Field rations of the world

[Rick]

17 hours ago, Mike1158 said:

NATO standard as it still (I believe) is.  Milk and two sugars, from ground up.  Now, no clue what they do tbh.  I believe that most will add sugar when the weather is inclement.  1977 was about the worst and we actually had a grog/rum ration for sentries dung the nights.  The SNCO tasked with delivery was rather merrier than he should have been as frankly rum and water did nothing for most I asked and I thought it was/is fowl.  Pun intended.

Was a "doc" with the Marines in the early '80s. I remember an exercise on Sicily with the Italians were they had small containers of, if I remember correctly, cognac or wine with their rations. And I think those containers were plastic?

[Mike1158]

I heard that was the case but we never came into contact with them.  The Danes and the Dutch at the time were also rumoured to have a drop of the hard stuff about but we used to take something occasionally as personal acquisition/property.  Half way through the cold ones we used to have a break and a cook up which was in  the form of a contest.  We made ovens out of oil barrels and made Beef Wellington and baked Alaska once.  Hydraulic oil we used to fry chips in.  I finished as a 'Doc' in a cavalry/tank regiment, quite happy to NOT have to change Chieftain tank engines once a weekend or so.

[bojan]

Italians had grappa, French had red wine.

[sunday]

Construction drawings of French warships, up to WWII at least, are notorious for the presence of holds with several, separate wooden barrels inside. I guess those are the wine storage facilities

Edited June 14, 2022 by sunday

[Rick]

Alot of time, energy, and money

https://web.archive.org/web/20090325185649/http://nsc.natick.army.mil/media/print/OP_Rations.pdf

[bojan]

New local one:

3 mains in "A" package (meatballs in tomato sauce, pate and tuna in this one, there is 4 different ones for each) + 2 x P-38/51 style can opener, and "B" package with add-ons:

Rusk (100g) x 3

Honey (20g) x 3

Jam (28g) x 2

Dried plums (100g) x 1

Dried apricots (100g) x 1

Multivitamin drink (19g) x 1

Instant tea (19g) x 2

Compressed hard candy (18g) x 1

Sugar (5g) x 4

Disinfection gel (2g) x 5

Instructions x 1

 

[DB]

No coffee!

[bojan]

Yes, very surprised about that since coffee is very, very popular around here, way more than a tea*. "In the old days" there was even ~25g package of honey mixed with instant coffee, which provided loads of energy quickly and was favorite "wake up" sweet in the morning.

Forgot - total is about 3500 calories, with some small variables for a different "A" packages. There is additional "C" package of emergency ration that can be added to those, but AFAIK none has seen it so far.

*Tea reputation in Balkans is generally weird, it is usually considered "something you drink when you are sick" and "for old women and children". And it is most often herbal tea that is drunk, not regular black/green.

[shep854]

 

[Sardaukar]

That was funny as hell...