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Advisory Panel
warming up 1944 dated C-Rats
I had forgotten some of that. We were out on Coronado-cross-the-bay, on the beach strip you and others here must know well. We were doing IBS surf indoc with the USMC and when lunch arrived, it was C's from 1945. All well marked and perfect condition... Well, it WAS 1974 so they were pretty new still. I remember the smokes the next January up in Ft Wainwright when Bear and I were doing a Jack Frost ex or whatever we called it then. The good smokes went fast and the Benson and Hedges 100's were everywhere...menthols...yuk.
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Thank You to browningautorifle For This Useful Post:
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04-09-2017 07:33 PM
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One of the civilian mess caterers at Warminster was on the compo ration procurement and evaluation side of catering for many years before he went over to the 'industrial catering' side of life. He told me that this meant dealing with the actual make-up, quality, sealing and packaging etc etc of all Army field rations. It was a very complex process dealing with calorific values and all that palava, must be able to be eaten hot and cold, ability to be heated to x temp using 1 hexi block in x amount of water. A lot of it was tested on the blokes based at the Demonstration Battalion at Warminster in hot and cold climates. Of course, they wanted all commercial boil in the bag stuff that they get at home but out in the field ain't home with a big hot stove or oven! They also wanted sweets and crisps etc etc as snacks!!! It also had to last a long time and remain tightly sealed for years. Chocolate and sweets were formulated to keep off thirst so very little salt content. Best was tins of course but big drawbacks so double sealed and lined bags were necessary but were easily split.
All these conditions made it VERY expensive to procure. But a very interesting mess caterer.
The good thing about it was after evaluation by the teams after field testing changes etc etc, they could introduce it into the general mess fare a bit at a time and utilise it. I used to take the sweets and chocolate bars up to the workshop res room for the blokes to have at break times. They could taste the difference between it and the commercial chocolates/sweets that looked similar. Also took the odd case of unused stuff for my sons school CCF (Cadets) and they'd use it on their field days and training exercises.
To be honest, there must be the makings of a good little book about the various field rations used among the armies........ After all, someone's written a book about webbing kit!
Last edited by Peter Laidler; 04-10-2017 at 09:08 AM.
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Thank You to Peter Laidler For This Useful Post:
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Advisory Panel
the various field rations
One of my Snr NCOs collected foreign rations as well...
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Thank You to browningautorifle For This Useful Post:
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To be honest, there must be the makings of a good little book about the various field rations used among the armies........ After all, someone's written a book about webbing kit!
You're elected!
I look forward to adding it to my limited culinary arts collection.