Lesson Overview
Lesson 03 taught the documents by which a single item is received, issued, lent, returned, and written off. But a store does not hold one item; it holds hundreds of different things, from rations and water to blankets, batteries, tentage, first-aid stores, radios, and spare parts. A storekeeper who treats that mass as one undifferentiated heap cannot plan for it, cannot demand it sensibly, and cannot account for it with the right level of care. This lesson teaches how to bring order to the heap by grouping stores into classes and kinds, so that each can be planned, demanded, and accounted for in a way that fits what it actually is.
Classing is one of the oldest and most useful ideas in logistics. Recognised doctrine groups materiel into a handful of broad classes so that planners can reason about whole families of stores at once, work out consumption, and keep stock at the right level. We will look at the idea of classes of supply, build a practical grouping for a small humanitarian force, and then cut across it with two further distinctions that change how an item is handled day to day: whether it is a consumable or a durable, and whether it is an ordinary item or a controlled item that needs tighter accounting because it is attractive, serial-numbered, or otherwise sensitive.
This is the knowledge layer. The hands-on stores work, sorting real stock into its classes, marking durables and controlled items, laying out a storehouse by group, and running the demand and accounting that each class requires, is practised and signed off in person where supervision allows. This lesson teaches the structure and the reasoning those drills rest on. By the end you will be able to explain why stores are grouped into classes, describe the idea of classes of supply and set out a sensible grouping for a small force, distinguish consumables from durables and explain why each is accounted for differently, recognise controlled and attractive items and state the tighter handling they need, explain how classing serves both planning and accounting, and cross-reference this work to weapon handling, medical stores, and field sustainment.
Key Terms
- Stores: any materiel the Army holds, accounts for, and issues, from rations and water to clothing, tentage, batteries, tools, medical supplies, and spare parts; the general word for the contents of a store.
- Class of supply (class of stores): a broad family of materiel grouped together so it can be planned, demanded, and accounted for as a whole; recognised doctrine uses a small number of classes, and a force may adopt a grouping that suits its own stores.
- Consumable: an item that is used up, eaten, drunk, burned, fired, or fitted, and is not expected to come back; once issued it is gone, and the account reflects that by consumption, for example rations, water, batteries, and airsoft pellets.
- Durable: an item that has a working life and is expected to be used, returned, and reissued many times, for example a blanket, a radio, a tool, or a tent; it stays on the account and is tracked by where it is and who holds it.
- Controlled item: an item that needs tighter accounting than ordinary stock because it is attractive, valuable, sensitive, or accountable by serial number, for example optics, radios, and medical supplies; controlled items are counted more often and tracked individually.
- Attractive item: an item that is easily lost, easily stolen, or easily diverted to personal use because it is small, valuable, or desirable, and so needs extra security and tighter records.
- Serial-numbered item: an item carrying a unique number that lets it be tracked as an individual, so the account records not just "two radios" but the specific two, by number; the basis of individual accounting.
- Unit of issue: the standard quantity in which an item is counted, held, and issued, for example each, pair, box, litre, or set; classing and accounting both depend on counting in the right unit.
- Consumption rate: the rate at which a consumable is used, for example litres of water per person per day or batteries per radio per day, from which stock levels and demands are planned.
- Special-handling category: any class or kind of store that the rules require to be held, secured, or accounted for in a particular way, including controlled items, medical supplies, pyrotechnics, and, under FLD 210 and the law, anything weapon-related.
Why we class stores at all
It is worth being plain about what classing is for, because a storekeeper who sorts stock into groups only because the book says so will sort it badly. Classing is not tidiness for its own sake. It is the structure that makes both planning and accounting possible across a store of many different things.
Consider the alternative. A storekeeper faced with an undivided list of every item, rations next to radios next to bootlaces next to first-aid stores, can answer questions about each item one at a time but can say nothing about the whole. How much water do we need for a week? How fast are we burning through batteries? Are the sensitive items secure? Is anything close to running out? None of these can be answered from a flat list, because the questions are about families of stores, not single items. Classing creates those families, and once they exist the questions have answers.
