In a battle scenario the simple processes of maintenance and repair can become an important factor.
Military equipment is complex by its nature as it is designed to produce results in the most difficult of environments.
The profile of this equipment keeps changing and thus makes the maintenance of military equipment an ever changing conundrum.
A simple thing like maintenance becomes complex and normal peacetime maintenance solutions do not work.
There is a danger here as we sometimes tend to look for solutions for maintenance of military equipment based on our peacetime experience.
To be able to maintain any equipment we need skills, tools, spares, time and money each one of these factors changes depending upon the location of where the equipment has to be maintained
In peacetime we have a network of facilities at known locations and we can reach them at our convenience and they can respond at their convenience as time is not a constraint. Even in peacetime if we move away from urban areas and we go to remote areas, equipment maintenance becomes much more challenging.
In the case of the battlefield, time is a critical factor as there are no second chances.
Even in our day to day life, if we take the case of cars there is a specialization needed, that is why we send our car to our authorized service stations.
Each type of service station gives maintenance cover for a particular type of vehicle. Similarly, in the case of military equipment, even the simplest form of equipment like vehicles, needs specialized training.
Each maintainer for a particular class of equipment must be trained to repair and maintain every type of equipment in that class. For example, if a maintainer is trained to repair guns then that maintainer should be able to repair all types of guns of that class.
Money is a main constraint and at times it is the overriding factor. Even so we must have maintainers for all equipment which is complex and not available in civil life.
The prioritization of equipment will have to be done and our maintainers trained accordingly.
In the military environment we must be able to maintain and repair in a very short time.
Equipment which can be replaced easily may not be time critical and will be lower in priority. For example if we have to choose between maintainers for warlike equipment and for simpler equipment like vehicles, then we have to first look at deploying maintainers for warlike equipment and then look at maintainers for vehicles.
This also has to be weighed carefully because sometimes when it is not possible to replace the simpler equipment and it is deployed in a warlike situation and finances do not allow us to buy new equipment then maintainers are needed for such equipment as well.
The most important aspect in a warlike situation is the skill of the maintainer.
So, in peacetime this skill has to be honed through training and repeated training so that when the time of crisis comes the maintainer in the battlefield is able to deliver even within limited availability of resources.
If resources are a constraint we must have maintainers for warlike equipment first and then for simpler equipment like vehicles.