About to test German EPA, US MRE, UK ORP and French RCIR

[michel2827]

auch von mir ein herzliches Willkommen hier Demolition_Man.

i had one of that 2020 Epa a while ago. I can tell you that they changed some things. I had two sachets with instant Boullion in it. One other change is that they placed some of the beverages, sugar sachets and other things in a little zip lock bag.

[Demolition_Man]

Danke schön michel2827!

From what I've seen you can really tell national and cultural differences and preferences in combat rations via the breakfast choices. Lunch and dinner, well, that's mostly meat combined with beans, potatoes, rice, noodles and/or vegetables. EPA actually offers and reflects German breakfast, dinner, lunch and supper. For breakfast, bread with jam or pates and muesli are common choices. And except the muesli it is the same for supper. Basically you would eat half of the slices of the canned bread in the morning and evening, hence the two jams and two pates included in each EPA.
It's important to point out that EPA is not just meant for field use but also to provide the first meals for days or weeks when you establish camp somewhere around the world for a UN/NATO mission, with no existing infrastructure.

Italian rations are hard to find, especially when you look for those two special ones-for a decent price.

[Madcat77]

Hallo aus und nach Deutschland

I bought some different MRE´s and my goal is to write a comparison for them too with some pictures.
I have hands on 2 French RCIR (3 + 10), 2 German EPA (4+5) and 11 British 24H MRE´s (1-10 + 15) and several US MRE´s (1-12).
Right now, I opened the German Typ 4, the French Typ 3 and the Britisch Type 15. The content is in some points similar (2 portions of meal for lunch and dinner (around 300g each), instant coffee, some snack bars) in some points very different.

The French RCIR is with ~1700g a very tiny / light weight 24h ration. It contains no whitener or dry milk and had no aditional (cold) drinks. It had only 2 smal bags of sugar. Even the lack of beverage powder was a surprise. But the French Ration had the only option inside to heat up the meals. The lack of whitener was a surprise for me, because I was thinking that french people like milk coffee at the morning. So you have to drink your coffee black or sweet only.
The lack of beverage powder would I explaine with the tradition to drink water only (or red wine) when you have lunch or dinner in France.

The British 24h ration was the heaviest pack of the three nations. The only surpise was, that it didn´t brought/included some crackers or bread. So I still have to check, what I will do with the smooth peanut butter from the ration.
This ration brings a large options of drinks, hot drinks, snacks and large meals (one aditional portion of rice and one portion of 100g choclate pudding). Only the British Army ask their "consumers" what they have liked or even not.

Ther German EPA Stuff is very typical for Germany or German behavior. It brings bread and crackers (backing bread has a long time tradtion in Germany and we have a large number of different bread types) and 2 types of sausages. As for the bread, Germany has hundreds of different sausages types. The rest of the stuff is normal like for other MRE´s I think. Even in my EPA, I missed the energy bars that were mentionted on the contend list and the platic bag for the trash. One typical point for the German EPA, that it contains no spoon or something like that.

So I look for the tast comparison of each ration.

[Demolition_Man]

Hallo madcat!

In the meantime I decided to open the French menu 10. Turned out the chocolate had melted. Victim of this year's hot summer I guess. Everything else was/is in perfect condition. I love the biscuits pack, it looks really neat.
On sunday my girlfriend and I will have "Epa-Tag". We'll chew through the day with the 2014 type 5. Promises to be fun. And I'm looking into buying a Norwegian AFR and the Latvian combat ration. Gotta try that tasty looking bread for myself. And the MRE Pizza!
Does anyone have a recommendation what ration apart from Italy is a must-buy? And what are the biggest oddities or suprises you can find in rations in your opinion?

[carlosflar]

Does anyone have a recommendation what ration apart from Italy is a must-buy? And what are the biggest oddities or suprises you can find in rations in your opinion?

Polish rations are super good in my opinion, a lot of nice stuff and there is one entree called lezco, a smoky sausage stew that is amazing, and they have the SU-1 crackers with cumin!
Danish rations are also super good, and huge...
Spanish breackfast, you get a cool camo green army toothbrush with the spanish army crest on it
Croatian rations: there is one with beef goulash that is really comforting food...
CR1M, expensive, but a feast, and you get a bad ass fiel ration eating device
Those would be my recommendations

[Demolition_Man]

Thank you Carlos, I might follow on that. In the meantime I bought a Lithuanian ration menu 10 off ebay for a pretty good price. Looking forward to it.

As I said earlier today was EPA-Day. My girlfriend and I tried a 2014 production date "Typ 5" with main dishes of "meat balls, potato noodles in gravy" and "minced meat risotto". It also contained a chocolate muesli, rice pudding with sultanas and a caramel cereal bar. The jams were apricot and black currant, the pates cold beef sausage (rindfleischlyoner) and liver sausage. Apart from those the standard components of EPA: canned bread, biscuits, natural spread (butter substitute), two instant teas, two instant coffees, one instant cappucino, four drink mixes, two coffee creamers, pack of 12 chewing gums, two packs of salt and eight packs of sugar.

