Before railways an army could not carry the food it needed: anything longer than a few days in the field forced it to live off the country it was in.

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• About six weeks of supply is the most a pre-railway army could buy itself by adding carrying capacity, however many wagons it brought. BDBret Devereaux15 Jul 2022
• The binding constraint on pre-modern campaigning was feeding the army every day it was in the field, not winning the battle at the end of it. BDBret Devereaux15 Jul 2022
• Long-distance food transport is what stops a local harvest failure from becoming a famine. GMGeorge Monbiot4 Oct 2023
• A pre-modern countryside produces an enormous amount of food and almost no extractable surplus, which is the hard limit on everything the state above it can do. BDBret Devereaux24 Jul 2020
• A large army is inherently impractical and inefficient: every extra soldier is another mouth to feed and one fewer worker making the tanks and shells. JHJames Holland24 May 2025

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