/u/Gargatua13013
That era did indeed see various attempts to overcome the needs to literally supply warfare at exponentially larger scale than it used to be. Specifically speaking of gunpowder weapons, armies required the supply of the guns themselves -- and maintenance thereof -- and of shot and of gunpowder.
Further specifically on gunpowder, there was quite a bit of back-and-forth when it came to who made and provided it. For example, in 1540 France had put all production of gunpowder onto the state arsenal and industry. But as the Thirty Years' War grew and with it the involvement of France, they had to open up production to private contractors, as the annual requirement grew up to 200,000 pounds of saltpetre per year!
A similar trend happened in Spain where royal factories made munitions, guns, and gunpowder: these were in Malaga, Pamplona, Cartagena. However, in 1632 the Count-Duke of Olivares opened up all royal factories to private contractors, except for the single royal factory in Cartagena. In German lands, the centers of arms manufacturing included the Liège area (where today FN Herentals is still a major arms manufacturer), lower Rhineland, Koln, Nuremberg. Most of these were an aggregation of small workshops, individually owned, that standardized and thus combined their production.
Guns tended to be made where there was a happy meeting of iron mines, coal mines, and supply of wood. Saltpetre could be difficult to source. Some large merchants rose up to this challenge opportunity. Elias Trip and de Geer launched a major company around the Baltic to control supply of saltpetre using imports from the region, or from as far away as West Africa and the Far East.
The end of the Thirty Years' War saw a reversal of the trend to privatize, as major states took further control of their armies and the logistical system.
So if you are to focus on the 15th-17th, there were quite a bit of privatization of various aspects of logistics, although states did try to directly control many aspects of it. Of course, they had to adjust their desired level of control depending on supply and demand.
In Sweden, King Gustav I wanted to ensure that Sweden was capable of producing its own gunpowder. A law was introduced that laid royal claim to the soil under the peasants' barns and stables.
Since the soil below the animals had been literally pissed on by the animals for decades or even centuries, it was very rich in nitrates.
Kronosjudare (roughly translated as 'crown cookers') attached to the local tax collectors would collect and use the soil.
The peasants were required to supply the kronosjudare with food, lodging and firewood to boil the salpeter. According to the law, the peasants had to supply the kronosjudare with;
Roughly 1 cubic meter of 'pregnant' soil (meaning it had at least 6 years below a barn or a manure pile).
Roughly 1/2 cubic meter of sheep or hen manure.
2 bundles of hay.
Roughly 3 cubic meters of firewood.
This is per mantal of the peasant's holding. A mantal is a Swedish tax unit dependent on both the size and the productivity of the arable land. Farms were usually 1, 1/2 or 1/4 mantal.
There are stories about kronosjudare also digging up the soil below the family loo and even the lower layers of old cemetaries - archeological evidence points to the lower layers of medieval cemetaries being removed at this time, and Johan III later forbade his tax collectors to do it in a letter.
The kronosjudare would wash and leach the soil, collect the leach water and boil it in large copper kettles. Once the water had boiled away, salpeter crystals remained.
The salpeter was then transported to Åkers krutbruk where it was mixed with sulfur and charcoal, ground and wetted, dried and sometimes ground again until it was ready to use.
Later durign the 17th century, when the demand for gunpowder increased, special salpeter barns were constructed, where the peasants were required to deliver carcasses, rotten produce (such as beets and cabbage), rotting leaves, the leftovers after slaughtering, wet hay and so on. Basically anything wet and rotting. This mass was then turned over and wetted with collected and fermented urine. This way, the mass became ready for the kronosjudare in 3 years instead of 6.
The requirement to deliver 'pregnant' earth was replaced with this system and a tax to fund it in 1634.