Classing serves two masters at once, and a good grouping serves both. It serves planning, because a planner reasons in classes: so much water and rations per person per day, so much fuel and power, so much medical cover, so much shelter. It serves accounting, because different classes deserve different care: a pallet of bottled water and a thermal optic both sit in the store, but one is counted by the case and one is counted by serial number, and treating them the same would either drown the store in needless paperwork or leave a valuable item loosely held. The whole craft of classing is to put each item in the family that lets it be planned sensibly and accounted for at the right level. That is the thread this lesson follows.
The idea of classes of supply
The grouping of materiel into a small number of broad classes of supply is standard in recognised logistics doctrine. The principle is to divide everything a force consumes and holds into families that behave alike, so that planning can deal with whole families at a time rather than thousands of separate items. The most widely used scheme uses five classes, and although a small humanitarian force will not carry the heavy end of any military system, the idea is exactly what we want, so it is worth seeing the shape of it.
Broadly, the five classes cover: subsistence, meaning rations and water; clothing and individual equipment and the general stores a soldier needs; fuel and lubricants, the petroleum products that move and power things; construction and barrier materials, the stuff of building and fortifying; and ammunition and explosives. Other schemes add further classes for medical materiel, spare parts, and major equipment, but the underlying move is always the same: gather like with like so a planner can demand and account for it as a block.
For this Army the lesson is not to memorise any one nation's list of classes. It is to take the principle, that materiel is grouped into classes so it can be planned, demanded, and accounted for, and apply it sensibly to the stores a small humanitarian home-defence force actually holds. The next section does that.
A practical grouping for a small force
Here is a grouping built for what this Army holds and does. It keeps the spirit of the doctrinal classes while fitting a force whose work is humanitarian relief and home defence, whose "ammunition" is airsoft, and whose stores are modest. Seven groups cover almost everything.
Rations and water. Food and drinking water, the first need of any deployed party and the first thing a relief force carries to others. Planned tightly from consumption per person per day. Almost entirely consumable.
Clothing and personal equipment. Uniform, boots, cold-weather and wet-weather kit, webbing, sleeping bags, head-torches, and the general kit a national is issued. A mix: some consumable, much of it durable and reissued.
Fuel, power, and batteries. Fuel for vehicles and generators, the power they produce, and the batteries that run radios, torches, and devices. Consumable, planned from how fast equipment draws on it.
Shelter and construction materials. Tentage, tarpaulins, ground sheets, sandbags, timber, fixings, and the materials of building, sheltering, and protecting. A mix of durable shelter sets and consumable building stock.
Training ammunition (airsoft) and pyrotechnics. In this Army "ammunition" means airsoft: pellets and gas or batteries for training markers, together with any training pyrotechnics such as smoke. Consumable, and a special-handling group, because pyrotechnics in particular need safe storage and careful accounting.
Medical supplies. First-aid stores, dressings, and the consumables and equipment of field health. Consumable in large part, controlled in handling, and the subject of MED 210; some items have expiry dates that drive their rotation and accounting.
Spares and repair parts. The parts and components that keep durable equipment serviceable: replacement batteries held as spares, radio accessories, tent poles and pegs, tool parts, and the like. Demanded against the equipment they support.
The figure below sets the grouping out as a working table, with examples, the usual consumable or durable bias of each group, and a note on planning and any special handling. A storekeeper can read it as the map of the store.
CLASSES (KINDS) OF STORES - A SMALL-FORCE GROUPING
Class / group | Examples | Mostly | Planning & handling note
---------------------|-------------------------------|---------|----------------------------------
1 Rations & water | food, drinking water | consum. | per person per day; FIFO, expiry
2 Clothing & pers. | uniform, boots, webbing, | mixed | issued kit; durables tracked to
equipment | sleeping bags, head-torches | | the holder
3 Fuel, power & | fuel, generators' output, | consum. | per equipment per day; fuel =
batteries | radio/torch batteries | | safe storage
4 Shelter & constr. | tents, tarpaulins, ground | mixed | shelter sets durable; building
materials | sheets, sandbags, timber | | stock consumable
5 Training ammo | airsoft pellets, gas, | consum. | SPECIAL HANDLING: pyrotechnics
(airsoft) & pyro | training smoke | | stored & accounted with care
6 Medical supplies | dressings, first-aid stores, | consum. | CONTROLLED; expiry-driven; see
| field-health equipment | | MED 210
7 Spares & repair | spare batteries, radio leads, | mixed | demanded against the equipment
parts | tent poles, tool parts | | they keep serviceable
---------------------|-------------------------------|---------|----------------------------------
The grouping is a tool, not a law: put each item in the family that lets it
be planned sensibly and accounted for at the right level of care.
