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Old 12-31-2009, 10:32 PM
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Legbreaker Legbreaker is offline
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Location: Tasmania, Australia
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Obviously every nation has their own versions of field rations - MRE's in the US, "rat packs" in Australia, and so on. Each version is also of different quality, right down to the actual "menu" (I couldn't stomach anything with eggs in a can while others couldn't get enough of it).
Climate must also be addressed by the creators of each type of ration. A pack designed for us in the artic for example would be next to useless in the tropics due to the different demands on the human body. For example, hot coffee, high in demand in cold weather would be discarded in favour of electrolyte ladden drink powders, etc in the tropics.

Time is another factor. Back in the early 90's, the only dehydrated items our issued ration packs contained was a packet of 2 minute noodles - everything else was canned, in biscuits, or in a tube (condensed milk, jam, etc). A few years later in the mid to late 90's, the composition of the rat packs changed to include the sort of freeze dried meals that had been available to civilan campers for years.
Personally I felt the freezed dried stuff wasn't a good move as it required a solider to carry more water, thereby increasing his load.

There were three levels of rations - fresh, 10 man ration packs, and the 24 hour and 1 meal packs (hated the latter - not enough in them although they shared components with the 24 hr).
When we were operating for more than a few days in the bush, fresh food was almost always provided whenever possible and the 24/1 meal ration packs used only on patrols or in an emergency. Often though the 10 man packs would replace fresh rations and be prepared by the company cook / fitter and turner (fits good food into pots and turns it into crap).

I would expect that the individual rations would become less and less common as the war dragged on and fresh and unit style packs would become more common. Canned and bottled foods, along with other methods of preservation (salting, drying, smoking, baking into hardtack, etc) would become the norm.
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