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#211
12-21-2010, 11:26 AM
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The British Army Biscuit, by the Official Secrets Act, I cannot tell you what they are used for now, but damn its bloody effective at its current job (and anyone who as eaten them have a GOOD idea how hard these things are, and may twig)
Seriously, running gag that some squaddies think is that the old biscuits are now being used as auxiliary armour on the light tanks.
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Newbie DM/PM/GM Semi-experienced player Mostly a sci-fi nut, who plays a few PC games. I do some technical and vehicle drawings in my native M20 scale. - http://braden1986.deviantart.com/ 
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#212
12-21-2010, 04:37 PM
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Or the Cereal, Compressed in the Australian Rat packs. Mind you, I quite liked the taste even if they did require your teeth to be recapped every so often...
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If it moves, shoot it, if not push it, if it still doesn't move, use explosives. Nothing happens in isolation - it's called "the butterfly effect" Mors ante pudorem
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#213
12-22-2010, 06:45 AM
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Back in the day, when C-Rations were the main meal of choice...the most hated one was the Ham & Lima Beans ration. Heated, this one was disgusting, eaten cold....well let's just say that if given the choice of taking on a grizzily or eating H&L, well Mr. Grizzily, two falls out of three?
Favorite joke passed around was that H&L was intended for prisioner interrogation, sort of "talk or we'll make you eat more!" Of course, the H&L did have its usage. During on FTX we were "completely tactical", no lights, no radios, no fires, no visible signature. Normally, this is not a problem, but it was the middile of winter in Ft Hood, with a nice "norther" blowing and dumping snow and 15degree weather. Our fearless company commander had been a serious "pita" since his assignment to the company and it was decided to teach him a little lesson. The line platoons raided the CP after hours while the captain was at a meeting with the Bn CO, we left two cases of c-rations for the "midrats", knowing that only the captain would be indulging. And yes we took to time to load 24 Ham & Lima Bean meals. When he came back and grabbed a charlie-rat, hearing the sudden outburst of cursing come out of the CP was music to our ears.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#214
12-22-2010, 10:42 AM
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I am sure your units wasn't the only one to do this to a Company Commander that they didn't like. So would this be during the same FTX that happen over the holidays or different one.
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#215
12-22-2010, 12:15 PM
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It was a bridge-ex in early December.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#216
12-22-2010, 01:15 PM
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I always missed the spicy meatballs, about the only one in my unit granted, but still. The charms was always good for a laugh though as most thought them cursed- once tossed a pack in Hutch's hummvee and laughed my ass off as he leapt out of is if a grenade was tossed. He would't even get back in unless someone else would get them out of his ride.
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Member of the Bofors fan club! The M1911 of automatic cannon. Proud fan(atic) of the CV90 Series.
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#217
12-22-2010, 05:38 PM
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I remember the Chicken ala King MREs it seems almost every part of the chicken was found at some point or time in that meal, to hear others talk about. Come to think about it it was the one meal I would wait until it too dark to tell what it was. I rather not see what I wasn't suppose to eat...lol..
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#218
12-22-2010, 06:10 PM
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__________________
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons...First We Take Manhattan, Jennifer Warnes Entirely too much T2K stuff here: www.pmulcahy.com
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#219
12-22-2010, 06:21 PM
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__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#220
12-22-2010, 06:43 PM
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#221
12-22-2010, 07:27 PM
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At Origins in Columbus, I think it was the first year there, I was a participant in Europa-fest, a sub-convention for devotees of the Europa series (also by GDW). Winston Hamilton (RIP) was the president of GRD, which had taken over the series recently. The year previous at the "banquet," the food had run out early. This year (1996?) he had promised there would be plenty of it, and it would be a surprise.
As it's related to the posts above, you can guess what the surprise was-- 2 cases of MRE. My ROTC knowledge extended as far as avoiding the chicken ala king.
