Customer Reviews

Combat Service Support Guide: 1st Edtion

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Many fellow officers within my DISCOM would have this book on their shelves, yet one got the impression that it was just for show- and more often than not, that was the case. This book has quite a few "page fillers" which I felt shouldn't be in it. Considering that in the author's preface he says: "The purpose of this book is to aid Combat Service Support officers and officers of all branches who find themselves thrust into combat service support roles in the field." Things like -Perimeter Sector Sketches, -Handling EPW's, -noise and light discipline, -OPORD and FRAGO formats to cite a few examples. Not that the logistician would never need to concern himself with these, but those subjects are something that the CSS officer should be already well versed on, and should the CSS officer ever need a refresher, then his or her unit would already have their own Tactical SOP on performing such tasks. The overall effect is that there is a lot of information, as sound as it is, that just doesn't belong in this book and serves no purpose than to take up space. That said, there is some really useful information here. I personally found the Truck Cargo and Tactical Road March planning figures to be worth the price of the book. If you're a Quartermaster, there are pages upon pages of POL planning tables and such. As my field is Maintenance, I would have liked to have seen (and would recommend for future editions) similar tables which outlines recommended Organizational and DS Bench/Shop stock lists for common types of equipment. All in all, you'll probably hardly ever use this book, but when you do- you'll be real glad that you had it.

The format doesn't exactly make for recreational reading but it is very useful if thrust into an S4 niche or even if you just need to make sure you understand everything in support order. Very handy.

I have used and observed this product in use for several years. It is an excellent, comprehensive entry level guide that serves to provide an instant source of information and leads one to other more specific source materials. Highly recommend the guide for entry level use.

I purchased the previous edition. Each time I hoped to find the proper consumption data for logistitic requirement estimate in the books. To my disappointment, they just showed some obvious things that can be found in the Field Manuals.