What a Military Supply Depot Contains

[thrash]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

The depot will also have enough trucks to transport the attached squads as well as some supplies for field operations. The exeption is if it's so small there's only a single squad present, but I find that unlikely if the depot is large enough to have a repair shop.

Depending on size and distance to the nearest town, there may be a cafeteria/mess hall on site. Even a single-squad depot will at the very least have a kitchen and pantry. MREs are only used in the field. They may be edible, but they're not good for morale in non-combat situations.

If you do the math, it takes a minimum of 12 people working 40 hours a week (with time off for vacation, sick leave, and some off-site training) to keep two people on duty 24 hours a day; this assumes that the first-line supervisor will fill in for a subordinate that is sick or on leave. So, unless you just need two people to man the gate, the security of a depot will be at least a company-equivalent (~ 100 personnel). It may be contract security guards or an administrative military unit rather than a tactical formation, however.

Then the depot needs people to run all its material-handling equipment (forklifts, etc.) to unload supplies as they arrive or move them around as needed. With headquarters, figure the minimum is several hundred people assigned to the depot, most of them working weekday schedules.

On-base housing is very expensive to run and only technically needed for unmarried junior military personnel, so unless the depot is beyond commuting distance (up to ~ 60 miles) from the nearest town, there probably won't be much of anyone actually living on the base -- the depot commander and ops/chief of staff (in historic brick houses) and newly arrived junior enlisted who haven't found an apartment in town.

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Don't forget computer systems which give a complete inventory of the depot, including where each pallet and vehicle - all numbered, of course - is located and the destination, if already known. Very good chance that there are laptops and radio equipment in storage at the depot as well.

This is a place where you would be justified in throwing obstacles at the player characters. In my experience, automated supply systems are frequently the last dying place of obsolete, legacy (e.g. -- no joke -- DOS 3.0-based) computer systems and proprietary hardware. Upgrades are decades apart, because it's so traumatic to move everything to a new system. The new system, which was a compromise designed by committee and provided by the lowest bidder, was probably obsolete before it was fielded because it took so long to implement. And the cycle starts all over again.

The logisticians who use the system are resigned to its quirks and know the work-arounds to get the most out of it. Anyone else who comes in expecting to turn it on and go is likely in for a rude shock.

Similar comments apply to the organization and labeling of the depot itself. I have yet to see a depot (even, or perhaps especially, a small one) with all the bunkers clearly labelled on a plan which is posted in plain sight and with matching numbers on the bunkers themselves. More often, the bunkers are (e.g.) labelled with their building number in the facilities database (3361), but the supply software refers to them by block letter and serial number (A-44). The logisticians know what goes where because they do it every day, but no one else does.