Why wouldn’t all these logistical details be simpler and cheaper in the usual ways if each soldier looked after himself mostly?
Nope. Even in peacetime, people do NOT look after themselves mostly. They cooperate and compete in a system that takes care of most. This peacetime system only works with sufficient cooperation, and that cooperation requires information (often in the form of prices, but a lot of additional prediction and data is used as well) to be relatively freely available.
In war, there is an organized agent (or set of agents, if you think of the enemy as decentralized as well) actively disrupting the cooperation, and using any available information to hurt you. Central, top-down planning allows the knowledge to be kept secret for longer, because public knowledge is not necessary to the functioning of the system.
Nope. Even in peacetime, people do NOT look after themselves mostly. They cooperate and compete in a system that takes care of most. This peacetime system only works with sufficient cooperation, and that cooperation requires information (often in the form of prices, but a lot of additional prediction and data is used as well) to be relatively freely available.
In war, there is an organized agent (or set of agents, if you think of the enemy as decentralized as well) actively disrupting the cooperation, and using any available information to hurt you. Central, top-down planning allows the knowledge to be kept secret for longer, because public knowledge is not necessary to the functioning of the system.