Built for Purpose

From Barracks Scraps to Purpose-Built Hubs: 150+ Years of Building the Army’s Logistic Backbone

New warehouses and workshops at Linton and Burnham, together with modernised ammunition facilities at Waiouru and Glentunnel, might appear to be a sudden leap forward. In truth, they are the culmination of more than a century of steady, often unsung work to give the New Zealand Army the purpose-built logistics estate it has long needed. What began with repurposed barracks and rented sheds has matured, through wars, reorganisations, and the inevitable missteps, into integrated hubs designed from the ground up to equip the force.

This is a story of continuity as much as change. From early Defence Stores and mobilisation depots in the main centres, through the wartime booms of 1914–18 and 1939–45, logisticians learned to move faster, store safer, and repair smarter, usually in buildings never meant for the job. Sites such as Buckle Street, Mount Eden, Trentham, Hopuhopu, Dunedin, and later Linton and Burnham mark a long arc: improvisation giving way to planning; planning giving way to design.

The latest builds finally align doctrine, funding, and design. The shift to an “equip-the-force” model only works when receipt, storage, maintenance, and distribution are physically co-located and engineered to modern standards. Regional Supply Facilities (RSFs) centralise holdings with safer, climate-controlled storage and efficient yard flows; Maintenance Support Facilities (MSFs) bring high-bay capacity, test equipment, and compliance under one roof; and ammunition nodes at Waiouru and Glentunnel provide the segregation and environmental control that contemporary explosive safety demands.

Just as important is what this means for soldiers and readiness. Purpose-built hubs shorten turnaround times, reduce double-handling, and lift safety for people and materiel. They replace the “temporary” fixes that became permanent, the dispersed footprints that drained time, and the old shells that forced workarounds. In their place stands an estate that is faster to mobilise, easier to sustain, and cheaper to maintain over its life.

Recent decisions, embodied in the Defence Capability Plan 2025 and Cabinet approval for the Burnham RSF, lock in this direction. They don’t erase the past; they complete it. The spades now in the ground are finishing a project begun when New Zealand first took charge of its own stores: building a logistics backbone worthy of the force it supports.

Imperial inheritance to early New Zealand builds (1870s–1900s)

When Imperial forces departed New Zealand in 1870, New Zealand inherited more than uniforms and drill; it inherited a patchwork estate of armouries, magazines, depots and barracks.

In Wellington, the Mount Cook complex, long used by Imperial regiments and the Military Stores, passed to colonial control in 1869–70 and was promptly repurposed for colonial defence. Through the 1880s the site was expanded with new brick storehouses, sheds and workshops along the Buckle Street frontage and up the Mount Cook terraces, improving dry storage, accounting space and light-repair capacity.[1] At the same time, explosives handling was progressively decanted from the congested Mount Cook Powder Magazine to the purpose-built Kaiwharawhara Powder Magazines in 1879, providing safer segregation from central Wellington and better access to rail and wharf.[2]

Plan of Mount Cook Barracks, as planned c.1845 and largely as built by 1852.

In Auckland, as the Albert Barracks precinct shrank, munitions storage shifted to the Mount Eden magazine reserve with magazines erected from 1871.[3] A new, purpose-built Defence Store was then constructed in O’Rourke Street to handle general stores and light repair. In 1903, the store, along with an armourer’s shop, was re-established at Mount Eden, consolidating the city’s ordnance functions on the magazine site.[4] Functionally, these early builds privileged secure explosives segregation and dry, ventilated bulk storage, with on-site light repair and armouring capacity, modest in scale but a decisive break from improvised sheds and hired warehouses, and a sign that New Zealand was beginning to design for its own needs rather than simply “making do” with imperial leftovers.

Plan of the O’Rourke Street Defence Store

Operationally, the South African War exposed mobilisation friction, slow issue, scattered holdings, and too many ad hoc premises. A Joint Defence Committee in 1900 pushed for dedicated Mobilisation Stores in each main centre, so the Crown began stitching a national pattern from local threads.[5] The results arrived in quick succession: a large drill/mobilisation hall at King Edward Barracks, Christchurch (1905); a mobilisation store in St Andrew’s Street, Dunedin (1907); and, in Wellington, the new Defence Stores/Mobilisation accommodation at Buckle Street (opened 1911), while Auckland’s needs were met mainly through upgrades at Mount Eden rather than a wholly new urban depot. Individually modest, collectively these works created a basic four-centre network positioned for speed of receipt and issue, with cleaner lines of accountability between the Defence Stores Department (est. 1862) and the emerging territorial/volunteer force.

Dunedin Mobilisation Stores, 211 St Andrews Street, Dunedin. Google Maps/ Public Domain
Defence Stores, Bunny Street, Wellington. Goggle Maps/Public Domain

Design language also began to standardise. Plans specified raised timber floors and generous roof ventilation to protect stores; fire-resistant construction (brick where urban fire risk warranted); covered loading and cart docks; and simple armourer’s benches with bench-power where available. None of this was glamorous, but it shortened the last tactical mile: fewer handlings, quicker turns, and fewer losses to damp or vermin. Above all, it signalled a mental shift, from occupying Imperial real estate to building a New Zealand logistics architecture that could be multiplied, upgraded and, in time, militarised for war. Those decisions in the 1870s–1900s laid the rails (figuratively and, in some centres, quite literally nearby) for the vast expansions of 1914–19 and again in 1939–45.

WWI expansion and interwar consolidation

WWI swelled requirements across every line of supply. Buckle Street in Wellington was extended, and additional inner-city warehouses were leased to keep pace with kit flowing in and out of mobilising units. After 1918, a series of ordnance reforms (1917–20) set about turning wartime improvisation into a planned peacetime estate.

In Auckland, the cramped Mount Eden magazine reserve and scattered inner-city premises were superseded by a purpose-built Northern Ordnance Depot at Hopuhopu. The decision to move was taken early in the decade; transfers from Mount Eden began in 1927, with the new depot formally opened in 1929. [6]As part of the transition, the 1903 Mount Eden stores building was dismantled and re-erected at Narrow Neck on the North Shore, an elegant example of salvaging useful fabric while shifting the centre of gravity south.

Hopuhopu represented a conscious leap from piecemeal sheds to an integrated regional hub designed for mobilisation scale. Sited just north of Ngāruawāhia, the depot sat adjacent to the North Island Main Trunk railway and on the Waikato River, with plans for a quarter-mile detraining platform and a spur running half a mile into camp so that stores could be received and dispatched with minimal handling. The original scheme envisaged multiple large warehouses aligned to the rail; what opened first was a substantial 100 × 322-ft building, with additional storage added later. Ammunition infrastructure was integral from the outset: ten reinforced hillside magazines with double walls and inspection chambers for temperature control, protective blast pyramids between magazines, and a laboratory, an engineered answer to the limitations of Mount Eden’s nineteenth-century magazines. Contemporary reporting cast Hopuhopu as the Dominion’s chief military magazine and “probably the greatest ordnance depot.”[7] Underlining the strategic intent behind the site choice: rail access, training space, and safe separation from the city while remaining close enough to Auckland’s labour and industrial base. In short, exactly what the interwar Army had lacked, a scalable, rail-served, purpose-sited depot that could receive, hold and issue mobilisation stocks for the entire northern region.

1961 Hopuhopu Military Camp from the air. Whites Aviation Ltd: Photographs. Ref: WA-55339-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22480584

In Wellington, explosives storage was deliberately removed from the urban core. Defence use of the Kaiwharawhara Powder Magazines was transferred in 1920 to the more isolated Fort Ballance Magazine Area on the Miramar Peninsula, where the New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (NZAOC) Ammunition Section operated a mix of purpose-built magazines and re-purposed gun pits across the Miramar Peninsula. Buckle Street initially remained the administrative and general stores centre; however, in 1920 the bulk stores and accounting functions were transferred to the expanding depot at Trentham.[8] In 1930, the workshops followed, consolidating ordnance administration, storage, and maintenance on the Trentham estate.[9] Fort Ballance thus became the ammunition node, segregating high-risk functions from the city, while Trentham emerged as the principal National logistics hub.

Trentham – 1941.Upper Hutt City Library (5th Mar 2018). Trentham Camp 1938-1943 (approximate). In Website Upper Hutt City Library. Retrieved 10th Oct 2020 15:28, from https://uhcl.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/25874

In the South Island, the Dunedin Mobilisation Store/Ordnance Depot at 211 St Andrew’s Street, already constrained by its central-city site and ageing fabric, was progressively wound down after the First World War. The depot had even weathered a significant fire on 12 June 1917, which underscored both the risks of dense, multi-storey warehousing and the limits of the building itself.[10] Operations continued, but the case for a purpose-sited regional depot hardened. In 1920–21, as the southern military districts were combined into a Southern Military Command, Defence took over the former Burnham Industrial School and established a single Southern Command Ordnance Depot there, absorbing Dunedin’s people, records, and holdings (and Christchurch’s store at King Edward Barracks).[11] Early capital went into shelving and quickly erecting additional buildings, including relocated structures from Featherston and Lyttelton, to stand up the depot at pace. Concentrating stocks at Burnham rationalised rail and road movements across the island, simplified accounting and inspection, and, critically, placed the depot alongside the South Island’s principal training and mobilisation camp, creating the integrated logistics hub that Dunedin’s city site could never be.

Taken together, these reforms converted a wartime patchwork into a rationalised interwar network: a rail-served Northern Ordnance Depot at Hopuhopu; a consolidated Southern Command Ordnance Depot at Burnham; and, in the capital, a split-function arrangement with Trentham taking over administration, bulk stores and workshops while Fort Ballance provided the segregated ammunition area. Each node was purpose-sited, safety-compliant, and, crucially, scaled for regional mobilisation and routine sustainment.

WWII to Cold War: a larger, more technical estate

The Second World War triggered a nationwide building surge: new depots, sub-depots and ammunition areas were thrown up to handle an unprecedented volume of people and materiel. Crucially, the established hubs at Hopuhopu, Trentham and Burnham were not merely expanded, they underwent comprehensive upgrade programmes with new warehouses and improved materials-handling layouts, layered on top of the broader wartime construction effort. In parallel, Linton grew rapidly from a wartime bulk store into a permanent logistics location. Across the main camps, widespread leasing, alterations, and the build-out of supply depots and M.T. workshops kept pace with demand and modernised the estate.[12]

Main Ordnance Depot, Trentham Camp – 1946
Burnham-1942

By 1944, the ammunition estate had been transformed. What began as a modest pre-war holding at Fort Ballance and Hopuhopu became a fully engineered national network, with hundreds of magazines dispersed for safety, climate control and throughput, so that, for the first time, virtually all stocks could be kept under cover and managed to consistent standards.

Makomako Ammunition Area C1945. Public Works Department

The technical load expanded just as quickly. Ordnance Workshops moved beyond routine repairs into complex systems: artillery, searchlights, wireless and radar, along with the precision test equipment and spares those capabilities required. Workshop teams supervised coast-defence installations and fitted intricate fire-control instruments, high-tolerance work delivered despite shortages of publications and trained staff.

In 1945 New Zealand assumed control of Sylvia Park from the departing U.S. forces, folding a major Auckland ordnance area into the national system. The following year, Mangaroa, transferred from the RNZAF, added substantial storage capacity to the Trentham logistics cluster. By 1946, the post-war footprint was essentially set: NZAOC depots and NZEME workshops at Hopuhopu, Linton, Trentham, and Burnham, supported by a dispersed ammunition network and stores sub-depots at Waiouru, Sylvia Park (Auckland), and Mangaroa (Wellington district). The geography reflected hard-won lessons: keep heavy repair close to railheads and major camps; site explosives in segregated, engineered locations; and disperse risk while preserving rapid access.

In short, the war years forced a step-change in scale, safety and technology, and, by 1945–46, had fixed the estate’s Cold War foundations: integrated depots and workshops at the four principal hubs, sustained by a dispersed, engineered ammunition backbone capable of mobilising quickly and sustaining forces at home and abroad.

Linton, Trentham, and Burnham ,  parallel arcs (1915–1990s)

Linton: growth, setbacks, recovery ,  expanded

Linton’s logistics story is one of endurance and incremental wins. A First World War–era presence (with a Palmerston North district store and later wartime sub-depots) matured into a permanent depot from 1 October 1946, when the wartime Bulk Sub-Depot was re-established as the district’s ordnance centre. From the outset, however, demand outpaced the estate. Temporary sheds remained in place well beyond their intended lifespan; a serious fire on 31 December 1944 had already highlighted the fragility of inherited buildings.[13] Another fire in 1953 reinforced the risks posed by thinly resourced infrastructure.

The 1950s brought both growth and compromise. New warehouses (CB26/CB27) went up on Dittmer Road in 1949–50, but space was still tight. In 1957 the Central Districts Vehicle Depot shifted from Trentham to Linton, bringing prefabricated buildings from Fort Dorset (CB14–CB17) as stopgaps. A 1958 site study proposed a 125,000-sq-ft integrated depot and “logistic precinct”, but full funding never landed; instead, piecemeal extensions and relocations kept the wheels turning. The standing warning applied: “temporary” infrastructure has a habit of becoming permanent, each hut retained added compliance risk, maintenance burden and inefficiency, and locked in sub-optimal layouts that would cost more to fix later.[14]

Central Districts Ordnance Depot, Linton Camp 1958

There were bright spots. A new headquarters (CB18) opened in 1961, followed by a dedicated clothing store (CB4) in 1963. Most significantly, a new workshop completed in 1967 delivered a long-overdue lift in capacity, safety and workflow, though the surrounding warehouses and yards still betrayed the site’s improvised origins. In 1968, a 45,000 sq ft (4,181 m²) extension to the clothing store (CB4) was planned; budget cuts reduced this to 25,000 sq ft (2,323 m²). Built by 2 Construction Squadron, RNZE from 1969, the extension was completed on 7 November 1972 at a reported cost of $143,000 and 43,298 man-hours; the building now hosts 5 Movements Company, RNZALR.

2COD/2 Supply warehouse, Linton Camp

A purpose-built ration store (1990/91) replaced the old railhead site, and in 1992 the Ready Reaction Force Ordnance Support Group transferred from Burnham to Linton, concentrating readiness support alongside district supply. Yet the underlying picture remained mixed, WWII-era shells, prefabs and undersized sheds persisted, forcing logisticians to work around the estate rather than with it.

Those constraints explain the emphasis of later programmes (from the 1990s onward): replacing legacy fabric and dispersion with genuinely purpose-built supply and maintenance infrastructure. In that sense, today’s RSF/MSF era at Linton isn’t a break with the past, it is the long-deferred completion of what logisticians on the Manawatū plain have been building towards for nearly a century.

Trentham: the main depot modernises

As the Army’s principal depot for most of the twentieth century, Trentham evolved from a spread of older camp buildings into a more integrated complex. The Second World War surge added huts, sheds and workshops at pace, supplementing, but not replacing, First World War–era stock.[15] In 1945, a tranche of wartime buildings from the Hutt Valley was relocated onto Trentham, effectively locking in the depot’s footprint and circulation patterns for the next forty years.

Trentham 2020

Modernisation accelerated in the 1980s with computerised accounting, improved materials-handling flows, and expanded trade-training roles. Crucially, Trentham gained a purpose-built warehouse complex, and a new workshop building (1988) lifted maintenance, inspection and storage to contemporary standards, finally reducing reliance on ageing wartime shells.

The RNZAOC Award-winning warehouse at Trentham was constructed for $1.6 million in 1988. In addition to the high-rise pallet racking for bulk stores, a vertical storage carousel capable of holding 12,000 detail items was installed later.

However, as Trentham continued to modernise in the 1990s, much of the benefit to the Army was eroded by commercialisation. Warehousing and maintenance functions were progressively outsourced, with associated infrastructure handed over to commercial contractors under service arrangements. In practice, uniformed logistics trades at Trentham shifted from hands-on depot and workshop work to contract management and assurance, narrowing organic depth and placing greater reliance on service-level agreements, while only a core of deployable capability was retained in-house.

Burnham: consolidation and steady improvement

Following interwar consolidation, Burnham served as the South Island’s ordnance hub. The Second World War drove a major build-out on the camp: new bulk warehouses and transit sheds, extended loading banks and hardstand, additional vehicle/MT repair bays, and a suite of magazine buildings and ammunition-handling spaces to support mobilisation and training. A regional ammunition footprint in Canterbury (including the Glentunnel area) complemented Burnham’s general stores, giving the South Island a coherent stores-and-munitions arrangement anchored on the camp.[16]

The post-war decades, however, saw only limited capital development. Rationalisation pulled dispersed holdings back onto Burnham and replaced the worst of the wartime huts, but most improvements were incremental, better racking and materials-handling, selective reroofing and insulation, and small workshop upgrades rather than wholesale rebuilds. By the 1970s–90s, Burnham’s layout and building stock reflected that long, steady consolidation: fewer, better-sited stores, improved access to rail and road, and workshops lifted just enough to service heavier, more technical fleets. The result was a functional, if ageing, platform, one that sustained the South Island through the Cold War and set the stage for later purpose-built facilities under the RSF/MSF era.

Hopuhopu & Sylvia Park (Northern area): closure (1989)

As part of late–Cold War rationalisation, the Northern Ordnance Depot at Hopuhopu and its Auckland sub-depot at Sylvia Park were closed in 1989, with residual holdings and functions redistributed across the national network.

Ammunition infrastructure modernisation

The Second World War left New Zealand with a highly dispersed land-ammunition estate. By 1945, magazines and preparation points dotted all three military districts: in the Northern area at Ardmore, Kelms Road and Hopuhopu; in the Central area at Waiouru, Makomako, Belmont and Kuku Valley; and in the Southern area at Alexandra, Burnham, Glentunnel, Fairlie and Mt Somers.[17] That distribution made sense for wartime surge and local defence, but it was costly to maintain in peacetime and increasingly out of step with modern safety and environmental standards.