Two points about using such a grouping. First, the lines are a guide, not a fence: a head-torch could be argued into clothing and personal equipment or into fuel, power, and batteries, and it does not greatly matter which, so long as the store is consistent and everyone can find it. Second, the grouping is the skeleton of the storehouse layout taught in Lesson 05: stores held by class are stores that can be found, rotated, and counted, because like sits with like.
Consumables and durables: the distinction that changes accounting
Cutting across the classes is a distinction that matters more than any of them to how an item is accounted for: whether it is a consumable or a durable. The two are accounted for differently because they behave differently, and confusing them is a common way for an account to drift out of truth.
A consumable is used up and does not come back. Rations are eaten, water is drunk, fuel is burned, batteries are flattened, airsoft pellets are fired, dressings are applied. Once issued, a consumable is gone, and the account does not expect to see it again. Consumables are therefore accounted for by bulk and consumption: held in quantity, drawn down as they are used, replenished against a consumption rate, and tracked as balances of stock rather than as individuals. You do not chase a single battery to a single holder forever; you watch the balance, watch the rate, and reorder before you run out. Lesson 03's hand receipt has little place here, because there is nothing to return.
A durable has a working life and is expected to be used, returned, and reused many times. A blanket is issued, returned, cleaned, and reissued; a radio goes out on a hand receipt and comes back; a tool is lent and recovered; a tent is pitched, struck, and pitched again. Durables are therefore accounted for by identity and custody: tracked by where they are and who holds them, issued and returned on signature, maintained, and kept on the account across their whole life. The questions that matter for a durable are "who has it?" and "is it serviceable?", which is exactly the work the documents of Lesson 03 were built for.
Many real stores sit cleanly on one side. Some sit in between, and the storekeeper decides which treatment fits: a cheap item with a short life is treated as a consumable even if it could in theory be reused, while anything durable, valuable, or accountable is tracked as a durable. The matrix below sets the two against the controlled-item distinction of the next section, so that a storekeeper can place any item and read off how it should be handled.
CONSUMABLE / DURABLE x ORDINARY / CONTROLLED - HANDLING MATRIX
| ORDINARY ITEM | CONTROLLED ITEM
| (open stock, routine count) | (tighter records, frequent count)
------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------------------
CONSUMABLE | Bulk balance; draw down by | Bulk balance BUT logged use &
(used up, no | use; replenish to a stock | secured store.
return) | level; routine count. | e.g. medical consumables,
| e.g. rations, water, most | airsoft pyrotechnics,
| batteries, airsoft | controlled medical stores
| pellets. |
------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------------------
DURABLE | Tracked to holder; issue / | Tracked INDIVIDUALLY by serial
(reused over a | return on signature; | number; signed custody; counted
working life) | maintained; routine count. | often; high security.
| e.g. blankets, tools, | e.g. radios, optics, and (under
| tentage, ground sheets. | FLD 210 & the law) anything
| | weapon-related.
------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------------------
Read it as: WHAT is it (consumable / durable) decides HOW it is accounted;
HOW SENSITIVE it is (ordinary / controlled) decides HOW TIGHTLY.
The matrix is the practical heart of this lesson. The left-to-right axis, consumable or durable, decides the method of accounting: balance and consumption, or identity and custody. The top-to-bottom axis, ordinary or controlled, decides the tightness: routine handling, or close individual tracking and security. Place an item on both axes and you have decided how to hold it, count it, and account for it.
Controlled, attractive, and special-handling items
Not every item deserves the same level of care, and pretending it does wastes effort on the trivial and gives too little to the sensitive. Some stores need tighter accounting than ordinary stock, and recognising them is part of a storekeeper's judgement.
