You'd better ration your attention span on this one.

[bru888]

Test: See if you can get through this article without your eyes glazing over like the fat in cold pork and beans. No ration-al person is going to care about these distinctions. The author of this article should be canned.

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[Brenmusik]

Interesting, thanks for posting.

[StuccoFresco]

I didn't even know A- and B- rations existed, thanks!

[conboy]

Thanks for posting that, Bru. I learned something - I always thought C-Rats stood for Combat Rations. I almost think they told us that in basic training -- I know they gave us some C-Rats because there were smokes in them - filterless Chesterfields that instantly burned up if you lit them. Maybe they gave them to us so we would be so grateful that we were getting Meals Ready to Eat (MREs). We called MREs C-Rats too (I think, my memory doesn't serve me well these days). On second thought, we were corrected if we called MREs C-Rats. We also had LRPs - Long Range Patrol rations. You had to boil water to eat the main course.
I never knew rations were designated like that in WWII, so thanks.

conboy

[cutydt02]

Wew, i know that Soviet soldiers threw a region victory in Winter War by smelling the sausage from a random Finn field kitchen. But it’s still so surprised that Army relying on field kitchen much much more than canned and hard stuffs

[terminator]

In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte offered an award of 12,000 francs to anyone who could devise a practical method for food preservation for armies on the march; he is widely reported as saying "An army marches on its stomach".

[ColonelKurtz]

Comparing Ration Packs between nations is fascinating.

[blondus]

nice article

https://www-repubblica-it.translate.goo ... x_tr_hl=it

[GabeKnight]

An informative read.
Thanks, Bruce.

[w_michael]

There is a great, very detailed, YouTube video series on military rations. This one is on 1944 WW2 British, Pacific, 24 hour MRE ration packs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtgdbucX3nc

Steve even eats theme!

[yossariano]

I was reading in Christian G. Appy's "Vietnam" about the NVA regulars who would plant a small amount of rice beside the trail, every man. Next season, there was rice for the next man. I believe this was the Ho Chi Minh trail but my memory escapes me. I liked that long term sustainable low tech approach to feeding a marching army.

[Erik2]

Last D-Day ration in existence (from today's BBC-news).

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[bru888]

Last D-Day ration in existence (from today's BBC-news).

d_day_ration.jpg

The "most preferred" A- variety, I see. Probably still tasty, even today.

[Spinflight]

I do miss Cheese Possessed. No idea what it was made of, certainly wasn't cheese and never went off, but I was one of the only people that liked it. Though as MRE is rumoured to mean Meals Rejected by Etheopians....

In the TA we used to get old ration boxes with a white Mars bar in them. Story I heard was they sold a load to the Iranians back in the 70s, but when the Shah was deposed they didn't know what to do with them. So they sat in storage for 30 years or so before deciding to give them to us. Note that the Mars bar wasn't originally white, though apparently chocolate goes white when it's very old. They tasted great though.

[Albertross]

I do miss Cheese Possessed.

Cheese Possessed and Biscuits, Dog Along with Jam, plum and the good olde Oatmeal Block - good eating! Not so good were those ghastly canned sausages in the ten man packs (although the bomb sniffer dogs loved them), Soup, Mock Turtle (seriously?) and that deep frozen margarine in a toothpaste tube that you needed to drive a 432 over to get any out. Ah yes, and those superannuated chocolate bars that had disappeared from civilian sale decades ago - I swear some of our ration packs had 'best before Inkerman' stamped on them Happy daze!