Between 1969 and the early 1990s, NATO conducted almost every year, in the fall or early winter, a large exercise called Reforger. This was intended to simulate a massive deployment of US forces in Europe to attack the Warsaw Pact. At the height of tensions, in 1983 during the Euromissile crisis, Reforger provided as many as 125,000 US troops who were deployed in Europe as the US Army’s 3rd, 5th and 7th Corps were involved in the defense of Europe.
During this time, the Pentagon’s logisticians acquired the knowledge and organization to be very effective in smoothing the transatlantic transfers in exercises, whether of men, heavy equipment, munitions, or food. At the end of the Cold War, the Reforger exercise lost its natural interest and its latest iteration, Reforger 93, which took place in May 1993, involved a few units stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany. While American logisticians had other theaters in which to use their talents, first in the Middle East towards Iraq, then Afghanistan, the knowledge in Europe has dried up significantly in recent decades.
Reforging was intended to deploy the US Army’s 3rd Army Corps in Europe against the Warsaw Pact
The Russian offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, and increasing aid to the US in Kiev, but also to European allies in recent months, has been a real challenge for both people and infrastructure, which has not experienced such a task for 30 years. And according to a spokesman for the Logistics 21. Command, which is in charge of the American logistics influx into Europe, the American logistics quickly found the machines.
In fact, this flow is now 30% higher than at the beginning of the conflict, after the Chief of Staff of the US Army, General James Charles McConville, congratulated the command on the development of a new combat battle by the US to strengthen the European defensive equipment and half the time established by the Pentagon.
The United States has delivered most of the promised 113 M2A2 Bradleys to Ukraine, many of which already have the new Central European camouflage pattern.
American logistics will not lack other opportunities to prove their dominance in the coming months, since US military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict now exceeds $38 billion. In addition to 2 million 155mm rounds, thousands of Stinger and launcher missiles, and countless ballistic protection and uniform items, they now have to carry loads of heavy weapons such as M109 self-propelled guns, Bradley armored infantry vehicles and thirty M1 Abrams. Armored vehicles weighing between 45 and 65 tons per unit will be delivered in the fall, adding to the additional 20,000 US troops also deployed in Europe since the start of the conflict.
