Domestic food specifics.....
 

I was putting some cans in the storm supplies, when a "durr" moment caused me to realize the cans have the weight in grams. Now one can be creative with what is "X"kg of domestic food. Here are some samples.

Klim/Nido small can is .56kg
Tang plastic can is .36kg
Large coffee plastic can .79kg
Can of chunky soup .34kg
Don't know why this struck me.

Are these weights of the contents or of the packaged item?

- You want the packaged item weight as your character has to carry it.
- you want the contents weight, as that is the part that nourishes your character. Unless you are a billy goat or a Runequest troll, in which case, the packaging counts as nourishment...

Uncle Ted

I put the content weight. Initially I thought of luxuries, but might expand the list. Refugees and salvage teams might like a quick list of actual items even if it's, generic condensed soup, or one serving beans and franks(.425kg and .22kg)

I always thought of domestic food as something similar to what you might get at a field kitchen -- a sandwich or hot dog, A and B rations, a carton of milk or a can of soda, green eggs and ham, etc -- something like that.

Always include the packaging weight. It is important for the longevity of the food and that weight reduces what your players can carry for weapons and ammo. Clandestine game balance at work.

But when doing salvage, most will be COTS items. This will be the case in "Armies of the Night" redux. In trading, like "The Free City of Krakow" it would be a mix, drawing rations from a depot would yield the above. It's mainly filler details, but I like that this has generated discussion, always useful stuff.

See, this is one of the most interesting yet least understood aspects of T2K. Sure, you have the MRE's but what of the human comforts of June 2000 Poland. Is it rotgut potato vodka or 1.5 bottle of Johnny Walker Red? Is it homebrewed crap or the latest incarnation of Warsteiner? My oldest son insisted that his PC rolled for a mountain bike, even though he rolled a "26" for a bicycle ( I made him spend 1000 xp for said bike, even though that could have bought him a generator with diesel). As much as we dispute the greater aspects of 20th/21st century Western War, the root of the game is surviving what happens after that, and that's why we love it!

Plus MRE's are not survival rations, they're combat rations. That reminds me to look at the Mtn House weights. At Yokota AB, a case of Bud helped when dealing with the JN's more than correct paper work.

LOL, I cleared CIF at Taegu, ROK with two cartons of Marlboro Reds......

Missing items, dirt, unserviceable... all together unsat.

Korean Civilian takes one look, no, no, no. Lifts the waterproof bag. Two carton, stops. Hand carries my paperwork to the other end. Korean there stamps it and signs off..... out the door I went. :)

At Ft Bragg, they unsatted my rucksack. My sergeant said, "Don't clean it, don't wash it, just throw it in your locker and forget about." Two days later, I turned it in and it passed.

Back in the 70s as my wife tells it, Salems or other menthol cigarettes got you through customs in Egypt pretty easily.
<Customs Agent> Miss, you are only allowed to bring in one carton of cigarettes.
<Wife, in her young innocent college age woman mode> Oh, dear, I _really_ didn't know. I wasn't trying to break the rules. Here: you'll take care of the overage, won't you? ("wide-eyed face of a cherub" engaged).
<Agent> Of course, miss. (goes no further with examination of luggage, puts on appropriate tags and stickers). You may go on.

[QUOTE=WallShadow;64790]Back in the 70s as my wife tells it, Salems or other menthol cigarettes got you through customs in Egypt pretty easily.
In Korea, if you went to the PX at Camp Casey and got a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, you could get just about anything out of the Koreans -- from a special wash job on your TA-50 that would pass any inspection (including CIF) to deep discounts on brand-name electronics (including having them brought to your hooch so you didn't have to use your ration card). We used to bring a few bottles to the field and got all kinds of stuff on the local economy.

The locals could resell them for a fortune. I brought two bottles to a certain shop downrange and got a complete set of TA-50 plus other kit, and from that point on, I just put the stuff CIF issued me in a duffel bag and never used it.

You know, it would probably be worthwhile compiling a list of typical packaged food weights from the various countries involved.
I'm thinking of this for the benefits of comparison as much as for the game mechanics so for example, what would be the typical size/weight of a tin of soup from the Canada, Germany, Poland, the UK, the USA, the USSR/Russia?
If they're exactly the same then great but if there is any difference in sizes, we can use that as another (no pun intended) flavour element for the game.

But I'm also thinking of the extra details like this, as far as I am aware, while you can buy cartons of beer in cans in Poland, in Germany they typically sell it in bottle in crates of 20.
The only problem I can see for this idea is whether the sizes/weights have remained constant from the 1990s to now or if there were different "typically" sizes/weights.



And for what it's worth, according to a friend who spent some time in Poland teaching English, the tobacco in Polish brand cigarettes (like many other Eastern European brands apparently) is rough at best and downright harsh at worst!

Gents these stories are awesome! Please keep them coming as details like these are what separates an average game from an unforgettable game!

