If these arguments apply to an industrial organisation working under normal conditions, they apply still more strongly to a hastily enlarged temporary organisation evolved in time of war. Moreover, in the latter case the unreliable running of a fleet of cars does not represent merely a temporary financial loss or a diminution in prestige. Its result must inevitably be to cause, among the troops behind which the motor column is working, a lack of necessities either in respect of food or of warlike materials. In either case, the result is immeasureable and the consequences may well prove fatal.
Then again, military motor vehicles are required to work under peculiarly arduous and trying conditions. The very nature of their service implies frequent long runs under the worst possible conditions of weather and road surface. They may have to employ lanes or bye-ways or even routes which can hardly be described as roads at all, and added to this is the almost certain fact that the tracks over which they work will have been materially injured intentionally or otherwise.
Those who live in the vicinity of any important military centre must be well aware of the damaging effect that heavy military traffic has upon the roads, even if well-constructed, in view of the inevitable nature of the traffic. When plying on country roads never intended for such use, the transport motors themselves will soon break up the road surface. These considerations serve to show that the liability to breakdown is much greater in military than in civilian transport, and coupled with this is the certainty that the facilities for conveniently carrying out repairs and overhauls must necessarily be extremely limited. The transport columns are supported at their base by travelling workshops manned by skilled mechanics and containing small selections of those tools likely to be of the most general service. The equipment of these workshops must be reduced to a minimum in order to secure their portability, and it is highly important, if possible, to prevent jobs coming in which cannot be satisfactorily tackled with the machinery at the disposal of the mechanical staff.
It will thus be seen that everything points to the extreme inadvisability of depending upon motor transport and supply columns formed of a miscellaneous collection of vehicles of all types, all makes and all ages. Looking at the other side of the question, the ideal conditions are reached when every vehicle of the column is identical and represents the very best make and type, and when all the drivers are thoroughly acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of this particular type of vehicle, and the mechanics responsible for repairs equally experienced as regards every feature of the mechanism of the machines.