Fourtyodd2 as per your comment, I often wondered why the quantities to be delivered were never questioned by those in the supply chain, as you said it was an extraordinary amount above the usual amounts demanded in all cases.
Changing the order quantities was another great waste of time and expense:
When we set up the BDR kits at RAF Honington (for the Tornado), I ordered enough corrosion inhibitor to fill the spray bottles in each kit and for top ups, listed as being in pints I ordered the required amount, several weeks later supply phoned and say a fork lift truck was on its way with my order, bit puzzled when it arrive and there was four 50 gallon drums of the stuff, found out they changed the quantities from pints to drums without updating the system.
RAF Gutersloh ran out of white A4 paper and there was none available in the supply system, when I went to a nearby Army base to look at a replacement car, the RSM who was selling asked me if I had a use for white A4 paper, asked him why and he told me he ordered the usual amount of A4 paper for work and an articulated lorry had turned up with every last box of paper in the system, the reason, supply had changed the quantities from reams to boxes containing 5 reams each. When I picked up the car he kindly loaded the boot, back seat and passenger seat with as many boxes as he could fit in and I re-distributed them around Gutersloh until normal supplies resumed.
Another quantity change happened when I was down the Falkland Island, I was stitched up as the BDR inventory holder and checked the two part putty filler and it was long out of date, gave the old stuff to the guys who made the model slates for leaving gizzits and ordered the replacements, which should have been separate tubes. A new supply SNCO phoned and told me I could not have the stuff as it was classed as high value and he objected to the old stuff being wasted on the gizzits, I explained that I had to have the items or the BDR kits would be deficient and utilising the stuff for a worthy cause was better than just destroying it, but he was having none of it. I escalated the issue through the chain of command and was visited by a supply officer and said SNCO, the officer was great and when we finished our discussion he told his SNCO to issue me what I had ordere. When it arrived it was 12 boxes of 10 packets, I tried to return the surplus but the SNCO was having none of it so the gizzit team had plenty to use before I left.