"Old School" ration heating on a vehicle

[rationtin440]

Not sure where else to post this so here goes; I recall reading an article in a military magazine several years ago about UK and Australian troops in Vietnam heating canned rations on the engine decks of their armored vehicles. The article mentioned that the grill-work of the engine decks was the right dimensions to hold cans and they could be heated very quickly. Just curious if any of the members of this forum from Europe or the UK/Australia know anything about this and if they might have had any more recent experience with this stuff? Thanks.

[dirtbag]

We used to drop the M (meat) cans from the MCI's down the exaust stack on trucks, while idling.
After a few minutes, just blip the throttle and 'Et Viola', hot, diesel smelling rats.
OR, puncture the can & set on the engine manifold... slower, but better tasting.
Some also boiled the cans in their canteen cup, using heat tabs (slooow), or a pinch of C-4 (ultra fast...)!
Where I was, the food was plenty hot at room temp...
To me, most of the meat items smelled and tasted like SPAM, and as I hate SPAM, I mostly lived on the crackers, PB and J, and canned peaches, pound cakes etc...
Too hot to eat much anyway!

[housil]

In 1989 on a move we tried to heat up MCI cans next to the exhaust pipe of our Jeep. They became "lukewarm" after 150 klicks (km), we lost that one we placed at the manifold

[Stef]

in the 80's there was a place on our AMX-13 APC's engine that was really hot after a few hours of road and we used it as a can heater for our "ration-collective".

[rationtin440]

Thanks for the replies guys.

[dirtbag]

IIRC, the Brit Tanks used to have a hot water tank, for heating rations and making tea...
I don't know if the latest Tanks have this feature.
American M1 tankers use the jet exaust at the rear to heat stuff... 1500F !

[Treesuit]

I don't know if this is old school or not, but during the early 80's when the Humvee was being developed they had a electric ration heater which could also dispense hot water through a spout on the face of the unit. All you had to do was plug it into a AC/DC adapter in the front passenger area of the vehicle. It looked more like a box with a lid on it, that snapped shut with a latch. Now I'm not sure about the hot water other than re-using the water in the box to heat up the MRE's.
From our discussions here I think in those days when you had a MCI/MRE conversion you could try an do both and get some hot food if you had either or. Course I don't know if this was true or in existence but nowadays some of the more modern amoured combat vehicles have this device installed in them, which I think is absolutely remarkable. Oh yeah I also know that back in my Marine Corps days when I was with a Light Amored Vehicles (LAV-25's) the guys driving them would put their MRE's flat on the exhaust grates while the vehicle was idiling and heat them up that way when it was cold out.

[dirtbag]

Yeah, those rat heaters show up on ebay occasionlly. IIRC, 24 Volts, Beau Coup amps...

[housil]

That one?

[Stef]

I've seen that a few times on eBay.fr