The Royal Logistic Corps (RLC): Supporting, enabling and sustaining the British Army
The Royal Logistic Corps are the Army’s professional logisticians who keep the Field Army marching, its helicopters flying and its vehicles moving, by supplying it with everything it needs, wherever it is deployed
Personnel from RLC support and sustain the Army by land, sea and air. As they like to say: ‘We are everywhere, always’. At the forward edge of every conflict with vital supplies. At the heart of humanitarian disaster with essential aid. Working with the security forces protecting the nation and meeting every challenge.
- Military Aid to Civilian Authorities: the COVID Support Force
- Military Aid to Civil Authorities: What is MACA?
The Corps has Regular, Reserve and Specialist regiments within it. The 13 Regular regiments perform a range of roles for the Army — some look after the logistical supply and distribution requirements while others control the supply and transport of material in and out of areas of conflict or crisis. There are also unique support functions from ordnance disposal to postal and courier services, to air dispatch.
Based regionally across the UK are 11 Reserve regiments, each one paired with one of the Corps’ Regular regiments. They are part of the Army’s logistic enabling capability, which ranges from Postal and Courier Services, Movement Control, Port and Maritime, Vehicle Supply Specialists, to Fuel Storage and Distribution and Operational Hygiene.
Most recently, RLC soldiers and aircrew honed their helicopter skills to be better able to support humanitarian crisis situations.
Working under the strong downwash created by the rotors of a Chinook helicopter, troops practised a key skill to move supplies around crisis zones. By using helicopters, RLC personnel were able to push supplies forward further and faster on an operation, and with less danger than road moves.