From the 1950s through the late Cold War, most of the WWII-era peripheral sites were either decommissioned or repurposed, with holdings progressively concentrated into a smaller number of engineered locations. Wellington’s Belmont area, for example, carried unique post-war burdens, including custody of New Zealand’s chemical munitions, before the ammunition function in the capital consolidated elsewhere and the site ceased to be part of the active Army network.  By the 2000s, the Army’s land-ammunition storage posture was anchored on two purpose-sited hubs: Waiouru in the central North Island and the Southern Ammunition Node centred on Glentunnel in Canterbury.

Waiouru was rebuilt in staged programmes (Stage 1 in 2005, Stage 2 in 2014) to deliver earth-covered buildings, improved separation distances, environmental controls and safer flows for receipt, storage, conditioning and issue.[18]  [19]

In the South Island, the Southern Ammunition Node project (2021) upgraded explosive-store buildings and handling infrastructure to a common modern standard sized to support a year of training demand on the island, bringing a previously scattered Canterbury footprint (with Glentunnel as the core) into a coherent, compliant node. [20]

The result is a network that is smaller, safer and faster: fewer, but better, magazine areas with consistent climatic performance, modern explosive safety distances, and integrated preparation buildings that reduce handling risk and turn-times. Consolidation also simplifies inspection, surveillance and remediation, and aligns the ammunition estate with the RSF/MSF programme so storage, maintenance and distribution can be planned as one system rather than as a set of isolated sites.

The twenty-first-century shift: Equip the Force

Policy has now caught up with practice. The Consolidated Logistics Project (CLP) completes the move from “equip the unit” to “equip the force”, funding new, centralised infrastructure: an RSF at Burnham and a regional vehicle storage facility at Linton, among other builds. Cabinet has authorised the construction of the Burnham RSF, with a capital envelope of $82.7 m, and programme documents set out the CLP’s multi-site scope. Market notices show Linton-based CLP stages (RSF/RVSF) flowing through the procurement pipeline.[21]

Linton MSF (opened 2023)

A purpose-built, high-bay engineering complex that replaced the main Linton workshop, constructed in 1967, along with the patchwork of mid-century annexes and portacabin add-ons. The facility consolidates maintenance under one roof with full-height, drive-through heavy bays, overhead gantry cranes, a rolling-road/brake test lane, lifts, segregated clean/dirty workstreams, and an on-site test range for function checks. Sized for LAV and Bushmaster fleets and configured for the wider B- and C-vehicle park—from trucks and plant to engineer equipment—it also accommodates weapons, communications, and specialist systems. Designed around a diagnostics-led workflow, with adjacent tool cribs, parts kitting, and secure technical stores, it improves safety and throughput via controlled pedestrian routes, tail-gate docks, and compliant wash-down and waste systems. With environmental safeguards, provision for future power/ICT growth, and co-location within the logistic precinct, the Linton MSF shortens pull-through from supply to fit-line to road test, lifting quality assurance and return-to-service times.[22]

Burnham MSF (construction underway)

Sod-turned in 2023, this purpose-built maintenance complex replaces WWII-era workshops and the later patchwork of add-ons, lifting the South Island’s ability to repair and regenerate fleets to modern standards. Bringing heavy and light bays under one roof, the design provides full-height access with overhead lifting, drive-through servicing and inspection lanes, a diagnostics-led workflow with adjacent tool cribs and secure technical stores, and clearly separated clean electronics/COMMS and weapons workrooms from “dirty” vehicle and plant tasks. Compliant wash-down, waste and hazardous-stores arrangements, controlled vehicle/pedestrian flows, and modern QA points improve safety and throughput, while environmental and seismic resilience, upgraded power and ICT, and growth headroom future-proof the site. Co-located with the Burnham Regional Supply Facility, the MSF shortens pull-through from spares to fit-line to road test and builds in surge capacity for exercises, operations and civil-defence tasks—delivering a step-change from disparate WWII stock to a coherent, scalable South Island maintenance hub.[23]

Linton RSF (ground broken late 2024; works underway 2025)

The Linton RSF consolidates deployable supply, regional pooling and distribution into a single integrated warehouse—modernising Linton’s logistics model and delivering genuine “one-roof” visibility of stock and movement. It replaces the camp’s last remaining WWII-era store building and the temporary sheds erected in the 1950s, retiring decades of piecemeal add-ons in favour of a purpose-designed, high-bay facility with efficient goods-in, cross-dock, and issue flows. Provision is made for dock-high loading with canopies and levellers, narrow-aisle racking with seismic bracing, controlled stores and DG rooms, quarantine/returns and kitting/staging areas, plus temperature-managed cells for sensitive items. Traffic is segregated for safety, with MHE circulation, marshalling hardstand and clear pedestrian routes; ESFR sprinklers, spill containment and energy-efficient services (with allowance for future solar/ICT upgrades) support compliance and resilience. Co-located with the Linton MSF, the RSF shortens pull-through from receipt to fit-line to road test, and builds surge capacity for exercises, operations and civil-support tasks across the lower North Island.[24]

Burnham RSF (approved)

Cabinet’s October 2025 release confirms the Burnham RSF as CLP Build 4, centralising storage and distribution to support the South Island force and national surge. The project retires Burnham’s remaining WWII-era store buildings—plus the ad hoc sheds that accreted over the post-war decades—and replaces them with a purpose-designed, high-bay warehouse that brings deployable supply, regional pooling, and distribution under one roof, with true end-to-end visibility. Dock-high loading with canopies and levellers, cross-dock lanes, narrow-aisle racking with seismic bracing, controlled stores and DG rooms, kitting/forward staging, quarantine/returns areas, and temperature-managed cells are planned into the base build. Safety and resilience are improved through segregated pedestrian/MHE routes, generous marshalling hardstand, ESFR sprinklers, spill containment, compliant waste streams, and energy-efficient services with allowance for future solar and ICT growth. Co-located with the new Burnham MSF, the RSF shortens pull-through from receipt to fit-line to road test, and provides scalable capacity for exercises, operations, and civil-defence tasks across the South Island.[25]

Why it matters

  1. Tempo & readiness: Centralised, high-bay warehouses and modern workshops cut turn-times on maintenance and issue, and make surge loads (exercises, operations, disaster response) predictable and scalable.
  2. Safety & compliance: New ammo hangars and workshops meet contemporary explosive safety, environmental and worker standards.
  3. Whole-of-force visibility: CLP infrastructure supports the “equip the force” model, pooling fleets and holdings where it makes sense while still serving units locally.
  4. Life-cycle efficiency: Purpose-built layouts reduce double-handling and shrink the estate of failing legacy buildings. Cabinet’s RSF approvals and the associated business cases lock in these gains.

The long arc

From the first Defence Stores and Mobilisation Stores in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin; through the interwar Hopuhopu depot; via the wartime booms and post-war improvisations; to the missteps at Linton and Trentham that left too much in “temporary” accommodation, the RSF/MSF era is the long-intended destination: fit-for-purpose logistics infrastructure, finally scaled to the mission. The spades in the ground at Linton and Burnham, and the new ammunition hangars at Waiouru and Glentunnel, are not new ideas; they are the long-delayed completion of a project that began as New Zealand took responsibility for its own military stores more than a century ago.


Notes

[1]Paul Joseph Spyve, “The Barracks on the Hill: A History of the Army’s Presence at Mount Cook, Wellington 1843-1979” (1982).

[2] “The new powder magazine,” South Canterbury Times, Issue 2414, (Evening Post, Volume XVIII, Issue 102), 27 October 1879, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP18791027.2.28.

[3] “New Power magazine at Mount Eden,” New Zealand Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 2377 (Auckland), 7 September 1871, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18710907.2.18.

[4] Wellington Defence Storekeeper, “Report of Inspection of Defence Stores Auckland. Again Urges Removal of Store from O’Rourke [O’rorke] Street to Mount Eden Cost to Be Met by Police Department ” Archives New Zealand Item No R24743403  (1903).

[5] “Joint Defence (Secret) Committee (Reports of the),” Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1900 Session I, I-12  (1 September 1900), https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1900-I.2.3.3.15.

[6] Mark McGuire, “Equipping the Post-Bellum Army,” Forts and Works (Wellington) 2016.

[7] “Great Military Camp,” Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 83, 8 April 1925, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19250408.2.62.

[8] “Ordnance Srores,” Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 95, 19 October 1920, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19201019.2.92.

[9] “Mount Cook Barracks,” Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 105, (Wellington), 31 October 1930, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19301031.2.57.

[10] “Fire in Defence Store,” Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3109 ( ), 13 June 1917, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19170613.2.67.

[11] “Camp at Burnham,” Star, Issue 16298, 13 December 1920, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19201213.2.88.

[12] F Grattan, Official War History of the Public Works Department (PWD, 1948).

[13] “Inquiry into fire,” Northern Advocate, ( ), 27 February 1945, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19450227.2.60.

[14] “Buildings, Linton Camp, Central Ordnance Depot,” Archives New Zealand No R9428308  (1955 – 1969).

[15] Grattan, Official War History of the Public Works Department.

[16] Grattan, Official War History of the Public Works Department.

[17] Grattan, Official War History of the Public Works Department.

[18] “Waiouru Explosive Srorage Depot – Stage 1,” Spantech NZ Limited  2006, https://www.spantech.co.nz/projects/waiouru-explosive-ordnance-depot-stage-1.

[19] “Waiouru Explosive Srorage Depot – Stage 2,” Spantech NZ Limited  2014, https://www.spantech.co.nz/projects/waiouru-explosive-ordnance-depot-stage-2.

[20] “Major upgrade of NZ Defence Force’s southern explosive ordnance storage facilities,” Spantech NZ Limited  2021, https://www.spantech.co.nz/projects/nz-defence-southern-ammunition-node-project.

[21] “Defence Capability Plan,” 2025, https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/assets/Uploads/DocumentLibrary/24-0253-NZDF-Defence-Capability-Plan-Single.pdf.

[22] New Zealand Defence Force, Linton Military Camp opens state-of-the-art maintenance facility to support NZ Army equipment,  (Wellington: NZDF, 2023).

[23] “New maintenance facility at Burnham Military Camp underway,” Beehive.co.nz, 2023, https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-maintenance-facility-burnham-military-camp-underway.

[24] “Significant milestone for NZDF logistics,” NZ Army, 2025, https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/army/army-news/significant-milestone-for-nzdf-logistics/.

[25] “Defence Force: Burnham Regional Supply Facility,” Ministry of Defence, 2025, https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/assets/Uploads/DocumentLibrary/EXP-25-MIN-0079_Defence-Force_Burnham-Regional-Supply-Facility.pdf.


The estate underfoot is the real enemy

New Zealand’s military logisticians are more likely to be harmed by the conditions they create than by enemy fire, and the records often don’t exist when illness appears decades later.

Introduction

We have spent years teaching soldiers to look up and out for threats. For logisticians, the danger is just as often down in the ground they’re ordered to seize and make work at speed. Bomb‑damaged ports, airheads, railheads, fuel farms, hard standing, and battered warehouses are where supply chains are wrestled back to life. They are also where dust, residues, and fluids leave a lasting fingerprint on human health.

The uncomfortable truth is latency. Low‑to‑moderate exposures, taken in with every sweep of a broom, every cut of a disc, every lift of a drum, every hour around fuels and degreasers, rarely trigger an incident report. They build quietly under heat and exertion. The bill often arrives 10–40 years later as chronic respiratory disease, cardiovascular problems, or exposure‑associated cancers (including haematological malignancies). By then, units have disbanded, notebooks have been boxed or binned, and the link between a dusty floor in a shattered shed and a midlife diagnosis is far harder to prove.

Operational realities widen this gap. Operational tempo prioritises throughput over sampling; industrial hazards are treated as background noise; and protection is a general issue, not task-specific. In many theatres, the ethos was to get the job done. Keeping the lines moving eclipsed health and safety. The result? Too many logisticians carry “silent” injuries, not the wounds of a firefight, but the legacy of the estate underfoot.

Latency‑linked conditions to flag (illustrative, not exhaustive)

  • Airways & lung (0–20+ yrs): chronic bronchitis/COPD, asthma aggravation, interstitial lung disease; silica/cement dusts → silicosis; diesel/PAH‑rich exhaust → higher lung cancer risk.
  • Sarcoidosis (months–years; sometimes later): an inflammatory granulomatous disease with recognised associations to inhaled particulates and combustion by-products (e.g., burn-pit smoke, fuel/solvent aerosols, mineral/metallic dusts, silica). In military logistics contexts, credible exposure pathways include routine work around burn pits, JP-8/Avtur/Avgas combustion products, and dust-rich industrial sites.
  • Asbestos (20–40 yrs): pleural plaques, asbestosis, lung cancer, mesothelioma.
  • Solvents & fuels (5–25 yrs): Benzene and organic solvents are associated with haematological malignancies (e.g., AML, MDS, NHL); some degreasers are linked in studies to kidney/liver effects.
  • PCBs/dioxins (incl. Agent Orange/TCDD) (5–30+ yrs): non‑Hodgkin lymphoma, some soft‑tissue sarcomas, type 2 diabetes, chloracne.
  • Metals (varies): chromium VI → lung cancer; lead → neurological/haematological effects; cadmium → renal dysfunction and some cancers.

These are associations, not diagnoses. Individual risk depends on dose, duration, task and personal factors. The point is to signpost credible possibilities so exposure logging and follow‑up aren’t dismissed as “speculative”.

Illustrative exposure pathways reported by NZ logisticians

  • JP-8/Avtur/Avgas used to burn excrement (latrine waste disposal) → mixed hydrocarbon and particulate inhalation.
  • Proximity to burn pits for waste/rubbish disposal → complex combustion plume with fine particulates and mixed toxicants.
  • Asbestos exposure in damaged facilities — notably Somalia and Timor-Leste.
  • Pyrethrin-based insecticide ‘fogging’ for mosquitoes — operators in PPE while nearby logisticians worked without task-specific respiratory protection.
  • Silica and heavy dusts from industrial sites — e.g., Bougainville, living/working inside a large copper-mine building.

Somalia shows how routine logistics create hidden exposures

From late 1992 to July 1994, New Zealand rotated a dedicated Supply Platoon (43-strong, with an attached infantry section) through Mogadishu. The job was prosaic and relentless: a warehouse on the airport’s north ramp, a standing stores presence inside the port, and long days pushing relief tonnage through shattered infrastructure, at one point over 1,000 tonnes in a single month.

UNOSOM General Stores Warehouse at Mogadishu Airport undergoes a few improvements 1993.jpg Crown Copyright © 2009 New Zealand Defence Force / All Rights Reserved

The ground itself told the story. Movements threaded past the ruins of an oil depot and fuel farms; across coral-sand and concrete dust; through mixed cargo residues (fertiliser, cement) laminated with marine oils and solvents; past derelict aircraft still weeping fluids, plus the familiar companions of collapse: metals, asbestos fragments, and sewage-affected water.

Protection was largely standard kit, helmets, frag vests, uniforms, rather than any specialist respiratory or dermal protection you’d expect in an industrial clean-up. The then-issue light fragmentation vest was widely regarded as unsuitable for the operating environment: confidence-boosting, yes; protective against chronic industrial exposures, no. Dress and load carriage reflected the heat and tempo more than hazard control (UN blue caps/baseball caps, PASGT helmets variably covered; relaxed working dress; webbing often set aside to work in vehicles and warehouses).

That is why ordinary tasks, sweeping bays, slinging pallets, cutting and rigging, refuelling, and marshalling MHE on contaminated hard-standing, can have extraordinary consequences years later when no one records what’s in the dust.

A recurring pattern across theatres

This is not an anomaly; it is a template visible across a century of New Zealand service:

  • World Wars — depots, docks, railheads (1914–19; 1939–45). Coal soot, cordite fumes, leaded petrol and chlorinated solvents in workshops; asbestos in roofing and lagging; cement and lime dust from rapid rebuilds. Throughput trumped surveys: trains to marshal, ships to turn, vehicles to repair. Hygiene focused on infection and water; industrial toxicology barely featured, so exposure notes were rare.
  • Korea — Kure and the Commonwealth base (1950–53). A sprawling pre-existing industrial estate re-tasked for logistics: oils, solvents and paints in abundance, metals and asbestos in shipyard fabric. NZ personnel moved through a machine built for output; documentation captured receipts and readiness, not the air and dust they worked in.
  • Malaya, Borneo and Singapore–Malaysia (1948–66; presence to 1989). Workshops and airstrips required fuels, degreasers, and hydraulic fluids as routine background; insecticides/defoliants were widely used; accommodations and facilities were still in the asbestos era. These were “normal” garrison tasks under tropical conditions, with latency risks unrecognised, and site hazards seldom logged.
  • Vietnam — Vũng Tàu and beyond (1964–72). Waste burning near lines of communication, pervasive dust, fuels/solvents, and herbicide-affected environments. Integration into Australian support chains normalised the setting; recognition came decades later at the cohort level, while many individual exposure trails remained thin.
  • Bougainville (1990s). Accommodation and work areas inside a large copper-mine building exposed personnel to silica-rich and metallic dust under hot, enclosed conditions.
  • Balkans — Bosnia/Kosovo rotations (mid-1990s–2000s). Logistics hubs established inside bomb-scarred industrial zones: transformer yards with PCBs, refineries, vehicle plants; warehouses with demolition dust and solvent films. Early-entry imperatives (“get the flow moving”) routinely outpaced site characterisation.
  • Timor-Leste (1999–2002). Burnt-out Indonesian-era facilities with asbestos roofing, ad-hoc waste pits, and heavy cement/brick dust from rapid repairs. Logbooks recorded cargo and convoy timings; personal exposure records were typically maintained only in the event of an incident.
  • Afghanistan (2003–2013). High-altitude fine dusts, continuous diesel exhaust, widespread solvent degreasing, and transits through hubs with burn-adjacent histories. The hazards were familiar yet diffuse, cumulative, not catastrophic, and thus rarely captured in neat exposure sheets.
  • Iraq — Taji and hub transits (from 2015). Flightline dusts, fuels/solvents, and the legacy of burn pits at specific coalition bases; constant MHE movements on contaminated hard standing. Unit logs were excellent for consignments and training cycles; environmental notes were sporadic and incident-driven.

