NKPA Rations

[Cracker]

Your moral does not have to be high, you don't need to believe in an end cause, you don't need to be brainwashed...


Look at sovjet russia, and what the choices were. The officer's bullet or the enemy's bullet.

But all together, I simply can't believe they don't have shelf stable foods. Dried rice for fieldkitches is understandable. But there just have to be canned food items. Think of stuff like luncheon meat, corned beef, chicken etc. Some animals (like goats, rabbits, cows) don't need a food supply, but can live "of the land". The same goes for fish.

With some technical en financial input it's quite easy to breed animals and other foods. The biggest problem is the lack of funds in North Korea, but that doesn't want to say there is nothing available. The situation might be very bad, but that food doesn't want to say that all people there are starving. I think there's a lot of home grown stuff (livestock, vegetables, dairy). The proper food ends up with the "important" people. Offcourse party members, but I'm quite sure that it also goes to the military. This is just because North Korea (and other dictatorships..) spend lots of money on the military.

Why would they maintain thousands of tanks, airplanes, ships, if they can't feed the personell?
With the invested money, they can buy cheap rations (chinese made.. and they just have to hop over the border..). It sure as hell isn't up to our standards, but calories are calories. And when your used to crappy food, I don't really think you will dislike military canned meat products.

I guess it's being done in the old WW2 way. Simply give your soldiers fieldkitchen food and supplement that with canned food. But one way or another.. I wouldn't want to eat it. Food standards are quite unknown in that part of the world.

[Treesuit]

Cracker,

That's a good point and theory, I'd buy it. The thing is that, sure we here in the west don't know exactly what the NK uses are far as rations. I merely pointed out that the simple concept of a bag full of canned rations, whether it be beef, chicken, fish or vegetables would be enough with some cooked rice to last a soldier for a few days. I have read stories and accounts from the NVA/VC from back in the first and second Indochina wars that mere front line infantry had nothing more than a few days of raw vegetables and rice to live on and sometimes a small ration of cooked beef if conditions allowed every 3-4 days. I defintely think that would be enough to go on for substinence but not calorie wise as it would be to little. That in a sense is what might happen with the NKPA.

Another good point I do think is that the Chinese would and have supplied the NK with canned foods either that or some other food source.

The idea of using field kitchens is plausible and I wouldn't exclude it, but what evidence is there that we know of? Also is there any evidence of regular army units having communial gardens and livestock?

[Bypah]

North Korea doesn't have shit. If they did, they would have used it long ago...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... eapons.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... index.html

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR ENEMY!!!!!!
That has been the problem of the US. Look what happened in Irak with the insurgency and now what is happening in Afghanistan.
right now we are bogged down....
The North koreans have been stock pilling and upgrading their equipment for yearsin preparation for a final confrontation with the south and an eventual unification under their rule.... For them the war never ended!
You never show your enemy what you got....is like poker you never give away your hand!!!!


I will leave you some food for thought.....

"Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

"PRETEND INFERIORITY AND ENCOURAGE HIS ARROGANCE (of the enemy)"

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

"All war is deception."
"SHOW YOUR STRENGTHS AS YOUR WEAKNESS...YOUR WEAKNESS AS YOUR STRENGTHS."

From the ART OF WAR.....
Sun Tzu

[biscuits brown]

Im trying to upload a picture of a NK mobile truck mounted field kitchen from last year, but its not letting me.

[Cracker]

@ Treesuit, I don't mean the military units grow their own things. But they take more profit from civil agriculture then the civilian population. It's a really military oriented nation. As said before, both of the Koreas never signed a truce. They only have a cease-fire agreement. (armistice) So officially, they are still at war.

That's why both koreas tend to put a lot of money into the military.

I also think that the military is a HUGE part of the north korean culture.

Just look at the numbers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _of_troops

420 of 1000 inhabitants "is a soldier" (cannon fodder)
They do have starvation in certain regions, but they do have agriculture.
Where is that food going? The civillians are not getting it, but, they have a huge army to feed.

That's why I think it's very plausible that "being a soldier" brings certain benefits in North Korea.
And I simply can't imagine that you keep hundreds of thousands of men, vehicles, airplanes and ships ready.. and don't have any form of shelf stable food to provide them. A army marches on it's stomach.

You can ask Hitler, you can ask Napoleon and in a couple of decades you might ask the evil Kim guy.
Rice is very shelf stable, and I guess it will be a big part of the military diet, like in all other Asian countries. And don't forget. Small asian people don't need as much calories as an large caucasian soldier.

(How many calories do, for example, the South Korean, Chinese and Japanese rations pack?)

I guess it will be a lot lower then the western 3500-4000 kcal rations

[biscuits brown]

from the Global Encylopaedia, on NKA conscript conditions;

The quality of life for the enlisted soldier is difficult to evaluate. Conditions are harsh, rations are 650-750 gms a day (80-90% of the ROK army ration) depending on branch of service..
In addition, soldiers perform duties not related to their mission. Units are expected to grow crops and to raise livestock or fish to supplement their rations

[Cracker]

They actually do grow their own stuff - wow.
Just imagine. That would be a very, very bad thing in case of a war.

[biscuits brown]

This entry only appears to deal with the major basic training camps, so I am thinking that the grow your own philosophy is as much an official gesture of solidarity with the peasants and workers as a practical necessity.
I very much doubt if it is vital in any way.

I would agree that the NKs probably have huge stockpiles of Chinese aquired combat rations, and perhaps others, certainly SK ones also "acquired" on the international market, probably via China. They would also have a significant canning industry, although it probably almost all goes to the military.
Remember the NK SF/espionage recce boat captured by the Japanese had Japanese ration items on board.

The pic I am attempting to post shows NK personell using a very modern looking truck mounted mobile kitchen unit.
Also check their excellent sand coloured camouflage uniforms, very modern and perhaps the first pic of their "summer" DPM uniform. it appears to be a copy of some US kit, especially the hats. It seems to be only a couple of years old at most.

I believe it was taken by a foreign disaster relief photographer, and does not seem staged.

I am also finding pics of other NK personell, and the kit looks as modern as any army. They seem to have a woodland type DPM material, similar to the US 80s 90s patterns.

I would estimate the NKA ration calorific worth to be about 70-80% of the ROK one.

I will try to get the current SK rations cal numbers from somewhere.

Its probably at least 3000 cals.

[biscuits brown]

Spetsnaz trained soldiers? I'm sorry but that's bullshit. The only people who are trained like that are Kim's Praetorian guards which probably don't number past 10 and are his personal defense brigade.

Yeah right..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kore ... tion_Force

[Cracker]

I believe especially North Korea has special forces.
All dictatorships want to have the best army ever, so they always have an "elite" force.

If they are on the same level as the ones from the bigger nations? I don't know.
But I'm 110% sure they have an superior fighting force (compared to normal forces).

Most of the time they don't follow the "special forces" philosophy, but dictatorships tend to make their own Waffen SS like unit. They simply give one kind of fighting force better equipment and more resources.