History of military logistics
Sheep were the most important of the herd animals, and butter and cheese was produced from their milk, although horse meat was a particular favourite. Livestock could be spared for slaughter only occasionally, but when it was, all parts of the animal were eaten, and the bones were saved to make broth. They supplemented their diet with wild game, and collected various wild vegetables, fruits, berries, fungi and edible seeds. They had collapsible tents that could be quickly erected and struck. They were capable of operating in winter, but depended on their horses, so they needed grasslands where the horses could graze.
Beasts of burden were used as vehicular transport for the food and supplies, either by carrying the supplies directly on their backs—the average medieval horse and mule could carry roughly 100 kilograms—or by pulling carts or wagons, depending on the weather conditions. A force with 1,000 pack and draft animals required roughly 9,000 kilograms of food for the animals, of which 4,000 kilograms was grain. Other animals had similar needs; donkeys each required about five kilograms of food each day, of which one kilogram had to be grain, while camels required approximately twelve kilograms of food each day, of which five kilograms needed to be grain. Horses were not usually used as draft animals in China or India. In India, oxen were used to carry supplies purchased from the banjaras, mobile merchants who often accompanied armies.  Oxen required no grain, but need 20 kilograms of fodder per day, which could be found by grazing, should time and conditions permit. In the Middle East and Central Asia, camels were often used, and in South and South East Asia elephants were used where roads and navigable rivers were uncommon, but there was plentiful water and foliage. This was more difficult in sub-Saharan Africa, where the elephants were less amenable. A herd of 1,000 cattle could feed 14,000 or so men for roughly ten days.

Commanders also made use of water transport throughout the medieval period as it was more efficient than ground transport. Ships made transporting supplies, and often soldiers, easier and more reliable, but the ability to use water transport was limited by location, weather, and the availability of ships. Cargo ships were also used, and were most commonly of the Nordic-type, the Utrecht-type, or the proto-cog craft. River boats resembling simple log-boats were also used. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where there were many lakes, canoes were used. Supply by sea was more economical, but not necessarily simpler than supply by land, due to complicating factors like loading and unloading, stowage, and moving supplies to an army that may not be on the coast.
In Mesoamerica, there were no wheeled vehicles or draft animals that could be used as beasts of burden. The army of the Aztec Empire consisted of units of 8,000 men called xiquipilli. The army was accompanied by porters who carried about 23 kilograms each. It moved slowly, at about 2.4 kilometres per hour or 19 kilometres per day. Since the Aztecs did not build roads outside the major cities, the army moved along tracks used for local trade. Due to the limitations of the tracks, each xiquipilli departed on a different day, and used a different route if possible. Since the army could carry food for no more than eight days, this gave it a combat radius of about 58 kilometres (36 mi) in hostile territory; moving through its own territory the army drew on supplies from tributary towns along the way.

Early modern: 

Sixteenth century: Between 1530 and 1710, the size of the armed forces deployed by European states increased by an order of magnitude, to 100,000 or more in some cases, resulting in a corresponding increase in the numbers involved in major battles. There were technical and tactical components to this, like the shift from expensive armoured knights to cheaper pikemen, who could be mobilised in vast numbers, but the major factor was the growth of the European state. Increases in population and wealth generated more revenue through taxation, which could be utilised more effectively due to a series of administrative reforms in the sixteenth century. States now had the means to fund the upkeep and development of roads, which aided the logistical support of forces.

This increase in size came not just in the number of actual soldiers but also camp followers, or tross, — anywhere from half to one and a half times the size of the army itself — and the size of the baggage train — averaging one wagon for every fifteen men. However, little state support was provided to these massive armies, the vast majority of which consisted of mercenaries. Beyond being paid for their service by the state (an act which bankrupted even the Spanish Empire on several occasions), these soldiers and their commanders were forced to provide everything for themselves.  If permanently assigned to a town or city with a working marketplace, or travelling along a well-established military route, supplies could be bought locally with intendants overseeing the exchanges.  In other cases an army travelling in friendly territory could expect to be followed by sutlers, whose stocks were small and subject to price gouging, or a commissioner could be sent ahead to a town to make arrangements, including billetting if necessary.
Many armies were further restricted to following waterways as supplies they were forced to carry could be more easily transported by water. The Russians made use of the Volga River to support the conquest of Kazan in the Russo-Kazan Wars. Artillery in particular was reliant on this method of transport, since even a modest number of cannons of the period required hundreds of horses to move them and their ammunition, and they travelled at half the speed of the rest of the army. Troops moving down the Spanish Road between 1567 and 1620 were able to travel from Milan and Brussels, a distance of about 1,100 kilometres (700 mi), in five to seven weeks. If an army marched at a leisurely pace of 10 to 13 kilometres (6 to 8 mi) per day, the heavy guns could keep up with little difficulty. Improvements in metal casting techniques and the use of copper-based alloys like bronze and brass made cannons lighter and more durable, and therefore more mobile, but their production and maintenance required skilled craftsmen.
The Ottoman Empire developed a formidable logistical system. The network of Roman and Byzantine roads radiating from Constantinople provided good lines of communication, as did the Danube River, via the Black Sea and the port of Varna. Ottoman troops could march 970 kilometres (600 mi) from Constantinople to Buda via Adrianople and Belgrade in six weeks, drawing provision en route from forty depots. They were fed biscuit, which did not require grinding like grain, and was less likely to spoil in wet weather than flour. This was supplemented by regular issues of mutton. During the siege of Vienna in 1529, heavy rains caused flooding and rendered the roads impassable to the Turks' heavy cannons, and in the  Long Turkish War of 1593 to 1606 the Turkish forces in Transylvania were hampered by attacks on their supply ships on the Danube and Tisza Rivers.

Seventeenth century: By the mid-seventeenth century, the French under Secretary of State for War Michel Le Tellier began a series of military reforms to address some of the issues which had plagued armies. Besides ensuring that soldiers were more regularly paid and combating the corruption and inefficiencies of private contractors, he devised formulae to calculate the supplies required for a given campaign, created standardised contracts for dealing with commercial suppliers, and formed a permanent vehicle-park manned by specialists whose role was to carry a few days' supplies while accompanying the army during campaigns. With these arrangements there was a gradual increase in the use of magazines, which provided a more regular flow of supply via convoys. While the concepts of magazines and convoys was not new, prior to the increase in army sizes there had rarely been cause to implement them.

Le Tellier's son, Louvois, continued the reforms after assuming his position. The most important of these reforms was to guarantee free daily rations for the soldiers, amounting to two pounds of bread or hardtack a day.  These rations were supplemented as circumstances allowed by a source of protein such as meat or beans; soldiers were still responsible for purchasing these items out-of-pocket but they were often available at below-market prices or even free at the expense of the state. Louvois also made permanent a system of magazines that were overseen by local governors to ensure they were fully stocked.  Some of these magazines were dedicated to providing frontier towns and fortresses several months' worth of supplies in the event of a siege, while the rest were supported French armies operating in the field.
When operating in enemy territory an army was forced to plunder the local countryside for supplies, a historical tradition meant to allow war to be conducted at the enemy's expense. However, with the increase in army sizes this reliance on plunder became a major problem, as decisions regarding where and when an army could move or fight were made based not on strategic objectives but whether a given area was capable of supporting the soldiers' needs. Sieges in particular were affected by this, both for an army attempting to lay siege to a location and for one coming to its relief.  Unless a commander was able to implement some sort of regular resupply, a fortress or town with a devastated countryside could be effectively immune to either operation.