The common pattern

Occupy damaged or industrialised ground → work at pace → accept “background” contamination as the price of tempo. Ordinary logistic tasks, such as sweeping, cutting, rigging, refuelling, and marshalling MHE, become exposure pathways, and latency hides the bill until long after the paperwork stops.

Why proof is missing — and why that shouldn’t be fatal

Exposures often fail to appear in files because command salience sits with security and throughput; coalitions churn and records fragment; hygiene doctrine long prioritised infection and water over industrial toxicology; and latency outlasts memory. Compounding this, many hazards that are now recognised and routinely mitigated, legacy asbestos, diesel-exhaust particulates and cumulative solvent exposure were, even less than thirty years ago, poorly understood or not considered in planning, PPE issues, or environmental reconnaissance. That is why Parliament enacted the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 (VSA): a benevolent, merits-based scheme that requires decision-makers to act reasonably, apply natural justice, and ensure equal treatment of equal claims.

Two schemes, same principles

The VSA operates

  • Scheme One (older cohorts/legacy service) and
  • Scheme Two (modern deployments from 1 April 1974 onwards, with a stronger rehabilitation focus).

Both schemes operate under the Act’s principle of benevolence. New Zealand adopts medical-scientific Statements of Principles (SoPs) from Australia’s Repatriation Medical Authority. Each SoP lists causal factors that, if present, link a condition to service. Two standards of proof apply: Reasonable Hypothesis (RH) for warlike/non-warlike (operational) service, a pro-veteran, lower threshold; and Balance of Probabilities (BoP) for peacetime/routine service, a higher threshold.

How decisions should run in practice.

  1. If a relevant SoP exists, Veterans’ Affairs New Zealand (VANZ) tests the claim against it.
  2. If the RH test is met for qualifying operational service, the claim must be accepted.
  3. If no SoP applies or a SoP cannot neatly capture cumulative exposure, **section 15** applies: VANZ must accept the claim if it is consistent with a reasonable hypothesis based on the facts, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe it is not service‑related. This is the statutory safety‑net for thin or fragmented records.

Where veterans get tripped up when making a claim

Here is where the machinery breaks down: a process that treats missing records as the veteran’s problem and turns a benevolent scheme into an adversarial grind.

  • Thin records → heavy proof load on the veteran. Requests for exposure logs, sampling data, or site surveys that never existed end up weaponising the gaps the system created.
  • SoPs treated as gates, not guides. Complex, cumulative or novel exposures (multiple deployments, solvents, PCB yards) don’t map neatly to Statements of Principles, yet section 15 isn’t used early to accept a reasonable hypothesis.
  • Insurer-style posture. The process can feel adversarial, with repeated demands for “more” evidence, credibility challenges, and narrow readings of medical reports, especially when records are scarce.
  • Delay as denial. Multi-stage reconsideration/review/appeal stretches months into years; terminally ill veterans can die before resolution, or families inherit the burden mid-grief.
  • The state holds the data, while the veteran bears the risk. VANZ sits within NZDF, the institution with the records and institutional knowledge; yet, the evidential burden often rests with the ill claimant.
  • Language and culture mismatch. Claims framed like welfare applications rather than an earned entitlement under a State-fault scheme erode trust and deter engagement (contemporary veteran uptake is reported as extremely low).

If New Zealand truly values those who keep the lines moving, Veterans’ Affairs and the NZDF must do better: shift their efforts from surge-time forms to credible post-tour evidence so that tomorrow’s veteran has a fair shot.

When proof is already thin: build a triangle of proof

  • Tasks & places: diaries, load lists, movement tables, port/airfield names, ramp IDs, warehouse numbers, fuel farm locations, photos.
  • Site history: industrial uses, conflict damage, spill/burn areas, foam pads, mining legacies, and why it was dirty.
  • Medical trajectory: onset windows, peers with similar issues, GP/specialist notes and screening results.

Conclusion

Operationally, the principal danger to military logisticians is often not incoming fire but the estate underfoot, ground that must be made serviceable at pace and under pressure. Somalia serves as a national wake-up call: ordinary logistics in extraordinary environments, mainly undertaken in general-issue kit, with little of the exposure ever documented. Many hazards now recognised and routinely mitigated, such as legacy asbestos, diesel particulates, PCB yards, and cumulative solvent loads, were poorly understood or not considered less than thirty years ago, which only widens today’s evidential gaps.

Even so, that counsel comes too late for many operations up to the early 2000s, when industrial hazards were poorly understood and exposure logs were uncommon. Even if the chaos of early entry cannot be redesigned, commanders and agencies can still complete the process correctly by creating a usable record. A succinct post-tour bundle, filed with personnel records and the unit archive, should include:

  • a task/location timeline,
  • sketch maps and photographs of sites worked,
  • a note of known or likely prior industrial uses,
  • brief witness statements,
  • unit diaries and load/consignment lists,
  • and GP/screening notes (e.g., spirometry where relevant).

Decades later, this modest package can be the difference between a fair hearing and a polite denial. Where no bundle exists for historic tours, assemble the best available reconstruction from diaries, photos, unit logs, site histories, and medical notes.

On the claims side, practice should match principle. Decision-making ought to reflect the benevolent, merits-based intent of the law; use multiple pathways (SoPs and reasonable-hypothesis routes); and adopt a culture that investigates rather than contests. Independent oversight, separate from VANZ and NZDF, would help ensure that the absence of paperwork does not become the absence of justice.


Sustaining the 2NZEF in WWII (1939–46): A Consolidated Register of New Zealand Logistics Units

New Zealand’s logistic contribution to the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF) during the Second World War is too often glimpsed only in passing—scattered lines in campaign narratives or one-line entries in corps lists. This article assembles, for the first time, a clear, consolidated register of New Zealand logistics units that sustained 2NZEF across its principal theatres of war: North Africa & the Middle East (1940–43), Greece & Crete (1941), and Italy (1943–45). The scope is deliberately bounded, focusing solely on New Zealand formations and excluding the numerous Allied logistics organisations—RASC, RAOC, REME, and those of the Indian, South African, Australian, Canadian, and United States forces—that operated alongside them.

Join up of Tobruk garrison and the 8th Army at Tobruk, Libya, during World War II. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch Ref: DA-01668-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23108170

Context: Establishment and early expansion of 2NZEF logistics

The outbreak of war necessitated the creation of the 2NZEF as a new, expeditionary force, distinct from existing Territorial and regular Army structures. Its logistical backbone had to be built at speed—leveraging what existed at home, but scaling far beyond it. Under Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Crump, the New Zealand Army Service Corps (NZASC) began forming for overseas service almost immediately. Within a week of mobilisation, Territorial soldiers and civilian volunteers were concentrated at Papakura, Ngāruawāhia, Trentham, and Burnham for intensive training, laying the foundations for a motorised division sustained by transport, fuel, and supply-chain units.

Ordnance functions for the expeditionary force were organised under a newly established New Zealand Ordnance Corps (NZOC)—separate from the domestically focused NZAOC. Led by Colonel Joseph King as Director of Ordnance Services, the NZOC was raised largely from scratch by drawing on NZAOC depot personnel and civilian staff. A key innovation was the introduction of Light Aid Detachments (LADs) attached to front-line units for rapid repairs, with Captain Sinclair Banks Wallace, the Ordnance Mechanical Engineer, instrumental in recruiting and training these cadres.

Deployment and scaling

The 2NZEF deployed in three major echelons (Advance Party; First Echelon to Egypt, February 1940; Third Echelon to Egypt, September 1940; Second Echelon first to Britain, then joining in Egypt, March 1941). Lieutenant-General Bernard Freyberg exercised broad administrative autonomy to establish bases, lines of communication, and procurement outside constrained British channels where necessary. On arrival in Egypt, New Zealand logisticians met a Middle East theatre strained by post-Dunkirk shortages. The original logistics structure proved insufficient for a fully motorised division, prompting rapid expansion across supply, transport, maintenance, and repair to meet the demands of desert warfare—an effort that would underpin operations in North Africa & the Middle East (1940–43), Greece & Crete (1941), and Italy (1943–45).

NZASC Divisional supply & transport

Diamond T Tank Transporter of 18 Tank Transporter Company
  • NZASC Headquarters (Divisional)
  • NZ Divisional Supply Column → 2 NZ Divisional Supply Company (renamed 1942; disbanded 8 Oct 1945)
  • 2 NZ Divisional Petrol Company (disbanded 8 Oct 1945)
  • 2 NZ Divisional Ammunition Company
    • Second Ammunition Company formed Nov 1942 (both disbanded 8 Oct 1945)
  • 4 Reserve Mechanical Transport (RMT) Company (disbanded 8 Oct 1945)
  • 6 Reserve Mechanical Transport (RMT) Company (raised 1942; disbanded Nov 1944)

Specialised divisional units

  • 14 NZ Anti-Aircraft Regiment ASC Section
  • 1 NZ Ambulance Transport Unit
  • 18 NZ Tank Transport Company (From 1942)
  • 2 NZ Field Bakery Section (later expanded outputs)
  • 1 NZ Mule Pack Company (1943)
  • NZ Water Issue Section
  • NZ Tank Delivery Troop → Forward Delivery Squadron
  • NZ Jeep Platoon

Base & Lines of Communication (Middle East/Italy)

  • Headquarters Base ASC
    • later 6 NZ Division ASC (for deception), then HQ NZASC Maadi Camp → absorbed into NZ Maadi Camp Composite Company (continued to 26 Feb 1946)
  • NZ Base Training Depot (disbanded 1944) → NZ Advanced Base ASC Training Depot (Italy, to mid-1945)
  • Base Transport Depot → 17 NZ General Transport Company (LoC transport; integrated into NZ Maadi Camp Composite Company in 1945)
  • NZ Field Bakery → NZ Catering Depot (disbanded 1944)
  • NZ Cookery School (assumed catering training functions)
  • 100 Detail Issue Depot (DID)
  • 101 Detail Issue Depot (DID)

NZOC Depots, parks, training & specialist units

A group of NZAOD personnel in Italy, 1944. Front Row: H.D. Bremmer, R.G James, 2nd Lieutenant H.J. Mackridge, N.G. Hogg, G.P. Seymour. Back Row: WO2 Worth, D.S Munroe, G Caroll, Charles Joseph Moulder, Francis William Thomas Barnes, H Rogers, C.W Holmes, W Wallace, N Denery. Photo: Defence Archive Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library.
  • New Zealand Base Ordnance Depot (NZ BOD) – Middle East hub
    • 1 NZ BOD (Egypt; from 16 Feb 1944)
    • 2 NZ BOD (Italy; from 16 Feb 1944)
  • New Zealand Advanced Ordnance Depot (NZAOD) – forward mobile depot; later integrated into OFP as an Advanced Ordnance Section (Feb 1944)
  • NZ Stores Convoy Unit – sub-unit of 2 NZ BOD for long-haul LoC lifts
  • Ordnance Field Park (OFP) – divisional forward supply/repair park
  • NZ Divisional Mobile Laundry and Forward Decontamination Unit →NZ Divisional Mobile Laundry from Mar 1942 (Disbanded Sept 1942)
  • NZ Divisional Bath Unit (Disbanded Sept 1942)
  • NZ Base Laundry (from Sept 1942) → NZ Mobile Laundry (From 1 Oct 1943) → NZ Mobile Laundry and Bath Unit
  • Salvage Unit – battlefield recovery and salvage
  • Armourers’ School of Instruction (NZ BOD) – weapons maintenance training
  • NZ Ordnance Corps Depot (Maadi) – personnel admin/reinforcements (from 26 Jul 1941)

Workshops & maintenance (NZOC until transfer to NZEME on 1 Dec 1942)

  • Base Ordnance Workshops & Technical Training Centre (from 1 Oct 1941) → retitled 6 NZ Division Ordnance Workshops (6 Jul 1942)
  • 1 NZ Ordnance Field Workshop (from 16 Jun 1941)
  • 2 NZ Ordnance Field Workshop (from 16 Jun 1941)
  • 3 NZ Ordnance Field Workshop (from 16 Jun 1941)
  • 2 NZ Divisional Ordnance Workshops (from 26 Jun 1941)
  • 5 NZ Infantry Brigade Workshop Section (from 1 Aug 1942)
  • 6 NZ Infantry Brigade Workshop Section (from 1 Aug 1942)
  • 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade Workshops (formed around the cadre of 11 LAD)
  • 14 NZ Anti-Aircraft Workshops Section
  • NZ Ordnance Corps Training Section (workshops cadre/training)
  • 31 Light Aid Detachment (Base) – merged into Base Ordnance Workshops Jan 1942

Light Aid Detachments (LADs) – NZOC to NZEME transfer on 1 Dec 1942

  • 9 LAD – 4 Field Regiment
  • 10 LAD – 5 Field Park
  • 11 LAD – HQ 4 Infantry Brigade (later core of 4 NZ Armd Bde Workshops)
  • 12 LAD – 27 NZ (MG) Battalion
  • 13 LAD – 2 NZ Divisional Cavalry
  • 14 LAD – Divisional Signals
  • 15 LAD – 7 Anti-Tank Regiment
  • 16 LAD – 5 Field Regiment
  • 17 LAD – HQ 5 NZ Infantry Brigade
  • 18 LAD – 6 Field Regiment
  • 19 LAD – HQ 6 NZ Infantry Brigade
  • 31 LAD (Base) – see above

Demobilisation/closure

  • NZ BODs, NZAOD, OFP and remaining NZOC units – formally disbanded by 26 Feb 1946.

New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (NZEME) — formed 1 Dec 1942 (from NZOC repair/maintenance functions).

Members of 10 Light Aid Detachment, NZ Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, attached to 5 NZ Fd Park Coy, changing truck engine, probably at Burbeita. Man in peaked cap identified as Lt G D Pollock, later Col Pollock. Taken circa 1941 by an official photographer. Ref: DA-01035-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22485028

Light Aid Detachments (LADs)

  • 9 NZ LAD (4 Field Regiment) — disbanded 15 Dec 1945
  • 10 NZ LAD (5 Field Park) — disbanded 15 Dec 1945
  • 13 NZ LAD (2 NZ Divisional Cavalry) — disbanded 1 Nov 1944
  • 14 NZ LAD (Divisional Signals) — disbanded 15 Dec 1945
  • 15 NZ LAD (7 Anti-Tank Regiment) — disbanded Dec 1945
  • 16 NZ LAD (5 Field Regiment) — disbanded Dec 1945
  • 35 NZ LAD (22 Motorised Battalion) — formed 1 Dec 1942; disbanded 1 Nov 1944
  • 38 NZ LAD (18 Armoured Regiment) — disbanded 15 Dec 1945
  • 39 NZ LAD (19 Armoured Regiment) — disbanded 15 Dec 1945
  • 40 NZ LAD (20 Armoured Regiment) — disbanded Dec 1945
  • 41 NZ LAD (HQ 2NZEF) — formed May 1943; disbanded Dec 1945

Workshops & repair units

  • 4 NZ Armoured Brigade Workshop — formed 1 Dec 1942; disbanded 21 Sep 1945
  • 6 NZ Divisional Workshop — formed 1 Dec 1942; retitled NZ Maadi Camp Workshops 1 Nov 1944
  • 2 NZ Divisional Workshop — ex 2 NZ Divisional Ordnance Workshop; operated to 4 Jan 1946
  • NZ Advanced Base Workshops — formed 6 Dec 1943; disbanded 31 Dec 1945

Recovery

  • 1 NZ Armoured Troops Recovery Unit — formed Apr 1943 → 1 NZ Heavy Recovery Section Nov 1944; disbanded 17 Sep 1945

Training

  • NZEME Training Company — formed Dec 1942

NZEF theatre/army-level logistics enablers (1940–1946)

Port Detachments (NZEF)

  • 1 NZ Port Detachment — Suez HQ; formalised 20 Dec 1942; disbanded 1 Nov 1945.
  • 2 NZ Port Detachment — Benghazi → Tripoli; disbanded 30 Jan 1946.
  • 3 NZ Port Detachment — Bari (Italy); formed 8 Nov 1943; disbanded 26 Feb 1946.

Medical Supply (NZMC within NZEF)

  • NZ Medical Stores Depot — established Oct 1940 (Capt Gordon Peek); disbanded 26 Feb 1946.

Corps-level supply nodes

  • New Zealand Field Maintenance Centre (FMC) – Section “A” → 1 NZ FMC — formed 18 Oct 1941, redesignated 5 Dec 1941; operated to 27 Apr 1942; recalled and disbanded 2 May 1942.
  • New Zealand Field Maintenance Centre (FMC) – Section “B” → 2 NZ FMC — formed 18 Oct 1941, redesignated 5 Dec 1941; operated to 27 Apr 1942; recalled and disbanded 2 May 1942.

Note: Thereafter, 2NZEF drew from higher-Corps FMCs (numbered series, e.g., “50s” for XIII Corps, “60s” for XXX Corps) manned by British troops.

New Zealand’s Second Front: 2NZEF (Pacific), 1940–44

The 2NZEF raised a distinct Pacific Section to defend Fiji, initially centred on 8 Infantry Brigade which landed on Viti Levu in November 1940. After Japan entered the war, the force expanded to two brigades and was formally designated as the Pacific Section, 2NZEF, under Major General Owen Mead. When the United States 37th Division assumed the Fiji garrison, the New Zealand formation redeployed home. The Pacific Section subsequently became the 3rd New Zealand Division, the 2NZEF’s primary formation in the Pacific. After a period of training in New Zealand, the Division fought as tailored brigade groups in the Solomon Islands campaign of 1943–44—specifically, on Vella Lavella, the Treasury Islands, and the Green Islands—rather than as a whole three-brigade division.

In early 1944, a national manpower crisis—balancing the need for two overseas divisions with the requirement for essential agricultural and industrial output—forced a strategic choice. Following consultation with British and United States authorities, Wellington prioritised the 2nd Division in Italy; the 3rd Division was withdrawn to New Caledonia in June, returned to New Zealand in August, and was formally disbanded on 20 October 1944. Roughly 4,000 veterans were posted to reinforce the 2nd Division; the remainder demobilised to civilian roles.