A controlled item is one that needs tighter records and closer counting because of what it is. Three features tend to mark an item as controlled. It is attractive: small, valuable, or desirable enough to be easily lost, stolen, or quietly taken for personal use, like a head-torch, a multi-tool, or a battery pack. It is serial-numbered, carrying a unique number that lets it be tracked as an individual rather than as one of a pile, like a radio or a thermal optic. Or it is sensitive by category, meaning the rules require it to be held and accounted for in a particular way regardless of its value, like medical supplies or pyrotechnics. An item may be controlled on one of these grounds or several.
Controlled items get three things ordinary stock does not. Individual tracking: where it is sensible, they are accounted for by serial number, so the record says not "three radios" but the specific three, each known by its number and its holder. More frequent counting: they are checked far more often than the routine stocktake cycle, sometimes weekly or on every handover, so that a loss is found in days, not months. Tighter security: they are held in a more secure part of the store, signed in and out with extra care, and never left loosely accessible. The principle is proportion: spend the accounting effort where the risk and the value are.
Three categories deserve a specific word for this Army.
Optics and radios are the classic controlled durables: valuable, serial-numbered, and attractive. They are tracked individually, issued and returned on signature with their serial numbers recorded, counted often, and held securely. A store that knows exactly which radio is where, by number, has its most valuable durables under proper control.
Medical supplies are controlled for a different reason: they matter to life and health, many carry expiry dates, and some must be secured against misuse. They are held under the discipline of MED 210, rotated so the soonest-to-expire is used first, counted carefully, and never allowed to run down unnoticed or be issued past their date. Medical stores are a special-handling category in their own right.
Anything weapon-related is the most tightly controlled category of all, and it is governed not by this lesson but by FLD 210 · Weapon Handling and Safety and by the law. In this Army, training "ammunition" means airsoft, and this course does not teach real-arms procurement or the detail of real weapon storage. What this lesson teaches is only this: any item that is weapon-related is held, secured, and accounted for under the Weapon Handling rules and the law, with the tightest individual control of all, and a storekeeper who holds such items follows those rules without exception. Training pyrotechnics, likewise, are stored and accounted for with care under the relevant safety rules. When in doubt, the more sensitive the item, the tighter the account.
How classing serves planning and accounting
Pull the threads together and the value of classing is plain, and it shows up in both halves of a storekeeper's work.
In planning, classing lets a quartermaster reason about whole families of stores. A relief task is planned class by class: rations and water from consumption per person per day for the number of days and people; fuel, power, and batteries from how hard the equipment will be worked; medical supplies from the expected casualties and the duration; shelter from the families to be housed. Nobody plans a deployment item by item; they plan it class by class, and then break each class down into the items that make it up. Classing also drives replenishment: because consumables in a class share a rhythm of use, the storekeeper can watch each class against its consumption rate and reorder before any of it runs out. This is the demand and consumption work that LOG 210, Field Logistics and Sustainment, builds on.
In accounting, classing and the consumable, durable, and controlled distinctions tell the storekeeper how tightly to hold each item, so that effort goes where it is needed. Bulk consumables are held as balances and counted routinely. Durables are tracked to their holders and maintained. Controlled items are tracked individually, counted often, and secured. The storehouse itself is laid out by class, so that like sits with like and a stocktake can move through the store in order. And every item, whatever its class, still lives or dies on the documents of Lesson 03: classing decides how an item is handled, but the receipt, issue, hand receipt, return, and write-off are how each transaction is recorded whatever the class. Classing organises the store; the documents account for it; the stocktake of Lesson 10 proves the two agree.
So classing is not a clerk's hobby. It is the frame that turns a heap of stores into a system that can be planned ahead, demanded sensibly, held at the right level of care, and counted in good order. A storekeeper who has classed the store well has done half the work of running it.
In Practice: A quartermaster classes the store for a relief task
A small force is asked to stand ready to assist a district at risk of flooding, and a Sergeant holding the appointment of Quartermaster sets the temporary store in order before anything moves. Rather than face the stores as one long list, she works through them by class, because she means to plan the task and account for it at the same time.
