please; Double-post.

I am sorely tempted to add the following as a general point to the Real Time Strategy folder (Notes in single brackets):

In most cases in this genre, [as this genre usually conducts its missions over the course of 1-2 in-game (Earth) days in an area the size of a city,] the units themselves can be considered an example as, given unlimited funds and sufficient upkeep (and headcount) margin, one can crank out any number of grunts from a Barracks facility over the course of a mission with no evidence of in-battle troop reinforcement whatsoever. Tiberium and minerals may be refinable to make metal alloys for the vehicles and guns, but they would seem unsuitable for growing the actual meatbags that use them. Furthermore, these units can be produced at any Barracks, regardless of said Barracks' proximity to the front. This latter point shoots down the Hand Wave that the meatbags were deployed in advance; to which Barracks (yet to be built) would they have been assigned?[The fact that they can be trained to fulfill any role falls under Instant Expert.] Note that this item does not apply to factions where Send in the Clones or teleportation is given as an in-story "recruitment" process.

I don't know about anyone else, but the Total War series doesn't really seem to avert this trope. Three examples are provided: ammo, exhaustion, and upkeep. Ammo is more an example of averting bottomless magazines, because even though they run out during battle, firing arrows has no effect on the grand strategy parts; as for exhaustion, it doesn't seem to be easy logistics, not really calling the idea of supply lines to thought; upkeep is the closest thing, but even then you can supply a unit on the exact opposite end of the map. This is handwaved by pillaging, but food isn't the only thing you need to supply an army, and considering your army can easily live off of food pillaged from the Sahara, the logistics isn't exactly difficult.

Ooooookay, there seem to be more cases of aversions and subversions than there are actual examples. Should we make a Logistics In Fiction trope just because people taking into account logistics is so prevalent?