Against this operational backdrop, the Division built a theatre-specific sustainment system aligned to US logistics. NZASC carried out reception, trunking, rations, POL, and field services; NZOC managed receipt/issue, accounting, repair, and recovery—and unlike the Middle East, first- and second-line repair remained within NZOC (no NZEME split). The model was proven in Fiji (1940–42) and then scaled in New Caledonia (late 1942–44):

Fiji (1940–42)

Fiji was New Zealand’s first defended base in the South Pacific and the springboard for later operations. From late 1940, the NZASC and NZOC established an island-wide sustainment network—port reception, road/rail/coastal lighterage, depots, and first- and second-line repair—that matured into the model carried forward to New Caledonia and the Solomons.

NZASC

  • Headquarters, Divisional ASC (cadre) — policy/trunking coordination as the garrison approached divisional strength.
  • 4th Composite Company — Suva/Samabula: port clearance, ration issues, local lift to 8 Infantry Brigade Group.
  • 16th Composite Company — Lautoka/Namaka/Nadi (from January 1942): western area support to 14 Infantry Brigade and RNZAF at Nadi.
  • Reserve Motor Transport (New Zealand & Fiji Sections) — vehicle assembly, convoying, inter‑island interfaces, and surge trunking.
  • Movement Control detachments — Suva and Lautoka wharf organisation and clearance.

NZOC

  • DADOS office — technical control and accounting; integration with NZASC issues and returns.
  • Base Ordnance Depot — Suva/Samabula/Tamavua: receipt/issue/returns; armoury; tailoring/textiles (uniform and tent repair).
  • Divisional Ordnance Workshops — HQ/Main (east) with B‑section (west): MT and armament repair; roving fitters; instrument work as capacity grew.
  • Ammunition points — segregation by nature, humidity mitigation, and range supply/accounting.
  • Fiji Section (from mid‑1942) — residual ordnance/workshop capacity supporting the Fiji Infantry Brigade Group and RNZAF Nausori after divisional redeployment.
  • Light Aid Detachments
    • 20 Light Aid Detachment — arrived November 1940; first‑line repair/recovery for 8 Brigade; based initially at Suva/Nasese area.
    • 36 Light Aid Detachment — arrived early 1942; supported Fiji Infantry Brigade Group and residual tasks.
    • 37 Light Aid Detachment — arrived early 1942; aligned to 14 Brigade; forward tasks in western area.

Medical Stores

  • Advanced Depot of Medical Stores (ADMS): Set up at Tamavua Hospital in 1941 (one sergeant, one private, one dispenser).-  equipped two hospitals, two light field ambulances, a convalescent depot, an infectious-diseases hospital, and RAPs for two brigade groups.

Norfolk Island (N‑Force), 1942–44

New Zealand agreed with US command to garrison Norfolk Island in late 1942. N‑Force was a weak brigade‑type grouping (~1,483 personnel over its lifetime) with limited vehicles (≈117 total), requiring tight movement schedules, careful road maintenance, and high utilisation of scarce transport.

NZASC

  • Composite/MT Detachments — local distribution, ration issues, POL, and engineer/AA ammunition lift under island constraints.
  • Movement Control — wharf/boat‑landing control, surf boat interfaces, and cross‑decking to lighter craft.
  • Field Bakery Detachment — bread supply for the garrison as required.

NZOC

  • Ordnance & MT Workshop Section — first‑/second‑line repair retained within NZOC (no NZEME split in the Pacific).
  • Ordnance Section — receipt/issue/returns, clothing/textiles, and ammunition accounting adjusted to island stockholding levels.

Tonga (T‑Force), 1942–44

T‑Force, based around 16 Infantry Brigade Group, garrisoned Tonga from late 1942. The force totalled ~860 personnel and was issued ≈221 vehicles (as at February 1943), reflecting greater mobility demands across dispersed sites and the need to interface with US movement plans.

NZASC

  • Composite/MT Detachments — port clearance, ration and water distribution, and inter‑island/airfield runs.
  • Movement Control — coordination with US shipping/air movements; beach‑landing control where required.
  • Field Bakery Detachment — bread supply for garrison and detachments.

NZOC

  • Ordnance & MT Workshop Section — first‑line repair/recovery
  • Ordnance Section — depot functions (receipt/issue/returns), clothing/textiles, and ammunition handling appropriate to garrison scale.

New Caledonia (late 1942–44

After a period of reconstitution and training in New Zealand, in late 1942 the Division re-based to New Caledonia and, under US Services of Supply, consolidated a west-coast logistics corridor—from the Nouméa/Népoui ports through Base Supply Depots at Vallée de Limousin to the Bourail BOD and Moindah Workshops—knitting reception, trunking, and issue via NZASC MT/MC while first- and second-line repair remained within NZOC..

NZASC

  • HQ Divisional ASC (CRASC & staff) — policy, priorities, and synchronisation with US Services of Supply.
  • Base Supply Depot (BSD) No. 1 — Vallée de Limousin (Nouméa area) rear buffer; staging at Dumbéa.
  • Base Supply Depot (BSD) No. 2 — forward stocks up the west coast road system.
  • Movement Control Detachments — Nouméa & Népoui port/rail interfaces; launch Roa for water transport.
  • Camp McCrae Port Detachment (≈550 personnel) — three-shift port clearance alongside US units.
  • 10 Reserve Motor Transport Company — HQ Moindah; swing lift and major port-clearance/worked convoys.
  • Composite Companies (island distribution)
    • 4 Composite (Népoui/Plaine des Gaïacs, 8 Inf Bde);
    • 16 Composite (Ouaco–Koumac/Taom River line, 14 Inf Bde);
    • 29 Composite (Néméara–Bourail–Houaïlou, Div Troops).
  • 4th Motor Ambulance Convoy (4 MAC – deployed to New Caledonia January 1943. Cars were positioned with field ambulances across the island and at 4 NZ General Hospital (Boguen/Dumbéa), Base Camp Reception Hospital (Téné) and Nouméa.
  • 1 Field Bakery Detachments — bread supply at base/forward as required.
  • 1 Field Butchery

Solomons (1943–44):

  • Guadalcanal
    • HQ Div ASC (fwd) staged onward movement to assault groupings; ASC elements moved via Efate on US shipping.
    • 4 MAC linked ports, airstrips and hospitals in the evacuation chain.
  • Vella Lavella (18 Sep 1943
    • 10 Motor Transport Company ran bulk dumps and onward cross-loads (engineer plant, aviation stores, ammunition).
    • 4 MAC maintained casualty mobility under rain, raids and primitive tracks.
  • Treasury Islands (27 Oct 1943)
    • 4 Motor Transport Company opened the beach-group roadhead and pushed early priorities.
    • 4 MAC Detachment
    • BSD No. 2 Detachment
    • Field Bakery Detachment.
  • Green Islands/Nissan (15 Feb 1944)
    • 16 Motor Transport Company provided the main lift;
    • 10 MT Detachment
    •  4 MAC Detachment.
    • Field Bakery Detachment.

NZOC

Base depots & workshops — New Caledonia (late 1942–44):

  • Base Ordnance Depot (BOD), Bourail — central distribution; textiles/tent repair capability recorded.
  • Divisional Ordnance Workshops, Moindah
    •  HQ/Main Workshop
    • Armament Section
    • No 1 Recovery Section
    • No 2 Recovery Section

Light Aid Detachments (NZOC in Pacific):

  • 20 LAD (Fiji 1940–42; New Caledonia/Solomons 1943–44)
  • 36 LAD (Fiji residual 1942–43)
  • 37 LAD (Fiji 1942; Vella Lavella 1943)
  • 42 LAD (from Jul 1943, with 38 Field Regiment)
  • 64 LAD (Treasury Islands 1943–44)
  • 65 LAD (New Caledonia/Green Islands 1944)
  • 67 LAD (New Caledonia 1943–44)
  • 29 LAA Workshop (section) (Vella Lavella/Green)

Solomons (1943-44)

  • Guadalcanal (Lunga–Kukum–Matanikau)
    • Advanced Ordnance Depot (AOD)
    • Advanced Ordnance Workshops (AOW)
      • Armament Section
      • Section of HQ/Main Workshop
      • Recovery Sections Nos. 1 & 2
  • Vella Lavella
    • detachments of 20 & 37 LADNo. 2 Recovery Section Detachment
    • 29 Light AA Workshop (section).
  • Treasury Islands (Mono & Stirling)
    • 64 LAD as principal mechanical element; ammunition breakdown and refrigeration/distillation plant maintenance; radar support under persistent air threat.
  • Green Islands/Nissan (Operation SQUAREPEG) — mission-tailored
    • ‘Squarepeg Workshop’ combining vehicle/artillery/instrument trades with radar and a tank workshop section; reduced parties from 20 & 65 LAD; small 29 LAA Workshop team.

Medical Stores

New Caledonia (late 1942–44

  • ADMS:  established a large warehouse at Téné (Racecourse Camp)

Solomons (1943–44):

  • Guadalcanal FMC:
    •  ADMS forward section opened alongside AOD/AOW
  • Vella Lavella
    • ADMS forward section
  • Treasury (Mono/Stirling)
    • ADMS forward section
  • Green Islands (Nissan)
    • ADMS forward section

The Mystery of the Ordnance Tubs

Tracing Imperial Logistics through a Forgotten Artefact

During a recent visit to the New Zealand Army Museum, a cast-iron tub stood quietly on display—unassuming, heavily worn, and stamped with the crest of the British Board of Ordnance, along with the date 1850. At first glance, it appeared to be a utilitarian container. Yet this artefact, along with others held in storage, opens a window into the rarely told story of military logistics in colonial New Zealand—and more specifically, into the legacy of the Military Store Department and its pivotal role in sustaining Imperial operations during the New Zealand Wars.

Ordnance Tub National Army Museum Te Mata Toa

Legacy of the Board of Ordnance

The tub bears the insignia of the Board of Ordnance, a British institution that existed from 1597 to 1855. Charged with overseeing the supply of arms, ammunition, fortifications, and barracks, the Board held enormous responsibility across the British Empire. In New Zealand, it established offices in Auckland and Wellington during the 1840s, ensuring the provisioning of Imperial forces.

The Crimean War’s administrative fallout led to the abolition of the Board in 1855. In 1857, its civil functions were reorganised under the Military Store Department. That transition extended to the colonies, including New Zealand, where ordnance officers such as William Plummer and Joseph Osbertus Hamley were reassigned to the new structure.


Ammunition box with Board of Ordnance shield, initials and broad arrow, Tower of London. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Board_of_Ordnance

The Rise of the Military Store Department in New Zealand

Between 1857 and 1870, the Military Store Department was the key body responsible for ensuring that the British soldier was “well and comfortably clad and amply supplied with the munitions of war.” Though smaller and often overshadowed by the more publicly known Commissariat, the Military Store Department played an indispensable role.

Hamley, initially arriving in New Zealand in 1847 as Deputy Ordnance Storekeeper in Wellington, assumed charge of all ordnance operations following Plummer’s death in 1859. As Deputy Superintendent of Stores, Hamley would oversee operations throughout the New Zealand Wars, including management of the extensive storage infrastructure at Fort Britomart and Albert Barracks in Auckland.

These depots housed thousands of items—uniforms, weapons, artillery fittings, ammunition, hospital comforts, and critical supplies—for an Imperial force that swelled to over 18,000 by 1864. Within this complex system of magazines and stores, the now-mysterious cast-iron tubs likely once played a humble yet vital role.

The Enigmatic Tubs

Numerous examples of these distinctive cast iron tubs are held in museums across New Zealand and abroad, yet their original function remains elusive. The New Zealand Army Museum has several, including one currently on display in a World War I diorama, likely as a generic military prop rather than with confirmed historical accuracy. This ambiguity reflects a broader uncertainty surrounding these artefacts.

Comparable tubs have been found in various settings, reinforcing the notion that their use may have extended beyond a single military function. For instance:

  • MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology) in Auckland holds tubs dated to the 1850s that bear the crest of the Board of Ordnance. Some are marked “C. Robinson / Stourbridge,” pointing to a standard manufacturer and suggesting standardised production across the Empire.
  • Similar tubs have been found in former military storage sites at Spitbank Fort in the UK and the Victoria Gunpowder Magazine in Hobart, further supporting the theory that they were initially intended for storing or transporting ammunition or other ordnance supplies.
  • A blog exploring the Irish city of Cork notes the presence of a “Cannon Bath” at Murphy Barracks in Ballincollig, reputedly used to contain water for extinguishing stray gunpowder or to support artillery cleaning routines. Although anecdotal, this local adaptation echoes 19th-century military practice, where equipment was routinely repurposed in garrison life.
Cannonball Container [Horse trough] at Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). https://collection.motat.nz/objects/73823/cannonball-container-horse-trough

Beyond military institutions, these tubs have entered the antiques market with similarly varied interpretations:

  • A tub advertised by Bucks Retro & Vintage is described as a 19th-century blacksmith’s quenching trough, featuring similar dimensions but no Board of Ordnance crest. This example, attributed to “Cobbs, Makers Lane End, Bucks,” hints at broader industrial uses in the same era.
  • The Holloways Garden Antiques website offers a cast iron trough dated 1831, stamped with the Board of Ordnance crest and a gunner’s insignia of three cannons. Listed as a probable quenching tank, it remains watertight and is now marketed as a water feature—again showcasing the durability and adaptability of such artefacts.

A Blogsite exploring Irish city of Cork (https://corkobviously.weebly.com/chapter-11—cannons.html) has another  example listed as a CANNON BATH. This example is in the old Murphy Barracks in Ballincollig and it is thought that it was  used to contain water and was used over any stray gunpowder that may be dropped on the ground. If it remained dry, it might spark and create a mini-explosion.

It may be that the water was used for the sponge to cool down that inside of the cannon.

Despite these varied sightings and interpretations, no known period illustrations or photographs depict these tubs in actual use. Contemporary engravings and early photographs more commonly show cannonballs stored in open pyramids beside artillery or laid out on platforms. The absence of visual documentation neither confirms nor disproves their use as ammunition containers, but it leaves the theory unverified.

Their consistent form unites all these examples: sturdy, sealable, and enduring. While their precise military function may remain speculative, their wide geographic spread and recurrence in military and industrial contexts suggest they were a standard logistical item, adaptable to multiple roles—from transporting charge bags to holding water for artillery drills or firefighting. Their mystery lies not in their design but in the quiet versatility that saw them serve many needs, often beyond what was initially intended.

Function, Transport, and Adaptive Reuse

Given the size and design of these tubs, it is plausible they were initially intended for the bulk transport of ammunition from the United Kingdom to colonial garrisons around the globe. When packed with straw or similar material and sealed with a lid, cannonballs or shot could be safely transported by sea. Once landed in New Zealand, moving these heavy cast iron containers from the ship to the magazine would have presented logistical challenges, likely requiring lifting gear and wagons.

However, rather than for cannonballs, it is more likely that these tubs could have been used for the transport of pre-filled charge bags—a more refined and practical form of ammunition supply. A charge bag was a tightly sewn cloth bag filled with a specific weight of black powder, used to fire a gunpowder-era artillery piece. These were a safer, more manageable alternative to loose powder, allowing gunners to select a charge appropriate to the desired range and effect.

For example, in 1870, New Zealand had 16 iron garrison guns in service: three 32-pounders, eight 24-pounders, and five 12-pounders. Each gun required different charge weights depending on range and firing conditions. Charge bags for these guns could range from 2-pound to 6-pound loads of powder. The safe and dry transport of such bags would have been a priority, and the cast iron tubs—sturdy, lidded, and sealable—may have served as ideal shipping and storage containers for this purpose.

This interpretation aligns with their robust construction and the logistical emphasis on safe transport and storage of volatile materials in colonial military supply chains..

Their use in the field would have been impractical. Instead, they were more suited to coastal artillery magazines or fixed fortifications, which could be repurposed for continued storage.

One compelling theory, supported by overseas practices, is that once emptied of their contents, these tubs were reused as general-purpose water containers. In static defences such as Fort Britomart and Albert Barracks, they may have been filled with water and kept ready for two essential duties:

  1. Swabbing gun barrels after firing – a crucial maintenance task in artillery operations, especially in coastal and fixed defences.
  2. Firefighting reserve – strategically placed as an immediate water source in the event of a fire, particularly important given the proximity of powder stores and wooden infrastructure.

This theory fits within the broader ethos of 19th-century military logistics, where economy, adaptability, and reusability were central to operations, especially in isolated colonial postings.

A Tangible Link to Hamley’s Store Empire

These tubs, mundane though they may seem, reflect the layered logistical reality of Hamley’s era. Under his stewardship, the Military Store Department operated a vast system of interconnected depots, regional outposts, and forward delivery operations supporting British and colonial troops. Hamley and his officers—many of whom had risen through the ranks or transferred from other Corps—personally supervised store deliveries, field logistics, and the refurbishment of returned equipment.

For example, during the Waikato campaign, Assistant Superintendent Archibald Macduff personally oversaw the delivery of blankets and uniforms to troops at Te Awamutu. At Fort Britomart, nine storehouses, workshops, and the central magazine system formed what we might now call a logistics hub, supplying everything from rifle screws to tents and field hospital gear.

The Military Store Department continued its operations until the drawdown of Imperial forces. As British regiments departed from 1866 onwards, provincial depots were closed and centralised stores consolidated. In 1870, with the withdrawal of the final Imperial units, Fort Britomart’s contents were shipped back to Britain, and responsibility passed to the fledgling New Zealand Defence Stores.

A Legacy Worth Reclaiming

Though eclipsed in the historical record by the Commissariat, the Military Store Department—and men like Joseph Osbertus Hamley—deserve renewed attention. The effectiveness of the department was quietly acknowledged at the time. General Sir Duncan Cameron, commanding British forces in New Zealand, once remarked that no department was more efficient or less prone to conflict than the Military Store Department.

Today, the surviving tubs stamped with the Board of Ordnance crest are among the few physical relics of this largely forgotten organisation. Their survival is a testament to the robust material culture of British military supply chains and offers a rare, tangible link to the operations overseen by figures like Hamley.

