MREInfo News

You may or may not have heard of trioxane - it’s a compressed fuel bar that’s made to heat military rations and boil water for hot drinks. Trioxane is similar in use to the hexamine and esbit tabs used more often in Europe.

I ran across something interesting last night - it’s a solicitation notice from May 2004 from Natick (US Army Research, Development and Engineering Acquistion Center) for something called the “Enhanced Fuel Bar (EFB) Type I and Type II”. They’re looking for 200 samples of each, with a possible production run of 600,000 Type I’s and 200,000 Type II’s.

Here’s the description of the EFB’s: The EFB is a gelled fuel developed as a non-hazardous replacement to the Trioxane tablets currently used by individual members of all Military Services to heat water and beverages in a field environment. The heating capacity of the fuel shall be such that combustion of -1.1 ounces of the fuel shall be sufficient to raise the temperature of 14 ounces of water contained in a standard canteen cup through a 100 degrees F rise in temperature.

Type I EFBs are described as single use pouches, containing 1.25 ounces of fuel, 5 in. x 3 in. x 0.33 in.
Type II EFBs are described as multi use, recloseable pouches containing 6 ounces of fuel, 6-1/8 in. x 6 in. x 1 in.

It looks like this isn’t the first time they’ve taken a look at replacing trioxane. I found this market research request from July 1996 that indicates they were looking for companies that manufacture these things.

That notice had this to say: The current standard fuel bar, Trioxane, produces noxious and potentially hazardous fumes that restrict its overall usefulness. Trioxane consists primarily of the chemical metaformaldehyde, and formaldehyde has been recently identified by OSHA, NIOSH, and ACGIH as a suspected carcinogen. While the current fuel bar is relatively light in weight and burns without smoke, there are a variety of fuels based on ethyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, and diethylene glycol that provide the same function but are nonhazardous. These fuels also burn slower and more efficiently so that less fuel is required.

So I did some searching around the net and as best I can tell, “gelled fuel” is best described as good ol’ Sterno. But apprently, this isn’t just your regular canned sterno, it sounds like it’s something that comes in a pack of some sort. Does the pack itself burn? Do you light the pack? Do you open it? I don’t know. The only other thing I could find was a picture of some “Ethanol Fuel Gel” packs from this site. Here’s a picture:

After much prodding from some frequent mreinfo.com site visitors (you know who you are), I’ve added a Forums section to the web site.

So far, I have set up three forums:

“General” for general MRE/rations/whatever talk
“MREInfo Site Feedback” for comments and suggestions about the mreinfo.com site
“Buy/Sell/Trade” for all your rations needs.

Comment on this in the forum

So here we are in 2005 but there’s still no sign of the 2005 MRE menus on the DSCP’s web site. That’s kind of strange, especially seeing as last year, the 2004 menus were posted in late 2003.

Of course, you can pretty much figure out what the 2005 menus are going to look like based on the MRE improvements page (or see the official page here.

Simon from the UK emailed me that the picture of the hexamine stove on my British Rations page was not the correct picture - it was a picure of a European esbit stove. He sent me pictures of the correct stove and I posted them (and an updated description) on the webpage.

After a number of recommendations from other mreinfo.com visitors, I picked up a copy of January 2005’s Maxim Magazine to check out their article on MREs from around the world.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s on page 98 and is a two-page spread. They have pictures of a French RCIRon the left page - all the pieces opened and displayed - and a US MRE on the right page with all the parts opened and displayed. At the bottom of the page, they have pictures of the outside boxes of a German Einmannpackung, a Norweigian ration, a Canadian IMP, and a British 24-Hour ration pack.

For each of the French and US ration parts, they have short comments. For the other rations at the bottom of the screen, they just have a short summary it. I suppose the comments on the French and US ration parts are suppose to be funny and stereotypical. For example, every comment about the RCIRs are complementary…but in a backhanded manner. For example, the apricot energy bar is described as “excellent for eating while running away” and the crackers as “perfect for refreshing the palate during a wine-tasting battle”.

But lest you think the article was pro-US article, check out the comments about the US MRE:

The spoon - “The color of this spoon camouflages perfectly the shit you’re eating”
Beef w/ Mushrooms - “looks like vomit so you don’t have to wait!”

What’s funny is that they described the IMP spoon as a “prize inside” that actually reaches the bottom of the bag - and the IMP spoon and MRE spoons are very similar.

Most of the other ration packs (with the exception of the British ration pack) got glowing reviews and it should come as no surprise that they picked the RCIR as the winner. I won’t argue the point with them - it’s a personal thing which rations you prefer and I understand that the article was mostly tongue-in-cheek anyway. But the whole tone still came off as “all other rations are great and the US MREs are shit”.

I just think the MREs deserve a better break than that. A lot of people put a lot of work into improving those things - we’ve gone from “Ham and Lima Beans” and “Turkey Loaf” to “Cheese Tortellini” and “Spaghetti w/Meat Sauce”.

In one of the comments sections, Steve was asking for more info on Australian rations packs. I’ve been working on that web page and it should be up soon. But until then, here are a couple of links:

Digger History
Great Japanese Rations site. You’ll need to run this through Babelfish if you don’t read Japanese and want more than pictures.

The Russian Ration Review page is now up. Thomas, the same guy who sent in the pictures of the Russian ration, was kind/brave enough to try eating it, too. His review also contains the web address of one of the companies who make the ration components.

The Russian rations page is now up. Thanks again to Thomas from Germany for providing all the pics from what looks to be a fairly current ration. Also be sure to check out the english translation of the ration menu that was included in the box. If anyone wants to correct/improve my translation of the menu, please email me.

Thomas from Germany just sent in this scan of a menu from a Russian ration. I’m working on translating it and as soon I have it done, I’ll add a Russian Ration page to the web site:

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