She lists rations and water first and plans them from consumption: so many litres and meals per person per day, for the relief party and a margin for those they will help, all consumable and rotated so the soonest-to-expire goes first. Clothing and personal equipment she treats as a mix, the bulk of it durable kit issued to the party on signature and due back, a little of it consumable. Fuel, power, and batteries she plans from the equipment: generator fuel, and a stock of radio and torch batteries worked out from how many devices will run and for how long, all consumable. Shelter and construction materials she splits, the tentage and ground sheets as durable sets to be returned, the sandbags and fixings as consumable building stock.
Then she gives the controlled items their due. The two radios and the one thermal optic she records individually by serial number, issues on hand receipts to named holders, and notes for a count at every handover, because these are her attractive, serial-numbered durables and she will not lose them in a rush. The medical supplies she holds under the MED 210 discipline, rotated by expiry and counted carefully. There are no real-weapon stores in the party; the airsoft training stock stays in barracks, and any training pyrotechnics are held under their safety rules and not carried on a relief task at all.
When she briefs the storekeeper who will run the field ledger, she hands over a store already sorted into its classes, with the consumables marked for bulk tracking, the durables tracked to their holders, and the controlled items flagged for individual count. Because the store is classed, the demand is sensible, the layout is findable, the count is quick, and nothing valuable is held loosely. The task can be planned and accounted for in the same breath, which is the whole point of classing stores.
Check Your Understanding
A storekeeper holds, among other things, a pallet of bottled water and two field radios. Explain how each should be accounted for, naming which is the consumable and which is the durable, and state why the same accounting method would not suit both.
Define a controlled item and give the three features that tend to mark an item as one. Choose one item from the small-force grouping in this lesson that you would treat as controlled, and state the tighter handling you would give it and why.
A planner is preparing a five-day relief deployment for a section helping families in a flooded district. Explain how classing the stores helps the planner work out what to take, and give two classes from this lesson with the kind of figure each would be planned from.
Reflection (write a short paragraph): Think about how you organise your own belongings or supplies, the things you buy in bulk and use up against the things you own and keep, and the few valuable items you guard more carefully than the rest. Relate that to the distinctions in this lesson between consumables and durables and between ordinary and controlled items, and to why a storekeeper spends the most accounting effort where the value and the risk are highest.
Summary
- A store holds many different things; classing brings order to them by grouping like with like, so that stores can be planned, demanded, and accounted for as families rather than one item at a time.
- Recognised doctrine groups materiel into a small number of classes of supply (commonly five). The principle, not any one nation's list, is what matters: gather like stores so a planner can reason about whole families.
- A practical small-force grouping: rations and water; clothing and personal equipment; fuel, power, and batteries; shelter and construction materials; training ammunition (airsoft) and pyrotechnics; medical supplies; and spares and repair parts.
- A consumable is used up and does not come back, and is accounted for by bulk balance and consumption rate. A durable has a working life and is accounted for by identity and custody, tracked to its holder on signature and maintained.
- A controlled item needs tighter accounting because it is attractive, serial-numbered, or sensitive: individual tracking, more frequent counting, and tighter security. Optics, radios, and medical supplies are controlled; under FLD 210 · Weapon Handling and Safety and the law, anything weapon-related is the most tightly controlled of all.
- The handling matrix decides treatment on two axes: what an item is (consumable or durable) sets the method of accounting; how sensitive it is (ordinary or controlled) sets the tightness.
- Classing serves planning (reason class by class; replenish against consumption rates) and accounting (hold each item at the right level of care; lay out the store by class) at once.
- This lesson builds on Lesson 02 (Accountability and Responsibility) and Lesson 03 (The Documents of Stores), and leads into Lesson 05 (Storekeeping and Stores Discipline) and Lesson 10 (Stocktaking, Honesty, and the Storekeeper's Standard). It connects to MED 210 · Field Health (medical stores), FLD 210 · Weapon Handling and Safety (the secure handling of weapon-related items), and LOG 210 · Field Logistics and Sustainment (planning supply by class and consumption).
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