Their continued presence in museum collections—despite their uncertain purpose—reminds us that every artifact holds the potential to illuminate untold stories. These “mystery tubs” are more than industrial curiosities; they are quiet witnesses to the empire’s reach and the ingenuity of those who kept its armies marching.


“First Callout”: A Early New Zealand IED Incident

Long before “EOD” existed as a military speciality, New Zealand’s military explosives experts were already being called to suspicious-device scenes. The Marton bus bombing of 2 June 1932 is one of the earliest clearly documented improvised explosive device (IED) cases in which the military’s technical authority, the Inspecting Ordnance Officer (IOO), was tasked to examine the scene and later give expert evidence in court. In an era without bomb suits, robots, X-ray technology, or a formal Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) trade, the IOO brought a disciplined method: identify the hazard, stabilise the scene, reconstruct what happened, and translate technical facts into plain-English findings for police and the judiciary.

This incident matters for three reasons.

  • First, it shows that New Zealand had a recognised explosives authority decades before specialist EOD units existed; the IOO’s independence and metrology-based practice gave courts and commanders confidence.
  • Second, it illustrates the civil–military interface in action: Army technical assurance working alongside police to resolve a criminal use of explosives.
  • Third, it foreshadows today’s Ammunition Technician, the same assurance logic, later reinforced by doctrine, training pipelines, protective equipment, and inter-agency protocols.

In short, Marton (1932) is a proto-EOD moment. It anchors the lineage from a single specialist inspector applying standards in support of civil law to the modern, team-based EOD capability that safeguards the public from both IEDs and conventional ordnance.

Context: The IOO before EOD

In 1932, the IOO was a single, independent appointment responsible for the safety, proof, and certification of arms, ammunition, and explosives. There were no dedicated bomb-disposal teams, render-safe procedures, or modern PPE. When police needed expertise in explosives, the State turned to the IOO—the most credible technical authority available.

MAJOR; W. IVORY,. Inspecting Ordnance Officer, who has. resigned and leaves for England tomorrow. (Evening Post, 11 January 1933). Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/17482265

In 1932, the IOO was Major William Ivory, RNZA (1896-1949), an ammunition specialist who served as IOO, Acting Inspector of Ordnance Machinery (IOM), and later as Ordnance Mechanical Engineer (OME). A Graduate of the Royal Military College (RMC) in Australia, Ivory was appointed IOO and Acting IOM on 1 May 1921 after UK training at Woolwich (Inspecting Ordnance Officers’ Course; 36th Advanced Ordnance Course). He served as Acting IOO until 18 June 1925, when he returned to the RNZA to undertake regimental duties. Returned as IOO on 2 January 1927 and retired on 6 April 1933 as IOO/OME. On leaving New Zealand, Ivory continued his career with the British Army.

Widely regarded as the post-WWI technical lead for ammunition and ordnance in New Zealand, Ivory is credited with designing, erecting, and organising the Trentham military workshops, implementing the Mount Cook Barracks demolition scheme, and coordinating NZ-wide military workshops for repair and maintenance, work that shaped the IOO/OME functions for years to come.[1]

The incident

On 2 June 1932, an explosive device damaged a rival bus operating on the Marton–Palmerston North route during a period of hard-fought commercial competition between private carriers. Police quickly focused on Charles William Hoffman, a local proprietor, who was charged with blowing up a rival’s vehicle and possessing an explosive device; he later pleaded guilty.

Surviving summaries indicate a deliberately placed, improvised charge rather than any legitimate blasting operation. The device fits today’s definition of an IED: a non-standard explosive assembly, fabricated from available materials and employed for a criminal purpose. Contemporary accounts emphasise targeted disruption of a competitor’s service rather than indiscriminate harm. While the record available here does not detail injuries, it does point to material damage consistent with a small, locally initiated charge positioned to maximise nuisance and mechanical effect (e.g., underbody or luggage area), rather than a high-yield attempt at mass casualties.

Police secured the scene, recovered fragments and residues, and requested the attendance of the Inspecting Ordnance Officer (IOO) to classify the device and interpret effects. That civil–military handover—police control, ordnance classification—frames the case as an early, well-documented example of New Zealand using independent technical assurance to translate a suspicious explosion into prosecutable facts.[2]

Buses, Wanganui. Tesla Studios :Negatives of Wanganui and district taken by Alfred Martin, Frank Denton and Mark Lampe (Tesla Studios). Ref: 1/1-021281-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23052810

The callout: IOO on scene

The IOO examined the scene and later provided expert evidence. While equipment and doctrine were rudimentary by modern standards, his approach followed a logic that still reads as EOD:

  • Identify/classify: determine the nature of the explosive, initiation method, and improvised features.
  • Reconstruct: read fragmentation/sooting and container deformation to estimate charge size and placement.
  • Control safety: establish a cautious approach, prevent unsafe handling, and confirm no secondary hazards.
  • Record for court: translate technical findings into evidential facts.

What this tells us

  1. The State already knew who to call. IOO = independent, methodical, court-credible.
  2. Method before gear. The identify → isolate → examine → document sequence predates modern tooling.
  3. Civil–military interface. Early instance of police–ordnance cooperation that later formalised into EOD arrangements.
  4. Seed of later trades. Incidents like Marton helped define the problem space that produced ATO/AT and formal EOD capability.

The Marton case stands as a proto-EOD moment: the State’s inspection authority applying disciplined, independent standards to a live improvised-explosive incident in support of civil law. Decades before specialist teams, robots, or X-ray, the Inspecting Ordnance Officer brought hazard identification, scene stabilisation, reconstruction, and evidential reporting to bear—quietly proving that method can outrun technology when it has to.

What followed built on that foundation. As New Zealand formalised Ammunition Technician/ATO and EOD capabilities, it did not invent assurance from scratch; it codified habits already visible in 1932:

  • Independence from ownership and operational pressure;
  • Metrology and reference standards rather than guesswork;
  • Repeatable procedures that travel from bench to scene to courtroom; and
  • Evidential rigour that can withstand scrutiny.

The Marton callout, therefore, marks both an endpoint of the single-officer IOO era handling civil explosive crime and a beginning, foreshadowing the team-based, doctrine-driven EOD enterprise that would follow.

Seen in this light, Marton is more than an early IED prosecution. It is a hinge in the lineage of New Zealand’s military ammuntion profession: a case where technical assurance served public safety, strengthened the civil–military interface, and left a template for a small, durable, and recognisable approach to how the country would later confront both IEDs and conventional ordnance with confidence and care.


[1] “Ivory, William “, Personal File, Archives New Zealand 1916-1933, http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE20515584.

[2] “Remarkable Evidence,” Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 150, 28 June 1932, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19320628.2.74.


RNZALR Roll of Honour

This Roll of Honour commemorates the soldiers of the Royal New Zealand Army Logistic Regiment, the Regiment that enables operations from camp to frontline through supply, transport, maintenance, movement control, catering, and ammunition, who died while in service.

  • P1003549 Private Karaitiana Shelford RNZALR 2 Log Bn 13-Oct-98
  • M991380 Corporal Philip Tioke RNZALR 2 Log Bn 18-Nov-00
  • W1 008455 Private Cory Harwood RNZALR 2 Log Bn 17-Feb-01
  • M55395 Staff Sergeant Arthur McClutchie RNZALR 2 Log Bn 20-Apr-02
  • Q1008426 Private Dean Johnston RNZALR 2 Log Bn 31-Jul-02
  • M10142564 Major Harry Andrews   Log Ecec 31-Mar-03
  • T768677 Captain Roger Alexander Fraser RNZALR TF LSO 3LFG 27-Jul-03
  • U1005026  Lance Corporal Suskier Bryers RNZALR TRSC 8-Aug-04
  • L1015483 Private John Twaddell RNZALR 3 Log Bn 8-Oct-04
  • Staff Sergeant Tony Rutherford RNZALR 5WWCT  6-Nov-04
  • G1014145 Private Daniel Caughey RNZALR 2 Log Bn 31-Jan-05
  • H1015894 Private Ashley Goodwin RNZALR 3 Log Bn 23-Feb-05
  • R1016914 Private Shane Ohlen RNZALR   23-Feb-05
  • W1016091 Private David Partington RNZALR 2 Log Bn 23-Feb-05
  • J47664 Warrant Officer Class One Graeme Burns RNZALR Log Ecec 16-Jan-06
  • J1008880 Lance Corporal Nathan Taituha RNZALR SAS 2-Jul-06
  • G1019826 Private Meridth Simms RNZALR 3 Log Bn 16-Aug-06
  • B1015566 Private Nathan Edmunds RNZALR 3 log bn 26-Feb-07
  • R56710 Warrant Officer Class Two Tony Thomson RNZALR 1 Sig Regt 17-Mar-09
  • K56865 Staff Sergeant Linda Manuel RNZALR 7 Wn HB Bn 19-Sept-09
  • U1022023 Private Te Tahuna  Tahapeehi RNZALR 2 Log Bn 16-Apr-10
  • T1005416 Corporal Keryn Rae RNZALR 2 Log Bn 31-May-10
  • F51732 Warrant Officer Class One Tama Hiroti RNZALR TRSB 14-Jan-11
  • C1025756 Private Scott Tamepo RNZALR 3 Log Bn 4-May-11
  • K1019760 Private M.J. Laing RNZALR, 3 Log Bn 7-Jan-12
  • D47498 Staff Sergeant Renata(Possum) Stevens RNZALR   15-Apr-14
  • E746216 Warrant Officer Class One Mark Priestley RNZALR LC(L) 25-Aug-14
  • L51208 Warrant Officer Class Two Brian Marsh RNZALR   27-Mar-15
  • A775882 Staff Sergeant David Forsyth RNZALR   10-Jul-15
  • W1027131 Corporal Charles Seymour RNZALR 2 CSSB 18-Feb-16
  • S769228 Major Alister McColl RNZALR AGS 11-Oct-16
  • K1015482 Sergeant Patrick Newton RNZALR   7-May-17
  • G56632 Major Aaron Couchman RNZALR HQ JOC Aust 9-Feb-19
  •  P997155 Major Monique Brown RNZALR 2 Log Bn 14-Feb-20
  • Private Keanu Keith RNZALR 3 Log Bn 20-Apr-20
  • Y50645 Warrant Officer Class One Clinton Savage RNZALR 5 WWCT 5-Feb-23  
  • R1019168 Lance Corporal K.P.K Phillips RNZALR 2CSSB 20-Nov-23
  • F1068930 Private Billie Flight RNZALR 2CSSB   18-Mar-24
  • W53380 Lieutenant Colonel Oiroa (Oods) Kaihau RNZALR DLC 8-Feb-25

Their professionalism and sacrifice embody the Regiment’s motto:

Mā Ngā Hua Tū Tangata — By Our Actions We Are Known.


1 AASO and the Atiu Airdrop

On Thursday, 25 January 1975, a small Royal New Zealand Army Service Corps (RNZASC) air-despatch team and a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) C-130 crew solved a very Pacific problem: how to get a tracked excavator onto a reef-bound island—fast. The solution was a heavyweight airdrop onto a marginal drop zone (DZ) on Atiu in the Cook Islands, executed without a ground Mobile Air Operations Team (MAOT), with release points computed from sea features and a tight timing window. It was logistics as an enabler, not an afterthought.

The task: Atiu needed an excavator—now

Royal New Zealand Engineers (RNZE) detachments were building Atiu’s new harbour—slipway, breakwater, seawall, and a blasted basin to about 8 ft (2.4 m)—to allow barges to work ships offshore.[1] With three detachments rotating and the schedule tightening, a tracked bucket excavator became critical. The machine was broken into three loads and parachuted in to keep the works moving. The consignment was valued at NZ$38,000 in 1975 (NZ$418,000 in 2025 terms) and was not Army property—focusing minds on a clean DZ outcome.[2]

New Zealand Army Atiu Harbour project, the building of a small harbour on Atiu Island, Cook Islands.
Lighter with local people coming ashore from a supply ship just offshore. Crown Copyright 1975, New Zealand Defence Force 

The unit behind the drop: 1 Army Air Supply Organisation

The airdrop rested on a decade of deliberate practice. From a 1960s nucleus (19 Air Supply Platoon), 1 AASO formed in 1966 and professionalised the Army’s air interface: rigging and restraint, DZ/LZ discipline, and a joint language with RNZAF crews. By the 1970s, 1 AASO was co-located with the RNZAF at RNZAF Base Hobsonville, working Bristol Freighters and C-130s as routine and running frequent live-drop serials. That air-minded stream later became 5 Terminal Squadron (1979) and then 5 Movements Squadron (1984), integrating aerial delivery, terminals, and movement control into one continuum.

At the same time, the RNZAF was procuring the dual-rail cargo-handling system for the C-130 fleet; in step, proposals were advancing to equip 1 AASO with 25,000-lb aircraft loaders and to uprate forklift capacity to 10,000 lb—shortening turns and creating headroom for awkward/heavy loads.[3]

Designing the load: platforms, parachutes, and a rethink

The initial design of the Atiu load split the excavator into two heavyweight platforms:

  • Platform A (chassis/engine): 11,500 lb (5,216.3 kg) with four G-11A parachutes.
  • Platform B (booms, buckets, cab, hook rams, tracks): 14,500 lb (6,577.1 kg) with five G-11A parachutes.

A test lift showed that Platform B was over-stressing the custom bearing platform. The fix was to strip the tracks into two A22 assemblies on a standard platform with two G-11As (5,000 lb), leaving the heavy platforms within safe margins.[4] The rigging and pack were completed at Hobsonville by 1 AASO. (As recorded in unit notes of the period.)

Movement from Hobsonville to Whenuapai was convoyed under Ministry of Transport escort because Platform A’s weight and high centre of gravity demanded it. Loading the Hercules was a squeeze: one 16-ft plus two 12-ft platforms (40 ft total) into a 41-ft cargo bay, extra freight on the ramp, and three 1 AASO riggers (Drivers Hirini, Baker, and Filmer) riding to supervise extractions.

Loading a pallet of supplies into No. 40 Squadron Hercules NZ7005 at Rarotonga airport, ready for dropping onto Atiu Island. Crown Copyright 1975, New Zealand Defence Force

The DZ problem: small, hemmed-in, and sea-referenced

Doctrine favoured roughly 1,000 × 500 m. Atiu offered 700 × 300 m, bounded by houses and plantations, with the extraction-parachute release point over the sea. There was no MAOT on the ground; the crew computed release from sea features. The answer: meticulous rigging, clustered G-11s, and precise, repeatable C-130 run-ins.

Air to air view, from No. 5 Squadron Orion NZ4204, of No. 40 Squadron Hercules NZ7005 preparing to drop supplies onto Atiu Island. Crown Copyright 1975, New Zealand Defence Force

On the run-in, a 15-ft release chute on a 54-ft line deploys; a knife bank severs the release gate; the pilot holds a slight nose-up attitude, and the load rolls cleanly. Elegant when the timing is right—unforgiving if it’s not.

Execution: three releases, one tense day

  • 1040 hrs: First pack down—“safe and sound.”
  • 1300 hrs: Heavy chassis/engine landed clean.
  • 1530 hrs: Track pack “dropped perfectly.”

An RNZAF Orion shadowed, and timings were relayed back to the engineers at Papakura, who in turn updated 1 AASO as each pass went in. By first light Friday, tracks were refitted, the machine drove to recover its remaining parts, and work began. A near-perfect result on a far-from-perfect DZ.

Pallet of supplies being dropped onto Atiu Island from No. 40 Squadron Hercules NZ7005. Crown Copyright 1975, New Zealand Defence Force

What the drop enabled

This wasn’t theatre. It kept a nationally significant aid project on schedule, on an island where a sealift wasn’t practical. The airdrop bridged a logistics gap for RNZE’s harbour build and showcased joint RNZAF–Army competence in heavyweight extraction, rigging, and island-scale problem-solving.

New Zealand Army Atiu Harbour project, the building of a small harbour on Atiu Island, Cook Islands.
Digger taking out rock to deepen the new harbour.Crown Copyright 1975, New Zealand Defence Force

Lessons that still travel

  • Mission logic first. When sealift can’t meet the clock, airdrop is a tool—not an extravagance. Atiu is the case study.
  • Joint choreography. Small DZs, clustered G-11s, and extraction timing demand shared checklists and a common language between crews and riggers—the everyday habits 1 AASO lived.
  • Community interface. Pacific tasks succeed as much on relationships as on kit—RNZE’s Atiu teams integrated with the community while delivering heavy civil works, and the airdrop simply kept that momentum.
  • Invest in the ramp. Cargo-handling systems, loaders, and MHE are not luxuries; they’re what make precision routine rather than heroic.

Why 1 AASO matters in the bigger logistics picture

1 AASO embodied the principle that movements, terminals, and aerial delivery are one continuum. It trained with the Air Force, spoke airline and shipping fluently, and could turn a commander’s intent into assured movement when the infrastructure was thin and the timelines hard. Those habits—born in the 1960s–70s—flowed directly into the later Movements organisations and remain the template for contested logistics in the Pacific today.


Notes

[1] Peter D. F. Cooke, Won by the spade: how the Royal New Zealand Engineers built a nation (Exisle Publishing Ltd, 2019), Bibliographies, Non-fiction, 351-52. http://ezproxy.massey.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00245a&AN=massey.b4550008&site=eds-live&scope=site.

[2] Airdrop to Atiu, (1975), https://rnzaoc.com/2022/01/19/rnzasc-ct-association-newsletter/.

[3] 1st Army Air Supply Organisation, (1974), https://rnzaoc.com/2022/01/19/rnzasc-ct-association-newsletter/.

[4] An A-22 container load (commonly called an “A22” load) is a standard U.S./NATO airdrop platform introduced in the Second World War and still widely used for smaller or modular cargo drops. Department of the Army, Airdrop of Supplies and Equipment: Rigging Containers. Technical Manual TM 4-48.03 (Fort Lee, VA: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 2016).


