Modern rations are needlessly complex
Troops eat the main meal, the candy or chocolate, and the coffee or drink mix, and thats about it. The ration, if totally consumed, has 1200 to 1400 calories. It is seldom that the entire ration is eaten. They dont have the time, or the water, to do it. I stand by my 3000 calories, and its probably less than that.
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Mirage
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If you stand by that you may wish to consider remedial mathematics.kellywmj wrote:Troops eat the main meal, the candy or chocolate, and the coffee or drink mix, and thats about it. The ration, if totally consumed, has 1200 to 1400 calories. It is seldom that the entire ration is eaten. They dont have the time, or the water, to do it. I stand by my 3000 calories, and its probably less than that.
The last time I checked 1200-1300 calories (which is the total ration caloric content) was considerably less than the 3000 calories you maintain are in the portions most troops eat.
I'm not sure what transformation allows eating 1/2 of your ration to increase it's caloric content by a factor of 2.5x, but I'd certainly be interested in knowing.
As per your last sentence "its probably less than that", it certainly is. Probably in the range of 800-1000 calories is what is actually consumed by the average soldier.
This 3000 calorie figure is something I'd really like explained - the ONLY way you'd get this total is if you ate 3 MREs per day and even then you'd be hard pressed to make up a full 3000 calories. This is beside the point in any case, as you maintain eating a partial ration gives you the 3000 calories. Feel free to clarify for me.
Okay, I have to admit: Holland is a small country with only 16 million inhabitants (about 450 persons per square km), it has a small army, and almost no experience in modern warfare, except for some Peace Keeping Missions in Libanon, the Sinaï, Angola, Cambodia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and some classified countries. Nevertheless I feel I am still entitled to my own opinion about MRE’s (and I do realise there are more important things in life.)
Untill now I hadn’t realised that the Canadian Army does have so much modern warfare experience. Missed on that one.
If rations were only ment to fill up empty soldier stomaches, then they would be made of rice or noodles and nothing more. Rations however do fullfil a more higher purpose: they boost morale!
Being cold, lonely, exhausted and a very long way from home, the ration is probably the only item in a soldiers possession that reminds him of better times. A hot, tastefull meal with a cup of warm coffee can do miracles to morale. This also applies for business men, police officers, road workers and house wives. We all know the difference in our mental state when working overtimes with or without a decent warm meal afterwards!
When you’re on a 3-day patrol humping around with a lot of ammo, communication equipment and body armor while being shot at, you probably stuff only some main entrees, crackers and chocolate in your rucksack. Or maybe some Survival rat’s. Just enough to sustain you for 3 days.
But when you are doing guard duties, boring patrols, administration or waiting on an empty air field for hours and hours, you maybe will use the nice gadgets in your MRE’s.
The first combat rations date from WW2 and the inventors listened very well to their customers!!
The coffee, tea and lemonade drinks serve yet another purpose. It seems there are too much drinks and sugar in the rations, but a strong tasting cup of coffee etcetera will camouflage the taste of bad water. Nowadays millions of bottles with crystal clear water are being brought by air planes to soldiers all over the world, but if you only can use a combination of chemical/handkerchief-purified water, you will be glad with the strong taste of your Orange Beverage Powder.
Psychology is probably the most import thing in warfare, much more important than having the better weapons. And high quality rations adress to a better state of the soldier’s mind.
Untill now I hadn’t realised that the Canadian Army does have so much modern warfare experience. Missed on that one.
If rations were only ment to fill up empty soldier stomaches, then they would be made of rice or noodles and nothing more. Rations however do fullfil a more higher purpose: they boost morale!
Being cold, lonely, exhausted and a very long way from home, the ration is probably the only item in a soldiers possession that reminds him of better times. A hot, tastefull meal with a cup of warm coffee can do miracles to morale. This also applies for business men, police officers, road workers and house wives. We all know the difference in our mental state when working overtimes with or without a decent warm meal afterwards!
When you’re on a 3-day patrol humping around with a lot of ammo, communication equipment and body armor while being shot at, you probably stuff only some main entrees, crackers and chocolate in your rucksack. Or maybe some Survival rat’s. Just enough to sustain you for 3 days.
But when you are doing guard duties, boring patrols, administration or waiting on an empty air field for hours and hours, you maybe will use the nice gadgets in your MRE’s.
The first combat rations date from WW2 and the inventors listened very well to their customers!!
The coffee, tea and lemonade drinks serve yet another purpose. It seems there are too much drinks and sugar in the rations, but a strong tasting cup of coffee etcetera will camouflage the taste of bad water. Nowadays millions of bottles with crystal clear water are being brought by air planes to soldiers all over the world, but if you only can use a combination of chemical/handkerchief-purified water, you will be glad with the strong taste of your Orange Beverage Powder.
Psychology is probably the most import thing in warfare, much more important than having the better weapons. And high quality rations adress to a better state of the soldier’s mind.
"if you don't read the newspaper, you are uniformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed". (Mark Twain)
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Mirage
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Apparently
Hmm... there is nowhere where you stated that a full days' complement of rations makes the 3000, if you bother to reread your posting you'll see that you clearly implied a single ration contained this.
By the way, its "infered", not "implied". Mine was a statement of fact, not a hint as such. To anyone reading my post, my use of the plural indicates that more than one ration was the subject of my position. Having said that, and taking your argument to its logical conclusion, do you honestly think I meant rations have 3000+- calories per meal? For a total of 9000 a day?
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BattlePriest
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