__________________
My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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#222
12-22-2010, 07:32 PM
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__________________
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons...First We Take Manhattan, Jennifer Warnes Entirely too much T2K stuff here: www.pmulcahy.com
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#223
12-22-2010, 07:45 PM
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The worst (in my opinion) in the Australian ration packs was anything with egg in it - Steak and Egg, Ham and Egg.
The best was Beef and Tortellini :P
__________________
If it moves, shoot it, if not push it, if it still doesn't move, use explosives. Nothing happens in isolation - it's called "the butterfly effect" Mors ante pudorem
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#224
12-22-2010, 07:59 PM
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#225
12-22-2010, 08:01 PM
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#226
12-22-2010, 08:06 PM
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But enough about me....  They once tried tuna with noodles...that one didn't last long either. The was once a C-Ration that was called Meat & Potatoes...the meat was pure gristle and the potatoes could be used as the filling for a canister round (and there were some tankers who were convinced that this was indeed true). And then there was egg loaf....what can I say about this one? Lets just say that eaten cold it left one with a strong desire to find a tree and stick a finger in one's throat...but the knowledge of how bad it tasted going down, made strong men weak, because how bad could it possibly taste coming back up?
__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#227
12-22-2010, 10:31 PM
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__________________
If it moves, shoot it, if not push it, if it still doesn't move, use explosives. Nothing happens in isolation - it's called "the butterfly effect" Mors ante pudorem
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#228
12-23-2010, 08:34 AM
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This will probably seem familiar after post 17...
In the mid 80s I spent 3 years as a student in a University Air Squadron (AFROTC equivalent, with 30-40 hours flying per year). We flew the Scottish Aviation Bulldog, a trainer with similar performance to the T34, but a quite lethal reputation for not recovering from spins. Our training required spin recovery practice every month. One of the bases we used was RAF Woodvale, just north of Liverpool. A little to the northwest was Southport, then still quite popular as a seaside resort, and with extensive beaches. The beach also had a section approved as an emergency landing ground. One summer, a Bulldog of a visiting squadron (not ours!) was doing spin training over the beach, and failed to recover. This was not unknown, given the 10,000 feet per minute descent rate in the spin, and rotation rate of 180 degrees per second. Both the instructor and student bailed out, and landed safely by parachute on the beach- the wind in fact carried them close to a large group of bikini-clad beach babes, who rushed to help.  So far so good, just that year's Bulldog loss, no one hurt. The squadron CO then flew over, saw one of his aircraft wrecked on the beach, and decided to land to investigate. He found a patch of soft sand, the undercarriage dug in, and his aircraft then tipped over and was written off. This arrival was far less impressive for the beach babes...
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#229
12-23-2010, 10:51 AM
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its funny how on some field problems soldiers will adopt procedures that while they are actually doctrine, annoy the chain of command(partly because no one on the OP is supposed to know that its doctrine)
example: fort drum, February 2006. my first field problem with my shiny new recon unit in tenth mountain the commander had my platoon setting up an OP. now the 19D's were mounted but me and my 11B's weren't, and anyone thats faced a fort drum blizzard can tell you how much that sucks. now because this was a "tactical" situation we weren't allowed any open fires, noise and light discipline all around. so we built an igloo for the 6 of us on that particular OP, and had a couple of 8 hour candles lit inside in small cut outs. with viewing/firing points cut into it and a ventilation hole. after 36 hours when our pickup arrives (12 hours behind schedule) we find out the roads have been shut down for safety reasons for the past day, and our PL decided to chew us out for the igloo. naturally the FNG history buff of an FO they had (me) pointed out that not only was the igloo doctrinal, but considering it dropped to -70 it was our best option to meet the CO's guidance of no cold weather injuries. oddly enough i actually got away with calling him a dumbass in that conversation.
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the best course of action when all is against you is to slow down and think critically about the situation. this way you are not blindly rushing into an ambush and your mind is doing something useful rather than getting you killed.
