Post
by aquarius » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:15 pm
The US Armed Forces are the best, strongest and richest in the world. So everybody expects their rations to be of the same high quality as all other US made stuff. It just doesn't make sense to send the wealthiest soldiers to combat with only a simple, meager combat ration. That's the reason your MRE's are so luxury, compared to others.
I agree that almost all military rations have too many components when you're in the field, or waging a war. But when a soldier has to kill many hours of waiting and hanging around, then these over loaded rations make sense. Unpacking all the nifty items can be fun!
Another reason is that a certain percentage of the items are not liked by soldiers. But other items are more popular with soldiers. Nobody is the same, so you can trade or just throw away the things you do not need.
(BTW: I do not like the coffee in any ration.)
Do MRE's produce too much waste? I do not think so. It may look like the new rations produce more waste than the old ones, but probably that is only a matter of false interpratations of the waste piles!
Tin cans are more expensive to produce, very hard to get rid of (they will not burn), they weigh much more and are "form stabile", which means the do not adept to the form of your spare space of your combat troucers!!
Who has ever tried to store a tin can together with an rifle magazine in the same pouch? You surely will understand that a MRE main entree is easy to store together with a magazine. BTW: The plastic MRE pouches have to be thick and strong to withstand the forces that they have to cope with... (No one likes a main entree emptied in his rucksack.)
Conlusion: I like C Rat's with lots of items, especially the MRE's.
"if you don't read the newspaper, you are uniformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed". (Mark Twain)