Frontier rules for a Pacific century: Custer, Von Tempsky, and the logistics of not losing

This study uses history as a method. Past campaigns are employed to stress-test contemporary concepts, illuminating options rather than prescribing outcomes. If the next Indo–Pacific contingencies feel “new” in technology—drones, satellites, cyber—the operating environment may still rhyme with an older pattern: frontier conditions marked by distance, broken terrain, dispersed outposts, ambiguous actors, and contests decided by who can keep small teams alive and supplied long enough to matter.

Two nineteenth-century cases—George Custer on the Northern Plains of the United States and Gustavus von Tempsky in New Zealand’s bush—are used here as analogues. Both led fast, bold forces. Both were defeated less by enemy mystique than by sustainment out of position. The purpose is analytical, not moral: to surface logistics truths that appear to travel across centuries even as technology changes.

Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky. Making New Zealand :Negatives and prints from the Making New Zealand Centennial collection. Ref: MNZ-0876-1/4-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22308963

Why Custer and von Tempsky?

These cases suggest that when sustainment follows intent rather than shaping it, operational risk increases. They illustrate three recurring demands that may be relevant to modern archipelagic operations:

  1. Mass – Sufficient weight at the decisive point to absorb friction, deception, and surprise.
  2. Depth – Stock holdings and mobility headroom to ride out irregular lift and contested corridors.
  3. Extraction – A realistic way to break contact and reconstitute without cascading loss.

The historical inference is modest: logistics and combat power appear as co-determinants of viable options.

Two parables, modernised

  • Von Tempsky: a light, skilful raider who struck a fortified system without the weight to crack it or the depth to stay; élan could not replace fires and resupply.
  • Custer: a rapid cavalry commander who split his force and outran his packs; when the enemy massed, his firepower thinned as theirs grew—partly with captured ammunition.
George Armstrong Custer, courtesy of the Library of Congress

Contemporary relevance in the Indo–Pacific

  • Geography scales the problem. Jungles, reefs, mangroves, mountain ranges, and dense coastal cities can create a modern version of the visibility and mobility constraints seen in bush warfare.
  • Nodes are hard and defended. Assaulting prepared sites—missile positions, hardened beachheads, urban strongpoints—without assurance of weight, fires, and resupply tends to increase risk.
  • Coalitions and concentrations can outpace assumptions. Historical surprises about adversary massing suggest caution when splitting limited forces without assured mutual support.
  • Information cuts both ways. Ubiquitous sensors and open‑source tracking may compress decision time yet also expose logistics patterns to adversaries and criminal opportunists.
  • Grey‑zone interference is sticky. State, proxy, and criminal actors can complicate corridors without a formal declaration of hostilities.

Regional reality for New Zealand and Australia

Europe is at war; the Middle East is not a geopolitical sideshow; and the Indo–Pacific will be more than a sideshow for New Zealand and Australia. To suggest otherwise is, at best, out of touch with the evidence and, at worst, professionally negligent.

While headlines centre on Ukraine and the Middle East, small and middle powers such as New Zealand and Australia must maintain focus on the Indo–Pacific, where confrontation could emerge either from a peer military or via state and non-state proxies. Open-source indicators across capitals point to elevated risk in the mid-2020s—a planning window, not a prediction. The U.S. Department of Defence’s annual China report highlights a 2027 PLA capability milestone linked to improved joint operations; senior U.S. officials have referred to a “2027 window” in testimony; and Australia’s Defence Strategic Review (2023) warns of reduced warning time and a real prospect of regional conflict. Japan’s leadership has likewise cautioned that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow”.

In parallel, there is substantive evidence of non-state and criminal actors active in the region—UNODC reports the Pacific is increasingly a trans-shipment hub for organised crime (drugs, money-laundering, cyber-fraud); fisheries bodies and watchdogs continue to document Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing pressures; Australian and New Zealand cyber authorities track high-impact cybercriminal activity; and joint law-enforcement reporting notes cartel-linked methamphetamine supply chains reaching Australia and New Zealand. Together, these factors mean New Zealand and Australia should be ready by 2026–27—a readiness target, not a prediction of war.

Logistics as an equal combat partner

The historical analogues indicate that treating sustainment as an afterthought tends to increase operational risk. Contemporary forces might therefore approach planning assumptions with logistics and manoeuvre as co-determinants. In practical terms, this often means allowing weight, lift, protection, and extraction pathways to shape what is considered tactically acceptable.

Refresh, don’t reinvent

New Zealand’s wartime Pacific practice (1943–44) solved familiar archipelagic problems: stock depth sized for irregular lift and weather delay; protective infrastructure (shelter, dunnage, drainage) to preserve stores and ammunition; early priority on lifting and handling gear; disciplined packing/marking to accelerate clearance; and routine rear liaison to match replenishment to consumption. These techniques can be refreshed for an age of long-range ISR, drones, sanctions, and proxies rather than rediscovered from first principles.

New Zealand World War II soldiers loading stores into infantry landing craft, Vella Lavella, Solomon Islands. Ref: 1/2-044734-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22411372

Implications and suggested lines of effort

  • Force design: Treat logistics and manoeuvre as co-determinants in planning assumptions (assured stock depth, lift readiness, credible extraction pathways).
  • Readiness horizon: Use a mid-decade window (circa 2026–27) as an anchor for option maturation, adjusting as indicators evolve.
  • Archipelagic practice: Re-apply Pacific methods—packing discipline, minimal sub-depot proliferation, protective infrastructure—to contested logistics.
  • Corridor resilience: Anticipate proxy/criminal interference (fuel protection, anti-theft measures, escrow/verification for commercial lift).
  • Measures of effectiveness: Privilege sustainment metrics—days of supply at node, re-arm/re-fuel cycle time, time to extract—alongside manoeuvre measures.
  • Signature management: Reduce logistics signature via packaging, routing, cadence variance, and deception options; test and iterate.
  • People and practice: Invest in practitioner skill (packing, rigging, node ops, repair) alongside technology for compounding gains.

Conclusion

Custer and von Tempsky remain useful warnings. The region does not require historical re-education so much as a refresh of hard-won Pacific practice. Many lessons are already doctrinally acknowledged; the shortfall lies in structures, depth, and resourcing that fail to make them real in training, force design, and operations. With open-source indicators signalling a higher-risk mid-decade window, forces should have options ready by 2026–27. Institutionalise frontier-minded logistics; give logisticians equal voice; and fund the enablers—afloat stocks, connectors, caches, medical and power resilience, and signature-managed networks—so endurance arrives with the punch. Do this, and small forces remain lethal after first contact; fail, and nineteenth-century mistakes risk repetition in an ocean where every mile punishes wishful thinking.


NZ Army field catering in 1978, seen through a Cold War lens

Sometimes the sharpest insights hide in plain sight. This cheeky two-page RNZASC newsletter from 1978—penned by Captain R. A. Armstrong—is cheeky by design, poking fun at mess pecking orders and flirting with the idea that the Soviets might feed their troops better. Still, it also captures a valuable moment in time. Read against what we now know, it lets us compare three things at once:

  1. New Zealand’s still-serviceable but largely 1940s-era field kitchens and improvisation;
  2. the Soviets’ purpose-built, highly mobile galley trucks and bakeries that promised hot meals at manoeuvre tempo; and
  3. how both systems actually performed once reality set in—from NZ’s 1980s push to modernise ration science and packaging, to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, where interdicted convoys turned elegant kitchen fleets back into tins, biscuits, and tea.

Crucially, this snapshot also foreshadows New Zealand’s hardware catch-up in the following decade, when the Army modernised its field kitchens with state-of-the-art German Kärcher TFK-250 field-kitchen trailers—a step-change from veteran cookers to modular, hygienic, road-mobile capability. In short, the article is satire with teeth: a Cold War snapshot that helps us separate platform glamour from supply-chain grit, and headline claims from what cooks could really deliver day after day.

SO YOU THINK OUR CATERING IS LOUSY?

By Capr D.A Armstrong

A recent article in the “Army Logistician”, the official magazine of the United States Army logistics, compared the Soviet Army’s catering services and attitudes to those of the US Army. Several interesting points were made which indicate some marked differences between Soviet and Allied thinking on the subject of feeding their respective armies. If you are thinking of defecting, but enjoy your “nosh”, perhaps you had better read on.

The first interesting point is that, despite the so-called classless attitudes of the USSR, better food is a privilege of rank in the Soviet military, with the conscripted rifleman being the lowest in the pecking order. (No prizes for guessing who gets the best food!) NCOs receive more meat than enlisted mem, while officers have a greater variety of meat, eggs, dairy foods, fruit, and vegetables. Some soldiers need to receive food or money from home to supplement their military diets. Many enlisted men suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies because of the lack of a variety of foods, especially vegetables, in their diets.

A typical daily menu for enlisted men is shown below.

Compare that to our rationing system, where generals and private soldiers receive exactly the same monetary  allowance per day for the purchase of rations. Because of the different feeding patterns in officers’ and junior ranks’ messes, our soldiers often receive better food than the officers, although standards of service may differ between the two messes.

In combat, food supplies take the lowest priorities of all items supplied through the logistic channels. Ammunition and fuel supply priorities are not relaxed even if the troops have to forage for their rations. It must be very difficult to fire weapons or operate vehicles in the middle of a Russian winter when your stomach thinks your throat has been cut, and your navel keeps knocking on your backbone.

Within garrisons and camps, Soviet forces supplement their ration supplies by running farms for livestock, rabbits, vegetables, and poultry. Soldiers are detailed to work in the unit’s garden and to care for the animals. Where camps do not run their own farms, a unit commander may make an agreement with a neighbouring collective farm to provide soldiers on Sundays to assist with labour in exchange for foodstuffs. (And we complain about the odd maintenance days in camps).

The quantity and quality of food received by the Soviet soldier depend on a number of factors. The most important is the regimental or garrison commander’s concern for and understanding of the nutritional needs of the troops. Supplies of rations are the responsibility of the regimental mess officer. He procures the foodstuffs from division or area headquarters, and the local market.

SOVIET ARMY DAILY MENU FOR OTHER RANKS

Breakfast:  
 White bread2 Slices
 Black bread1 Slice
 Butter/Margarine20g
 Sugar3 Cubes
 TeaUnlimited
 Kasha*/Potatoes300g
 Fish/Meat50g
Midday:  
 Soup400g
 Kasha with Meat400g
 White bread1 Slice
 Black bread2 Slices
 Fruit Compote200g
Dinner:  
 Fish100g
 Potatoes/Kasha300g
 White bread2 Slices
 Black bread2 Slice
 Sugar3 Cubes
 TeaUnlimited
 Butter20g

* Kasha is rice, buck wheat, wheat or oat porridge with salt, pepper, onion and fat.

Soviet military nutrition norms are similar to most Allied countries with a weight ratio of 1:1:5 for protein, fat and carbohydrates respectively. It is significant that no other nutrients are tabulated to ensure that all the nutrient requirements are met. By comparison, the New Zealand weight ratio of protein, fat and carbohydrate is roughly 2:0.5:4.5. (We have a far greater ratio of meat and dairy products.)

In normal feeding, the Soviets provide about 25 per cent of the calorie requirement at breakfast, 45 per cent at midday and 30 per cent for the evening meal. Usually, our meals reverse the midday and evening meal calorie contents.

As far as cooking in the field goes, the Russians are streets ahead of us in terms of equipment. The concept is that field kitchens and bakeries must keep pace with the troops they support while still providing meals on schedule. Since 1965, the Soviets have introduced four field kitchens and a field bakery which can cook on the move. With the exception of a West German kitchen truck, the Soviet Union is the only country with field kitchens mounted on trucks and tracked vehicles. These kitchens are better able to keep up with fast-moving combat forces and can cover a greater variety of rough ground than even the new US Army trailer-mounted kitchen. (Mind you, they haven’t seen the kitchens we mounted on the M818 semi-trailers for Ex Truppenant. Perhaps we are also unique?)

Two of the kitchens are known to provide physical protection in chemical, biological and radiological environments. The tracked vehicle-mounted kitchen (similar to an M113 Command Post vehicle) is hermetically sealed and is probably outfitted with a filtering ventilation system.

Makes the old sheet of canvas off the side of an RI Bedford seem pretty archaic, doesnt it?

The conclusions to be reached from reading this article are.

  1. All RNZASC cooks should defect to the Soviets. They could no doubt use our knowledge, skills and comradeship, and we could certainly use their field cooking equipment.
  2. Any soldier who enjoys even basic food should not even consider defecting to the Soviets. Officers, on the other hand, may be more persuaded. although the promotion and security of employment prospects are not as bright

RNZASC Newsletter No 8 July 1978

What NZ cooks actually worked with in 1978

Despite a professional corps of cooks, much NZ Army field catering kit in the late 1970s still traced its lineage to the Second World War and early 1950s:

  • Wiles trailer kitchens (1940s-era): still around in numbers into the late 1970s; robust but hardly “mobile ops” by modern standards.
  • US-pattern ranges (M-37 → M-59): the ABCA-standard M-37 (1950s) and its successor the M-59 (from the late-1960s) framed much Allied field cooking practice; NZ experience mirrored this long tail of legacy equipment.[1]
Wiles Junior mobile kitchen. New Zealand Military Vehicle Club Inc
M-1937 field range. WW2 Field Kitchen

Armstrong’s quip about slinging a canvas off a Bedford tailgate wasn’t far off the mark: mobility came from trucks and improvisation, not from purpose-built kitchen vehicles. The upshot was sound, honest food—but with slower start-up, more weather exposure, and more manpower to erect, fuel, and run.

What the Soviets were advertising: mobility first

Armstrong contrasted our “Bedford and canvas” with Soviet kitchen trucks and tracked galley vehicles able to cook on the move, some even CBRN-protected. Contemporary Western handbooks and studies back him up:

  • Soviet materiel tables put kitchen trucks and mobile field bakeries inside divisional service units, not as bolt-ons—so hot food was designed to keep pace with manoeuvre.[2]
  • Cold-War analyses describe powered PAK-200 and KP-130 kitchens, with tracked/van variants and filtration for contaminated environments—exactly the “streets ahead” mobility Armstrong flagged.[3]
The kitchen of the family PAK-200 on the chassis ZIL-131ю Photo Russianarms.ru
Thermal kitchen unit PAK-200. At the top you can see the lids of the boilers, below – the firebox. Photo Dishmodels.ru

Bottom line (1978): on paper, the Soviet field-feeding platforms were more mobile, better integrated, and harder to knock off the timetable than our trailer-and-tent solutions.

Scales, menus, and who ate what

Armstrong summarised a Soviet conscript’s day heavy on bread and kasha, with small meat portions, tea “unlimited,” and rank privileges inflating the officers’ variety. He also cited a Soviet macro ratio of 1:1:5 (protein: fat: carbohydrate) versus a NZ pattern nearer 2:0.5:4.5—more meat/dairy in the Kiwi diet. (Those figures are his 1978 comparison, not a NZ regulation.) In Soviet doctrine, ration “norms” were calorie-based, bread was central, and a “dry ration” existed for when hot feeding wasn’t possible; a new one-meal combat ration appears in Soviet sources around 1978–80—again aligning with the article’s timeframe.[4]

By contrast, NZ was already edging toward modernisation on menu science—even if the pots were old. By 1985 the Army commissioned a formal redesign of the One-Man 24-hour ration, targeting ~3,678 kcal, adjusting for vitamin losses over shelf life, and—crucially—surveying soldiers about what they actually ate (and binned). High dissatisfaction with the then-current pack and heavy discard rates drove reform of menus, beverages, and packaging.[5]

Field reality check (1970s–80s NZ): long exercises in Singapore/Malaysia and NZ’s alpine winters meant weight on the back, wet/cold heat loss, sleep disruption—and the need for rations that were palatable, quick, and resilient. That lived experience shows up clearly in the Army’s 1980s ration-pack redesign work.[6]

Priorities in combat supply

Armstrong wrote that in Soviet practice, ammunition and fuel took precedence over food when push came to shove. The formal record shows why: Soviet Rear Services concepts after WW2 put huge emphasis on mobility and survivability of POL and ammunition flows, with kitchen/bakery assets nested inside that machine. In other words, feeding rode in the same convoy system dominated by POL and ammo.[7]

What the Soviet soldier actually carried (c. 1975–82)

Post-1945 Soviet feeding relied on:

  1. Organised field kitchens.
  2. group-feeding sets for squad cooking,
  3. “mobile” individual rations when kitchens couldn’t keep up.

The “individual” ration wasn’t very individual. Early sets leaned on large tins—fine for crews to share, poor for dismounted troops. Specialist units often received ad-hoc mixes (e.g., East German E-Päckchen biscuits, emergency bars, malted milk and vitamin tablets, iodine water tabs, and condensed milk tubes—even commercial West European supplies), which were useful but never standardised.

1970s “Preserved” ration (three menus, thin calories):

  • A: tin of tushonka (fat-heavy), ~100 g crackers, small cheese tin, tea, sugar.
  • B: Two tins of kasha with meat plus crackers or plastic-sealed bread.
  • C: tin of stew/meat, tin of fish or vegetables/fruit, crackers, tea, sugar/drink mix.

Portable on paper, these packs were monotonous and underpowered for altitude, cold and hard marching.

The 1980 response: “Improved/Mountain” 24-hour pack + supplements. Spring 1980 introduced tins of meat dishes (e.g., chicken-and-dumplings, beef-and-vegetables), instant kasha (buckwheat/oatmeal, meat/fruit-flavoured), tea, and sugar—sometimes with early bar-coded labels. Critically, the basic pack hovered around ~1,200 kcal, so commanders were authorised supplements to scale intake:

  • Biscuits/wafers (~500 kcal), hard sweets and sugar (granulated or tablets).
  • “Army Loaves” high-nutrition crackers; extra tinned meat, jam/honey, condensed soup; a daily vitamin sweet.

