Chapter III. Technology Transition
Army Science and Technology Master Plan (ASTMP 1997)

1. Introduction

Logistics is the science of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of forces. In its most comprehensive sense, Army logistics encompasses those aspects of military operation that deal with:

• Design, development, acquisition, storage, survivability, movement, distribution, maintenance, evacuation, and disposition of materiel
• Sustainment, movement, evacuation, and hospitalization of personnel
• Acquisition and furnishing of services

The purpose of Logistics is to generate, mobilize, deploy, employ, provision, reconstitute, redeploy, and demobilize military forces. The realities of our new National Military Strategy and the changed threat necessitate a movement from a forward deployed Army to one of force projection. Consequently, logistics must now be able to rapidly project forces and sustain materiel to meet contingencies throughout the world and then provide for those forces over time. The efforts addressed in this section are only those that have plans for present or future science and technology efforts. Technology efforts that lead to individual soldier and combat health support modernization are discussed in Sections I and J, respectively, of this chapter.