I bought a taxi ride from Camp Carrol (Waegwan) to Camp Henry (Taegu) with the magnum bottle of Jack Daniels. I missed the train getting some round eye and had to get back before curfew.... $300.00 taxi ride for less than twenty. :)

http://reprorations.com/ unfortunately suspending operations for a few months.

http://www.dererstezug.com/German_Ra..._the_Front.htm

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=us

I remember Marlboros (Red, boxed) and Levi's 501 Blue Jeans being the currency of choice during the Reforger exercises in Germany. I wonder if those "Bratwagons" would show up on the firing point during a real battle. I wouldn't put it past those German food vendors.

I've already posted how little bottles of booze, candy bars, disposable Bic lighters, and a cheap Casio watch allowed me and my charges to pass through a couple of roadbocks in Nigeria. I still get a chill down my spine thinking about it.

A minor update, while looking for gross weight of canned items, there are a number of food items in plastic retort style packages. The nukable stuff could be heated by dunking the sealed item in boiling water, some long tongs are all that's needed.

Some time ago I published a book on sidewise time/dimension travel based on the backstory of Road to Armageddon ... and did a fair bit of research on Food-Energy-Raw Materials-Transport which may be of interest/use.

I have just run up a PDF of the relevant chapter which you can download from ...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/51m611x40b...ample.pdf?dl=0

... if you're really interested, the whole book, 'Displaced' is available on RPGNow (see 'Phalanx Games Design').

Phil

Just remember: If you want to avoid scurvy, one Kool-Aid packet makes 1/2 gallon of drink, which has 80% of the Adult Minimum Daily Requirement for Vitamin C. OF course, you'd have to drink about 2 1/2 quarts of the stuff to get the MDR, and that's a lot of Kool-Aid! But I guess it's better than having your teeth fall out and persistently non-healing sores.

How much dose Tang weight or a Twinkie

One surprising fact is that potatoes provide quite a bit of vitamin C.

Given people often have potatoes in their home, it is pretty easy to plant them (unlike hybrid grains) and they can grow in poor soil, I suspect they would be very common in the post war T2k diet.

keep in mind there are all kinds of things you can eat (just watch Man Vs. Wild or Survivorman to see what I mean) that people dont think of normally - I am betting that a lot of starving people would walk right by things that they dont know are edible

for instance cattails are very very common here in the US - and you get more edible starch from them then you do potatoes - and have eaten them myself

another is burdocks - we used to eat them all the time - to most its a weed but in western NY you can find lots of people eating them

and dandelions make one very good salad

Twinkies (original) weigh 42.5 gm apiece. Call a package of 2, with wrapping
95 gm, or .1 kg to round up.

Tang packaging says 20 oz container makes 24 servings; serving weight ~24 gm of Tang each. 20 oz container (by math) hold .576 kg of tang, plus something fro the packaging. Say .7 kg.


Uncle Ted

0.1 kg for a treat with the shelf life of an MRE...sounds good to me. Where are you... You spongy little delicious B******ds???!!!

You wonder with the need to continue to produce ethanol will MilGov and CivGov take the time to educated people to switch over to other food sources (i.e. stuff like burdocks, cattails, dandelions, etc..) to preserve that production - i.e. no you cant touch that corn - but look at all the stuff that is growing wild that you can eat

the question is how many people have the knowledge for what to look for and can teach the survivors

I wondering if you see victory gardens like in WWII, I mean would there be rationing before the Nuclear exchange?

Independence, Missouri still has victory garden laws that include waivers for poultry and other small animals. Also urban areas encourage community gardens and farmers markets. Victory gardens increase food and make people feel like they are doing something useful. Rationing depends on which system, T2K V1,2 yes, conventional war for years. T2013, not really enough time before the bombs, so rationing would result from the disruptions caused by the bombs, so perhaps a little more stuff out there. Victory gardens with poultry, rabbits and a few goats might be quite a resource.

Treasure Foods
 

Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and RPGs were new, I ran DnD. The wider story of my world included visits by extra terrestrial traders.

In the larger hoards of the world (waiting to be discovered) were

• Twinkies mk III (shelf-life measured in centuries, and just as tasty as today)
• Fresh Frozen SaraLee Banana Cake
• Sta-fresh sealed packages of Lox (smoked salmon)

Occasionally, for a state function (like a wedding between dynasties or a peace treaty ending a war), a package would be broached or presented.

Personally, I could manage a forced march better with the promise of a Twinkie on the other end. The new version (post 2011) is just not as good. And yes, I totally identified with that aspect of Tallahassee in Zombieland.

Uncle Ted

I think you would see it ramping up; by spring 1998, I could see the prices of food running higher and higher (like beef this year), and more people putting in a garden just to save some money. I could also see official encouragement by the governments of the belligerent nations to encourage this, as

1. The Governments are buying food for their soldiers (and I can see the US and Canada supplying a China and Germany disrupted by war).
2. Governments are using more of their domestic transport resources to support the war effort (in the US, fewer trains available to ship lettuce from the Imperial Valley in California to east coast food markets).

Uncle Ted