For breakfast we had the canned bread, "Hartkeks" biscuits, the apricot jam, the cold beef sausage pate and the muesli. Everything was very tasty. The 2014 biscuits are produced by MSI, and differ in appearance from the ones I had 16 years ago, looking thinner, however taste-wise they were almost the same as I remembered. None were broken, they were in perfect condition including a "nice little hiss" when opened. Went very well with the apricot jam. The rye bread slices taste great with the sausage, so that's my definite recommendation how you should eat it. Use the natural spread, which is butter substitute for the rye bread too. Perfect German style breakfast. The muesli is the only additional item compared to my army time, and, man, that is exceptional. Really really great. Wish I had it back then as addition to my field breakfast, perfect source of energy in the morning after a short night out in the field.
For drinks we had one tea, one coffee and the orange drink mix. We are both no coffee and tea regulars and both were not our kind of taste. The coffee tasted ok, I added one creamer and one pack of sugar and it made it better. However I would recommend to use less water than prescribed, especially the tea tasted very watery. Orange drink was ok, very sweet but if you're out in the field drinking water all the time it gives a nice change of taste. Never been a big fan of those mixes though and never will be. I drank them today just for curiosity and making it a complete test of all items.

Both mains were prepared in boiling water for lunch. I anticipated to like the meat balls more than the risotto. The opposite was true however. The gravy of the meat balls was tomato-based, which added spice to the whole meal, but didn't go too well with the potato noodles and the meat balls. A white gravy would have done a much better job, which I had expected for this meal. It was tasty nonetheless, just not what I had expected. The risotto on the other hand was simply great. Not dry, perfect seasoning, with peas and other vegetables, a bit oil, enough minced meat to stay true to it's name. Highly recommended. All in all a great combination of main dishes, I would settle on this anytime again. For drink we had exotic mix, which was ok, though overly sweet. I had the cappucino on my own, and after adding suggar to it it was fine as well.
We prepared the rice pudding for dessert-and we both disliked it. Very bland, too watery although I let it steep for fifteen minutes. A pack or two of sugar might have done the trick but we both didn't want to. That's the only let-down so far. Wish the Bundeswehr had added one of the dessert puddings you find in other EPA types of this timeframe to no. 5, for they look really delicious in reviews.
As an alternative dessert we turned our attention to the caramel cereal bar and the chocolate. The bar, made by Orifo, was another one of the items I didn't have back then, and, again, wish I had. Perfect snack on the go, very yummy. The good-old Bundeswehr chocolate bar was my life-saver back then, keeping me upright and standing when I had a large down. This one was just the same. Delicious taste, no bloom whatsoever. Man, this brought back memories. Thank you meybona, you make wonderful chocolate.

As we are going to have bread and biscuits for supper, I can conclude this review. Every item was in perfect shape and everything tasted perfectly fresh. Nothing was stale or looked/smelled/tasted strange. Adding muesli, dessert and cereal bar to the EPA was a smart move by the Bundeswehr and is highly appreciated by me. The "new" mains are just great. If ever you come across a 2013/2014 EPA Typ 5, buy it without hesitation. Be advised however that in 2015/2016 Typ 5 was changed to the vegetarian main dishes. If you plan to use EPA for a emergency food reserve I highly recommend this type too, easily providing enough food for two days.

[Demolition_Man]

Thanks to the end of exercise Trident Juncture many Norwegian arctic field rations are on the German market, and I was lucky enough to buy three (Chicken Curry, Pork Sweet'n Sour, Kebab stew) with a possible pizza content inside for a decent price. Looking forward to try these and see if I'm lucky enough to score a slice of pizza.

[Demolition_Man]

Has anyone seen Bulgarian, Romanian, Turkish rations?

[Demolition_Man]

Well I broke open my first MRE in 13 years. Menu 7 beef brisket with potatoes au gratin. Also contained a double wheat snack bread, strawberry jam, peanut butter, Irish cream cappucino,peppermint candy rings and raisins. Didn't open the accessory packet, visual check reveals the Tabasco bottle is gone. Bit of a shame. The heater worked fine but heating two pouches was a bit too much for it. Guess there's a trick I don't know yet. Both beef and potatoes were quite tasty. Snack bread with PB was yummy. Didn't try the jam, kept it for some other time. Left the candy rings untouched too, not my kind of taste. Would have prefered some chocolate. Then there's the Irish cream cappucino. Oh my god. Steve1989 coined the term "decadence" for some ration items and combinations, which is quite funny using this term for a military ration. However that cappucino is worthy of the term.Wow. I instantly regretted not having more of it. I would easily buy a full pack of this mix. Awesome drink. Delicicous. If anyone has some spares, please let me know.

[michel2827]

Hi Demolition Man

Had the same Mre quite a few weeks ago too. I totally agree with you that it is a very delicious Mre. Also left the Pepperpint Rings in its pouch. The Irish type Cappuccino was a little bit sweet for my taste but okay. So far my favourite Mre