Implementation varied—sometimes excellently, more often poorly—but the logic was sound: use supplements to tune calories to mission and climate.[8]

When Afghanistan stripped off the gloss (1979–89)

The Afghan war is where Armstrong’s wry “I wonder what it’s really like for the Russian soldier” meets evidence. Once the invasion forces surged past 100,000 men, convoy-based logistics over two treacherous mountain MSRs became a running battle of ambushes, mines, and blown bridges. Soviet responses included helicopter lift, pipelines down the Salang route, fixed security posts, and longer, better-armed convoys. Hot feeding kept pace when it could; when it couldn’t, soldiers fell back on dry rations and whatever reached them through interdiction. The system survived—but food variety, regularity, and morale inevitably rode the same roller-coaster as fuel, water, and spares.[9]

Delivery to some outposts was done by helicopters. https://www.safar-publishing.com

What’s for lunch? A typical Afghan outpost menu (c. 1979–89)

Afghanistan “eating out” ranged from canteens to mounted and dismounted operations. Outposts—typically 10–20 soldiers—sat at the hard end: weekly resupply, minimal refrigeration, soldiers doing the cooking. Long-life items dominated; variety was limited.

A day on an outpost looked like:

  • Breakfast: kasha with a little meat/fish, bread, and (rarely) butter—small-batch cooking could taste better than garrison fare.
  • Lunch: nominally soup + main (macaroni/potato/kasha) + “salad” (often sauerkraut). In practice, this collapsed to one hot main—mashed potato or pasta with tinned meat—because water, vegetables and time were scarce.
  • Dinner: much the same as lunch; repetition was regular.
  • Drinks: tea, coffee, and cocoa were standard.
  • Bread & extras: base bakeries supplied nearby posts; remote sites got crackers/biscuits and sometimes flour for flatbreads. Condensed milk was the near-universal dessert/morale item. Limited local purchasing occurred only when security allowed.[10]
Typical kitchen in the field. https://www.safar-publishing.com

Even excellent mobile kitchens cannot defeat interdiction and distance alone—once convoy tempo slips, menus shrink to what rides and stores well. It also explains the premium soldiers place on palatability and speed—the very factors NZ targeted in its 1980s ration redesign

Side-by-side (1978, as seen then)

Feature (1978)NZ Army (RNZASC)Soviet Army
Field cooking platform1940s Trailers, US-pattern ranges (M-37/M-59)& tented setupsPurpose-built kitchen trucks/vans; tracked variants; mobile field bakeries.
Mobility & protectionVehicle-towed or improvised; weather-exposed; slower to set.Cook-on-the-move; better cross-country; some CBRN-protected kitchens.
Feeding conceptUnit-level kitchens; hot meals when set up; heavy on improvisation.Timed hot meals from integral kitchen assets; dry ration when needed.
Breadth of dietMore meat/dairy in practice; equality of ration money across ranks (per Armstrong).Bread- and kasha-centric; rank-based variety favoured NCOs/officers (per Armstrong).
Doctrine & prioritiesPractical but kit-limited; modernisation brewing (ration-pack science by mid-80s).Rear Services designed for manoeuvre; POL/ammo priority shapes what food arrives, when.

What changed after 1978—for both sides

  • Soviet reality check: Afghanistan exposed just how hard it was to protect long, road-bound supply chains—even for food and water. The Soviets adapted (escorts, pipelines, more airlift), but “guerrilla-controlled logistics tempo” was a real thing.[11]
  • NZ step-change: Through the mid-1980s, the Army professionalised the ration—calories, vitamins over shelf life, soldier acceptability, packaging weight and noise—and began phasing in newer field cookers (Kärcher TFK-250 field-kitchen trailers) to replace Wiles trailers and M-37/M-59 ranges. The rollout was uneven, so for a time, menu science ran ahead of hardware, with many still cooking on veteran kit.[12]

So—how did the “Russian scale” compare to the NZ scale?

Using Armstrong’s 1978 snapshot: the Soviet scale he quotes (roughly 1:1:5) aimed for calories cheaply with bread/kasha and small meat portions, shading more variety up the rank ladder; the NZ pattern he cites (about 2:0.5:4.5) reflected a higher meat/dairy intake and, crucially, equal ration money across ranks—even if mess practice meant the plates sometimes looked different. Later Soviet sources note a late-1970s combat ration meal and a formal dry ration for when hot kitchens couldn’t keep up—consistent with Armstrong’s comparison.

Conclusion

On the 1978 scoreboard, the Soviets looked ahead on platforms: integrated kitchen trucks, some with CBRN protection, promised mobility NZ’s trailers and tent lines could not match. But that advantage was conditional. Once lines of communication were contested (as in Afghanistan), menus collapsed to what could ride and survive—just like fuel and spares—while NZ, for all its veteran cookers, spent the 1980s fixing the contents problem (calories, vitamins, soldier acceptability, weight/noise in the pack) and then closed the platform gap by introducing Kärcher TFK-250 field-kitchen trailers. The net effect: Soviet kitchens won on paper and on roads they controlled; NZ kitchens won fewer style points in the 1970s but fed reliably—and, by the late 1980s, paired modern rations with modern kitchen platforms, delivering a balanced, resilient feed system that travelled and performed at the tempo the Army required.


Notes

[1] “Feeding the Force: A History of NZ Army Field Cooking Systems,” To the Warriors their Arms, 2024, https://rnzaoc.com/2024/12/28/feeding-the-force-a-history-of-nz-army-field-cooking-systems/.

[2] US Army, “FM 100-2-3 the Soviet army: troops, organization and equipment,” Washington: GPO  (1991).

[3] Gilbert H Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”  (1989).

[4] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”

[5] Bing David Soo, “Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University” (Massey University, 1987).

[6] Soo, “Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University.”

[7] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?.”; Army, “FM 100-2-3 the Soviet army: troops, organization and equipment.”

[8] “Rations of Soviet and Russian Forces during the Cold War,” THE PEACE THAT WAS NOT-Wars following the Second World War, 2020, https://17thdivision.tripod.com/thepeacethatwasnt/id28.html.

[9] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”

[10] Vlad Besedovskyy, “What’s for lunch? Typical menu of the Soviet soldier in Afghanistan,” Our Blog Safar Publishing, 4 Sept, 2024, https://www.safar-publishing.com/post/what-s-for-lunch-typical-menu-of-the-soviet-soldier-in-afghanistan.

[11] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”

[12] Soo, “Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University.”


The Science and Art of Scaling

Too often in military writing, it looks as if logistics “just happens”: an army is raised, equipment appears, stocks refill, and movement unfolds as if by instinct. In truth, nothing “just happens”. Across history—from spear-carriers and baggage trains to War Establishments and to today’s financially risk-averse, resource-restricted ecosystem—the science and art of logistics have quietly driven everything. This study uses history as a working tool: we read past practice to extract durable principles so tomorrow’s logisticians can scale deliberately, not by habit. Scaling is the mechanism that turns intent into counted people, platforms, rations, ammunition, repair parts, and lift so units arrive equipped, stay maintained, and fight at tempo. Without scaling, logistics is only an aspiration.

This guide sets out that mechanism in plain English. Across the force, the same logic applies: decide who gets what, make equipment complete and auditable, package predictably for movement, size, repair, depth to reliability and lead time, and maintain theatre resilience. Peace and war establishments are simply the entitlement “switch”; in-scaling and out-scaling dial the system up and down; and sound master data keeps automation honest. We ground the method in British and Commonwealth doctrine and New Zealand practice, using short case studies to show what works, what doesn’t, and why—so logisticians can make the deliberate, evidence-based choices that turn plans into assured sustainment.

In- and Out-Scaling

Scaling is how the system is dialled up or down. In-scaling builds people, equipment, stocks and permissions to meet a new or larger task. Out-scaling winds the same back down, tidying books and kit so the force is ready for what follows. The levers are the same; they move in opposite directions.

When to scale up

  • New equipment or a role change.
  • Mounting for deployment/exercises.
  • Seasonal/theatre shifts or higher tempo.

When to scale down

  • End of operation/rotation.
  • Capability withdrawn or mothballed.
  • Restructure or budget-driven footprint reduction.

What actually changes

  • People & entitlements: switch Peace Entitlement →War Entitlement, or role, issue the correct allowance lists.
  • Equipment completeness: make kit complete; rectify shortages; test.
  • Consumables & ammunition: set straightforward block issues and first-line loads that match the plan.
  • Spares & repair: size unit/depot spares to likely failures and lead times; preserve kit for storage/return.
  • Movement & footprint: translate scales into real loads (pallets/containers/ULDs) and book lift.
  • Data, compliance & money: update masters, licences and registers; close work orders; reconcile ledgers.

Planned and evidence-based (not guesses)

Scaling is a scientific, planned discipline with explicit service levels. Holdings are set from demand, reliability and lead-time data. Rules of thumb—for example, “carry 10% spares”—are avoided in favour of sizing to the target service level.

Common Pitfalls (and the Scaling Fixes)

Scaling is part science, part art. Some of the traps are timeless:

  • Issuing too much– Forgetting to adjust entitlements to actual strength leads to waste.
  • Repair underestimates– Peacetime spares won’t cope with wartime tempo; you need to scale for climate, usage, and lead times.
  • Lift blindness– A plan that looks neat on paper may be impossible to move unless scales are mapped to pallets, containers, or aircraft loads.
  • Footprint risk– Piling too much stock too far forward makes units vulnerable. Balance depth with dispersion.

Deep Historical Context: From Hoplite to Legionary to Tümen

From antiquity to the steppe, Rome and—centuries later—the Mongol Empire show how standardised building blocks, fixed measures and modular kits turned formations into predictable logistics: the Romans through contubernia, rations and marching camps; the Mongols through decimal organisation, remounts and the yam relay.

Greek city-states (c. 6th–4th centuries BCE): The Phalanx as a Scale

  • Standard fighting load. The hoplite panoply (shield, spear, helmet, body armour) functioned as a personal equipment scale; city‑states enforced patterns so men fought as interchangeable blocks.
  • Rations and measures. Planning by standard measures (e.g., set grain issues per man per day) made food and water predictable, and hence movable.
  • Formation → sustainment. Dense heavy infantry implied slower roads and higher baggage/forage demand—an early proof that formation design fixes the sustainment scale (wagons, pack animals, camp followers).

Rome (c. 2nd century BCE – 3rd century CE): Scaling by Modular Blocks and Doctrine

  • Contubernium as the “unit set.” Eight soldiers shared a mule, tent, tools and cooking gear—a micro‑scale that multiplied cleanly to centuries, cohorts and legions.
  • “Marius’ mules.” Standardising the soldier’s carry (a first-line load) reduced trains forward, while heavier impedimenta marched to the rear—an ancestor of today’s 1st line vs 2nd line.
  • Daily ration and marching camp. Fixed grain allowances, routine camp layouts, ditch/stake quantities, and normalised road days enable staff to convert order of battle into tonnage, tools, time, and space—the essence of scaling.
  • State supply. The Annona, roads and depots added a strategic tier of standardised contracts, weights and distances—scaling endurance to seasons, not days.
The Roman Cohort Illustration by Peter Dennis. Credit: Warlord Games Ltd.

    The Mongol Empire under Chinggis (Genghis) Khan (13th century): Decimal Organisation and Portable Sustainment

    • Decimal structure = instant multipliers. Arban (10), zuun (100), mingghan (1,000), tümen (10,000) created a universal grammar of scale: equip and feed an arban, and you can multiply to a tümen without changing the recipe.
    • Remounts as a ration of mobility. A scale of remount horses per warrior standardised range and resilience; spare mounts were the mobility equivalent of extra fuel cans.
    • Self-contained field kits. Common personal kits (bows in standard bundles, lariats, spare strings, tools, felt gear) and household tents/carts made each decimal block logistically modular.
    • The yam relay. A state courier/relay network with post‑stations and passes pre‑scaled communications and light logistics into predictable legs.
    • Task‑tailored attachments. Siege/engineering blocks bolted onto the cavalry core when required—early attachments on a standard base.

    Genghis Khan’s empire and campaigns. Wikimedia

    Throughline: A formation is a logistics equation. Standard measures enable standard issues. Modularity makes mass possible.

    The Nineteenth‑Century Step Change — Britain’s Army Equipment System (1861–66)

    In the reform decades after Crimea, the War Office published the seven‑part Army Equipment series (Artillery; Cavalry; Infantry; Royal Engineers; Military Train; Commissariat; Hospital).[1] Each volume tied official organisation to authorised equipment lists, weights, measures (often prices), transport tables, and packing/marking rules. Once you knew the unit—infantry battalion, artillery battery, engineer company, or Military Train echelon—you could multiply the lists and convert entitlements into lift and sustainment. Support arms were treated as modular blocks (e.g., Commissariat trades; Hospital sets) scaled to force size and role.

    What changed: This turned scaling into a published operating system for logistics—standard nomenclature matched ledgers; weights and measures turned entitlement into tonnage; common patterns let staff scale issues, movement and maintenance simply by multiplying unit counts.

    Example of a table from Army Equipment. Part V. Infantry 1865

    Peace vs War Establishment — The Scaling “Switch”

    Establishments are the authorised blueprints for people, vehicles, weapons, tools and key stores—held in two states:

    • Peace Establishment (PE): Cadre‑heavy and economical (training scales, minimal transport; many posts unfilled; war‑only items held centrally).
    • War Establishment (WE): Fully manned and fully equipped (complete Equipment and first/second‑line holdings; authorised transport and attachments—signals, medical, supply/transport, maintenance—baked in).

    Mobilisation tops up PE to WE: fill personnel (Regulars/Reservists/Territorials), issues unit entitlement, builds lift and repair depth, loads first-line holdings, form attachments, and declares readiness. Because WEs link directly to scales, a unit can be multiplied and supported predictably. In service terms, the scaled package is then delivered through various types of support—integral, close, general, and mounting—each tailored to those entitlements and holdings.

    • Types of support.
      • Integral — organic, first-line support within the unit. (1st Line)
      • Close — formation troops forward, delivering time-sensitive commodities and quick repair/recovery. (2nd Line)
      • General — force-level support to the whole formation (bulk stocks, distribution, heavy repair). (3rd line; sometimes spans to 4th depending on the army)
      • Mounting — generating/equipping/marshalling the force before deployment. (a pre-deployment phase, not a “line”)

    (Illustrative maxim) Alter one allowance, alter the lift: add a blanket per man, and you add wagons to the transport scale. Scaling is a system—inputs ripple into horses, drivers and wagons.

    Late Victorian to 1914 — Scaling Rehearsed in Peace (NZ)

    New Zealand did not drift into World War I. In the years following the war in South Africa and especially under the Territorial Force (from 1910), planners adapted British military establishments to practical peacetime scales and rehearsed them. Camp equipment was centralised and issued according to published scales for the 1913 brigade camps. Districts drew against these scales, and returns/refurbishment were managed according to plan. To ensure the issue/return machine functioned efficiently, temporary Ordnance Depots were established for the 1913 camps (and again for the 1914 divisional camps), staffed with clerks and issuers under regional storekeepers—so requisition, issue, receipt, and repair all followed a single process.[2]

    Example of New Zealand Camp Equipment Scale 1913

    In parallel, the Defence Stores professionalised: permanent District Storekeepers were appointed, and an intensive store management course produced Quartermaster Sergeants for every infantry and mounted regiment, tightening the link between unit ledgers and district depots. By early 1914, the force had been inspected and judged to be well-armed and well-equipped, and mobilisation regulations—adapted from British directives—were issued in March 1914, aligning establishments, ledgers, and stocks.[3] The result was a pre‑war system that treated scaling as a living routine, not an emergency improvisation.

    World Wars & Interwar — Scaling at Industrial Tempo (UK & NZ), 1914–45

    First World War (1914–18).

    The British Army’s War Establishments and matching scales of equipment underwrote rapid expansion from Regulars to Territorials to Kitchener’s New Armies.[4] New formations could be raised and fitted out by template—weapons, tools, transport, ammunition, clothing, medical stores and repair parts, all mapped from the WE. For a smaller force such as New Zealand, alignment with British establishments and scales enabled swift mobilisation and five years of sustained operations.

    Saddlers Toolkit – Handbook of Military Artificers 1915

    Interwar (1919–39)

    Rather than a pause, this period saw refinement and governance of scaling. G1098 (AFG1098) matured as the unit‑level ledger linking establishment to holdings; mobilisation store tables and Clothing/Equipment Regulations were revised; Dominion practice tightened accounting controls and depot procedures. From 1935, although New Zealand lacked a standing field army, planners tracked British developments closely—each new War Establishment, scale and entitlement as it was published—and adapted them to local conditions (manpower, industry, shipping distances and climate). Thus, when mobilisation began in 1939–40, New Zealand could raise, equip, and structure its forces on modern British templates, rather than through improvisation.

    Second World War (1939–45)

    Scaling went fully industrial. Theatre-specific clothing scales, bulk demand procedures for ordnance, formal first/second‑line holdings, and push vs pull replenishment methods were used to keep tempo while protecting scarce lift and stocks. Units continued to work to WE/scale templates, with depots, railheads and parks sized to the calculated flows.[5]

    Ammunition Loads – Ordnance Manual (War) 1939

    Case Study — Greece 1941: mis-scaled ordnance support

    Context. In March 1941, the New Zealand Division deployed three Independent New Zealand Ordnance Corps (NZOC) Brigade Workshops and eleven LADs to Greece, with the attached British Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) 1 Ordnance Field Park (1 OFP) providing forward spares and stores.[6]  Pre-deployment consultation was thin; scaling assumptions followed British fleet patterns rather than New Zealand holdings.

    What went wrong (the scaling error).

    • Wrong spares mix. 1 OFP was scaled for Internationals and Crossleys; the NZ Division fielded neither in any number (only two Crossleys), so much of the forward lift didn’t match the fleet it had to support.
    • Assumptive, not analytical. Holdings mirrored generic expectations instead of the Division’s actual G1098s, failure rates, and service-level targets.
    • Coalition data gap. Equipment data and entitlement tables weren’t reconciled across national lines before movement.

    Consequences in theatre.

    • Readiness lost at the point of need. Lift and time were consumed carrying low-utility spares forward.
    • Workarounds required. Support hinged on the subset that did match (e.g., Ford, 25-pdr, 2-pdr, spring steel, sheet/rod metals, compressed air, general items) plus local supplementation—enough to keep NZ Workshops going, but with friction and delay.
    • Campaign outcome. The Greek campaign collapsed into evacuation (and then Crete), compounding the cost of the initial scaling miss.

