Not invented here

I understand that doing logistics for the military is a bit more complicated than a corner shop, but are they really saying that it's more complicated than Tesco, UPS or Toyota? Are there really no commercial solutions available off the shelf?

Isandlwana, not quite

While it is true that a bad quartermaster is something that needs to be seen to be believed, and they have probably cost alot of lives as you said.. Isandlwana was nothing to do with inept supply.

It was more to do with overconfidence, arrogance, bigotry and really really stupid choice in guns.

The Zulu under Cetshwayo knew the lay of the land and used tactics as good as any modern European army. Tactics that Lord Chelmsford should have known about since the one they used, a obstructed pincer attack (in this case starting off behind, and then looping around a bloody big hill), the horns of the buffalo, was practically their signature move.

Then theres the Martini Henry rifle, which overheated and either jammed, fouled or cooked off rounds after a certain number of shots (the few line survivors testified to this). The British were also overextended, over confident - not to mention the fact they initially only identified 1/3rd of the Zulu force and tailored their defensive positions to moderate this advance - no subsequent changes of any importance were made even after the other two arms of the Zulu's hove into view.

Then you have the strange at best choice of Chelmsford & Company to use what appears to have been a formation straight out of Sharpes Regiment (one long line of troopers, superfired by a second), when common sense says given the way the Zulu moved and fought, that they should have been in Square (which in subsequent battles they were). This makes little sense if the majority of the troops were armed with Martini Henry Rifles, since these were breech loading guns, not muzzle loading smoothbore guns. In that case, the superfiring (the one line protecting the others reloading) wasnt necessary, and the thin depth of line meant that a break could be made easily and the line rolled up. Which indeed was what happened and led to what was an effectively as much a massacre as that at Kabul and Gandamack in 1842.

The only reason Chelmsford managed to get out of it all with his reputation somewhat unscathed was he was able to talk directly to the Queen, who appears to have been supportive, and the subsequent events of Rorkes Drift.

Given that the MH rifle was standard issue it seems odd that the problems with it at Isandlwana were not repeated at Rorkes Drift. However the two battles are somewhat different. At Isandlwana the troopers were firing more or less constantly, since they had less need to conserve ammunition as did the Rorkes Drift contingent. Since the rate of fire at Rorkes Drift was lesser, there was a lesser chance of the MH Rifles weaknesses coming to the fore.