    Fix and regeneration (the recovery).

    • Rebuild in Egypt. NZOC consolidated with RAOC/Maadi resources and formed the NZ Divisional OFP on 28 July 1941, explicitly scaled to NZ kits.
    • Deliberate scale-up. Through August–September the OFP built to scale, trained on ordnance accounting, and aligned data to reality.
    • Right-sized footprint. By late 1941 the OFP held 4 officers, 81 ORs and 27 three-ton lorries configured for OFP stores—turning scaling from assumption into a planned capability.

    Practical fixes (what should have been done).

    1. Make scaling scientific. Use master data, reliability/failure rates, demand and lead-time to size spares and blocks; set explicit service-level targets.
    2. Don’t rely on rules of thumb. Ditch “10% spares” heuristics—scale to the actual fleet and mission.
    3. Close coalition gaps early. Reconcile equipment and entitlement tables across partners before you book the lift.
    4. Translate scales to footprint. Convert to pallets/containers/ULDs with correct packaging and documents; protect the lift.
    5. Capture and apply lessons. After action, cleanse data, adjust, and rebuild to standard—exactly what the NZ Div OFP did after Greece/Crete.

    Takeaway. Scaling only works when it’s fleet-true, data-driven and coalition-aligned. Get that right pre-deployment, and your forward park becomes a force multiplier rather than a passenger.

    Post-War Evolution — From a Single List to an Integrated Entitlement System (NZ Focus)

    Example of AFG1098 Accessories and Spares for Bren .303 M.G

    Post-1945 fleets—communications, electrics, vehicles, and specialist plant—stretched the old, flat G1098 list. By the late 1950s–60s, practice matured into three coordinated instruments:[7]

    1. Entitlement (Equipment) Tables— the core “who gets what” by unit role and establishment.
    2. Complete Equipment Schedules (CES) — the “what is complete” list for each equipment set (every component, tool, accessory), doubling as the accounting document for that set.
    3. Block Scales — pooled non-CES items and everyday consumables (stationery, training stores, domestic items) expressed as ready-to-issue blocks.

    New Zealand’s tailored, Commonwealth-compatible model (1960s)

    The New Zealand Entitlement Table (NZET) became the hub, explicitly incorporating New Zealand CES (NZCES) items (and their components), New Zealand Block Scales (NZBS) for non‑CES stores, and first‑line maintenance packs such as FAMTO (First Aid Mechanical Transport Outfit) and FATSO (First Aid Technical Stores Outfit) so operators could keep equipment serviceable between deeper repairs.[8]

    By the early 1970s a further pillar emerged: New Zealand Repair Parts Scales (NZRPS). From the late 1960s, these began to replace earlier “spare parts lists,” folding FAMTO and FATSO in as first‑line modules of a wider repair‑chain planning scale—so unit Prescribed Load Lists (PLL) (days‑of‑cover + pipeline), formation Authorised Stockage Lists (ASLs) (service level over replenishment time) and theatre reserves were all sized from the same tempo/lead‑time/reliability factors. In short, repair provisioning became a single, scalable chain from operator kits through to depot depth.

    Case Study — Malaysia & Vietnam (1965–1972): combined scaling to autonomy

    Context. New Zealand kept a battalion in Malaysia/Singapore with 28 (Commonwealth) Brigade while rotating a rifle company into Vietnam under 1 ATF—three systems at once (British, Australian, NZ) with different entitlements, CES, paperwork and spares. The task was to turn them into one workable load for training in Malaysia and fighting in Phước Tuy.

    What worked (the scaling approach).

    • One combined scale, three sources. Cross-walked UK/AUS entitlements to NZ holdings; set approved equivalents for non-matching items.
    • Climate-first. Tropical scales for clothing/boots/personal kit; higher replacement factors and wider size ranges.
    • CES by platform. Normalised vehicle/tool sets so workshops and lift could be planned regardless of source nation.
    • Local industrial equivalents. Qualified NZ-made clothing, boots, webbing and small stores to UK/AUS specs to cut lead-times and dependency.
    • Liaison & data discipline. NZ LOs embedded in 1 ATF/FARELF to keep demand, returns and credits clean; part codes aligned early.
    • People matched to plan. Increased NZ movements, supply and maintenance manning in Malaysia and in-theatre.

    Results.

    • Seamless support in Vietnam. Routine sustainment via Australian pipelines; NZ-specific items flowed via Malaysia/Singapore with minimal friction.
    • Fewer workarounds, faster repair. Equivalence lists and aligned CES cut “near-miss” parts and sped turnarounds.

    Why it mattered later.

    • As UK/AUS withdrew from Malaysia in the early 1970s, NZ’s habits—combined scales, clean data, boosted manning and a growing local supply base—left the battalion near-logistically independent.
    • NZ-made equivalents added depth and resilience, enabling New Zealand-led sustainment.

    What to copy.

    1. Build a cross-walk early and lock approved equivalents in SOPs.
    2. Scale for climate and task (clothing, rations, POL, repair parts).
    3. Embed liaison/data stewards with partners.
    4. Man to the plan—grow workshops, supply and movements to match scale.
    5. Qualify local industry to shorten lead-times and strengthen sovereignty.

    Takeaway. Combine partner scales with NZ holdings, qualify local equivalents, and resource the logisticians—then a company can fight in Vietnam while a battalion trains in Malaysia, and the force is ready to stand on its own as partners draw down..

    From Printed Tables to Digital Systems (1960s–today)

    Until the 1980s, scaling was a manual staff drill: planners worked from printed tables, equipment series, mobilisation stores tables and unit instructions, doing the maths by hand—later with basic calculators—and re-checking totals across ledgers and load tables. With computer-based logistics, the arithmetic and cross-checks moved into software: entitlement look-ups, strength-based calculations, days-of-cover policies, lift planning from pack/weight data, and target-setting from demand history. The gains were speed, consistency, auditability and the ability to model scenarios.

    Many forces—including New Zealand—progressed from electric accounting machines and mainframes to enterprise ERPs by the late twentieth century, with deployable tools to support entitlement planning. Automation expanded what staff could calculate quickly; it did not replace the need for clear, maintained scales.

    Crucially, automation only works with sound data and governance. Organisations change, equipment is updated, and missions evolve; unless master data—organisational structures/establishments, item masters/part numbers, CES versions, block-scale definitions, repair parts scales and links to maintenance task lists—is kept current under change control, systems will produce inconsistent outputs. The principle is simple: keep entitlements, scales and planning factors aligned across supply, maintenance and movement. Contemporary doctrine reinforces this, emphasising information systems for visibility and decision-making, underpinned by disciplined data stewardship.

    Case Study — Somalia 1993: when scaling wasn’t applied (and what changed)

    Context. New Zealand contingents in Somalia (1992–94) deployed into extreme heat and vehicle-centred tasks, yet much of the kit reflected a temperate, barracks-oriented baseline—signs that entitlements and CES were not re-scaled for climate, role, or threat. To add insult to injury, the advance party deployed into an active conflict zone without weapons. Part of the reason it went wrong was that, at the time, the Army was not configured for rapid expeditionary operations.

    What should have been scaled—but wasn’t. Hot-weather clothing and headgear; body armour matched to the threat; vehicle-friendly load carriage; and weapon accessories (e.g., pistol holsters) to match in-service weapons.

    Consequences. Under-utilised scale (issued items set aside for improvised workarounds), inconsistent appearance/ID in theatre, and slower adaptation when the threat rose.

    After-action learning—Bosnia as the correction. The Army was embarrassed by the Somalia experience and did learn. Subsequent Bosnia deployments were better resourced and equipped: theatre-specific clothing and boots were prioritised; body armour and load-carriage were selected for the task and climate; weapon ancillaries were matched before deployment; and theatre SOPs were clarified. In short, the levers of scaling were applied up-front instead of improvised in theatre.

    Takeaway. Treat scaling as deliberate tradecraft before wheels-up: set climate-appropriate clothing scales, match armour and load-carriage to tasks, close ancillary gaps, and codify it all in SOPs. Do that, and the force arrives ready; skip it, and soldiers will improvise uneven fixes in contact.

    Why Scaling Matters

    Doctrinally, scaling underpins the core logistics principles—Responsiveness, Simplicity, Economy, Flexibility, Balance, Foresight, Sustainability, Survivability and Integration—by turning intent into standard, reusable units of effort.[9]

    Budget reality. Scales translate limited resources into repeatable outputs. They allow commanders to make explicit trade-offs between cost, risk, and tempo, and they expose the carrying costs of options (people, stock, space, lift) before money is spent. In fiscally constrained settings, scales are the difference between a force that looks large and a force that lasts. (Then and Now)

    • Control. Replaces ad‑hoc estimates with standard, repeatable calculations.
    • Agility. Dial effort up for surge or down for economy without needing to rewrite plans.
    • Interoperability. Standard blocks and tables let allies plug in seamlessly.
    • Assurance. Creates an audit trail for readiness claims and expenditure.
    • Risk management. Ties stock depth and footprint to threat, distance and tempo.

    Instruments of Scaling — Quick Guide

    When logisticians talk about “scales,” they’re really talking about ways of turning entitlements on paper into real-world stocks, vehicles, or pallets. A few of the main ones are:

    • Tables of Entitlement – These are the official “allowance lists” for units. They can be adjusted depending on the number of people present, the role the unit is playing, or even the climate. They shape both the unit’s footprint and its initial kit issue.
    • CES (Complete Equipment Schedules) – Every vehicle or platform comes with a kit list. Multiply that by the number of platforms, add any mission-specific kits, and you get both the accounting baseline and a sense of what workshops and lift have to carry.
    • Block Scales – Think of these as pre-packed bundles: ammunition, rations, POL (petrol, oil, lubricants), water, consumables, even stationery. They’re designed in mission-length chunks that map directly onto pallets, containers, or sorties.
    • Ration Scales — Per-person, per-day entitlements (e.g., fresh, composite, MRE/24-hour packs). Sized by headcount and duration, with first-line holdings at unit level and theatre stocks behind them.
    • Fuel Scales (POL) — Daily fuel requirements derived from platform consumption and tempo (include generators/heaters). Planned as bulk and/or packaged supply with defined reserves.
    • Clothing & Personal Equipment Scales — Initial issue and replacement factors (boots, uniforms, cold-weather gear). Driven by climate and wear-rates; size ranges require buffer stock. Set climate-specific scales; use approved equivalents across NZ/Allied patterns
    • Repair Parts Scales – Units carry a few days’ worth of spares on hand, while second-line supply aims to hold enough to cover expected breakdowns over the lead time.
    • First-Line Ammunition – This is the starter load troops carry into action, balanced against how quickly resupply can arrive.
    • WMR/DOS (War Maintenance Reserve/Days of Supply) – Larger-theatre stockpiles held to cushion delays or enemy interdiction.

    All of this contributes to the classic push versus pull distinction. Push works best when demand is predictable (e.g., food, water, combat supplies), while pull suits variable or diagnostic needs (e.g., spare parts, casualty evacuation). Each commodity sits somewhere on that spectrum, and stock policies need to reflect that.

    Scaling in Practice — A Common Framework

    The beauty of scaling is that it works at every level. The same levers—entitlements, CES, block scales, repair parts, first-line ammunition, and WMR/DOS—apply whether you’re supporting a corps or a rifle section. The only difference is the number of multiples and echelons involved.

    In effect, the same logic sizes a divisional-level park to last a day and a platoon’s first-line to last an opening skirmish. A section’s water is just the smallest expression of the same logic. What matters is anchoring decisions to the wider continuum—tactical, operational, and strategic—so that what a company carries dovetails with what the theatre holds in depth.

    Case Study – 3 NZ Div reverse logistics (out-scaling best practice)

    Context & scale. When 3 New Zealand Division was withdrawn from the Pacific in 1944, New Zealand executed a full reverse lift and regeneration: over 50,000 line items, 3,274 vehicles (plus 25 tanks) and tonnes of ammunition and supplies were received, cleaned, repaired, repacked and re-issued or disposed of—without forklifts or computers. Mangere Crossing Camp (ex-US “Camp Euart”) became the hub, with 200,000 sq ft of warehousing and a rail siding that ran straight into the storage blocks, allowing trains to off-load directly under cover. Work parties manually handled 250,000 packages averaging 45 kg, and about 10,000 tonnes of mixed stores arrived in the first three months from August 1944; the whole evolution concluded by July 1945.[10]

    Method—how it worked.

    1. Pre-exit accounting. Quartermasters across 90 accounting units completed inventories and packing lists in New Caledonia before lift.
    2. Reception & triage. On arrival at Mangere, loads were checked against documents, segregated by condition, and queued for cleaning/repair.
    3. Restore for re-use. Items were cleaned, repaired and repacked to unit standard, then presented for inspection.
    4. Audit & acceptance. Main Ordnance Depot staff and Defence auditors enforced exacting standards; discrepancies were explained and cleared before acceptance.
    5. Disposition. Serviceable materiel moved to Trentham (Main Ordnance Depot) or Hopuhopu (Northern District); many vehicles to Sylvia Park for onward issue; surplus or damaged items were transferred to the War Assets Realisation Board for sale or disposal.

    Constraints & workarounds. With no MHE or IT, the system relied on infrastructure (rail-to-warehouse flow), disciplined paperwork, and hard, organised labour. Quartermasters—often not career logisticians—proved adaptable under high audit pressure, demonstrating that well-designed processes can substitute for technology when needed.

    Why this is out-scaling done right.

    • Treated dismantling as deliberately as build-up—planned reverse from theatre to home base.
    • Aligned supply, maintenance and movement tasks (clean/repair/repack embedded in the flow).
    • Used fixed infrastructure to compensate for missing tools (rail siding, large covered floors).
    • Kept data discipline central: inventories, packing lists and audits drove every hand-off.
    • Produced a regeneration effect—restored force elements, cleared accounts and returned value to the system—on a national scale.

    Takeaway. Reverse logistics is not an afterthought. Plan the out-scaling from day one, resource the reception base, couple repair with receipt, and enforce documentation—then even a technology-light force can bring a division home cleanly and quickly.

    3 NZ Division Tricks and Tanks parked at Main Ordnance Depot, Mangere Bulk Depot on their Return from the Pacific in 1944 (Colourised). Alexander Turnbull Library

    Conclusion

    From the hoplite’s panoply and Rome’s contubernium to the Mongol tümen; from the Victorian Army Equipment series to modern War Establishments and today’s Entitlement–CES–Block toolkit (including NZ’s FAMTO/FATSO), the lesson is constant: scaling is the lifeblood of logistics. It turns intent into counted people, platforms, ammunition, spares, and lift—precisely, repeatably, and at the tempo operations demand.

    In practice, scaling provides a standard framework: entitlement tables specify who receives what; CES ensures equipment is complete and auditable; block scales package predictable consumables for movement; repair-parts scales establish first- and second-line resilience; and WMR/DOS provides theatre depth. The art is in balancing the push for predictability with the pull for diagnostic, variable demands.

    This is not optional tradecraft. Every headquarters and every trade must treat scaling—and the data that underpins it—as core business. Keep establishments current, masters clean, and paper scales translated into real pallets, bookings and stocks so that automation amplifies judgment rather than propagating error. Do this and the force can surge, re-role and wind down cleanly; neglect it and you invite a modern reprise of the Crimean lesson—impressive on paper, unsustainable in contact. Scaling is how intent becomes assured movement and sustainment.


    Notes

    [1] The Secretary of State for War, “Part 2 – Artillery,” Manual of Army Equipment  (1861), https://rnzaoc.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/army-equipment-part-2-artillery-1861.pdf; The Secretary of State for War, “Part 1 – Cavalry,” Manual of Army Equipment  (1863); The Secretary of State for War, “Part 5 – Infantry,” Manual of Army Equipment (1865); The Secretary of State for War, “Part 6 –  Commissariate Department,” Manual of Army Equipment  (1865), https://rnzaoc.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/army-equipment-part-6-commissariat-department-1865-1.pdf; The Secretary of State for War, “Part 4 – Military Train,” Manual of Army Equipment  (1865); The Secretary of State for War, “Part 7 – Hospital,” Manual of Army Equipment  (1865); The Secretary of State for War, “Part 3 – Royal Engineers,” Manual of Army Equipment  (1866).

    [2] “H-19 Report on the Defence Forces of New Zealand for the period 28 June 1912 to 20 June 1913,” Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives  (1 January 1913), https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1913-I.2.5.2.34.

    [3] “Regulations – Mobilisation of New Zealand Military Forces,” Archives New Zealand Item No R22432979  (27 April 1914).

    [4] Ordnance Manual (War), War Office, (London: His Majesties Printing Office, 1914). https://rnzaoc.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/ordnance-war-manual-1914.pdf.

    [5] Ordnance Manual (War), ed. The War Office (London: His Majestys Stationery Office, 1939).

    [6] Brigadier A.H Fernyhough C.B.E. M.C, History of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps 1920-1945 (London: Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 1965), 141.

    [7] “Publications – Military: Army Form G1098: War Equipment Tables,” Archives New Zealand Item No R17189361  (1951-1963).

    [8] “Publications – Military: Army Form G1098: War Equipment Tables,” Archives New Zealand Item No R17189362  (1963-1968).

    [9] Defence Logistics NZDDP-4.0 (Second Edition), New Zealand Defence Doctrine Publication: NZDDP, (New Zealand Defence Force, 2020), Non-fiction, Government documents. https://fyi.org.nz/request/18385/response/73807/attach/5/NZDDP%204.0.pdf.

    [10] Francis Arthur Jarrett, “2NZEF – 2 NZ Divisional Ordnance Field Park – Report – F Jarret,” Archives New Zealand Item No R20109405  (1944); “QMG (Quartermaster-Generals) Branch – September 1939 to March 1944,” Archives New Zealand Item No R25541150  (1944); “HQ Army Tank Brigade Ordnance Units, June 1942 to January 1943,” Archives New Zealand Item No R20112168  (1943).