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#230
12-23-2010, 04:59 PM
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#231
12-23-2010, 10:06 PM
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__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#232
12-24-2010, 01:25 AM
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__________________
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons...First We Take Manhattan, Jennifer Warnes Entirely too much T2K stuff here: www.pmulcahy.com
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#233
12-24-2010, 06:42 AM
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__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#234
12-24-2010, 07:42 AM
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You are probably correct that it is an old tradition that goes back for the ages...
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#235
12-25-2010, 07:12 PM
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One REFORGER, my squadron was on its why back to the ole kaserne looking forward to getting really clean again and enjoying hot food when we got orders to join a field exercise. It seems that somebody in VIII Corps Headquarters thought it would be a good idea to take a brigade from 3ID, a squadron from 2ACR and send us south of Munich into the German II Corps area to play games with thier 4PGD.
For much of my career, I've been armored or scouts and had never had to work with mech inf, so this was a new experience...and one that I never wanted to have again. The officer in question was a Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds or "BIG SIX" as he liked to be called on the radio...he even had it mounted on a holder on the front of his jeep. And Big Six was the biggest, baddest battalion commander to ever be graced with the position. That's right, a real legend in his own mind! Our troop was pulled into an admin position because of our having taken part in REFORGER and having been entrained for the last nine hours. We needed the time to pull maintenance, and catch up on food/sleep and we were placed there while the rest of the squadron was arriving. The first time I saw Big Dick was when his jeep, with an honest-to-god-no-lie-GI siren blaring pulled into our area. Big Dick hopped out of his jeep wearing a patent-leather belt with holster with some nickel-plated pos shoved in. Spit-shined boots, starched BDUs and parka and wearing a M-1 helmet liner (the rest of us were wearing kevlar) that must have had thirty coats of ole Mop-And-Glow for that deep shine gave fair warning of what we were about to endure. You guessed it sport fans! The Big Dick wanted to conduct an inspection of every vehicle, weapon, protective mask, CEOI, and piece of classified gear that we had. Big Dick, followed by his aide, a 1st Lt, dressed just like dad and carrying a nice little book to note every word his god uttered proceeded, to rip every trooper a new one! Everything from boots not being shined to his battalion standards, to uniforms needing to be washed, dirty vehicles, troopers not in proper uniform, unauthorized flags on the vehicles right on down to rusty end connectors on the tanks. For the next five hours the Big Dick strutted around, followed by his aide, taking names and threatening Article 15s left and right. While this dog-and-pony show was going on, the remainder of the 3rd Squadron pulled into the siding and started to unload. Our troop commander was a damn-fine officer, but he was tied up trying to keep up with the BIG DICK. But the First Sergeant had the time to grab a CVC and entered the squadron command net and let them know who was present. Our squadron commander had just made the list for O-6 and was waiting for the paperwork to process before he pinned his eagle on. He showed up, wearing mud splattered BDUs and a soft cap and walked up on Big Sick, just as he was dismounting my tank...and even now, I can still remember that moment. The Big Dork stared at our boss and demanded why he didn't salute a superior officer. Our colonel carefully looked him up and down and replied "I'm waiting for the junior officer to remember proper military protocol" Our colonel had a certain style all his own, the more pissed off he was, the lower, quieter and more polite he became, by this time the troopers in the area were looking for cover because our boss was almost whispering. I guess something in our colonel's eye finally caught the attention of Big Dickless because he finally asked just what our colonel's date of rank was....when he got the answer, this sort of sick-looking grin appeared on his face as he saluted and stuttered "I thought I was in charge of this operation." As our colonel dropped his salute, he whispered back "That's what you get for thinking colonel!" Since I was standing at attention less than 3 feet away, our colonel looked at me "Sergeant, is your vehicle combat ready?" Of course I replied "YES SIR!!!!" "Return to your duties then sergeant!" "ALWAYS READY SIR!!!" and I cracked a salute and retrograded out of the area. The Big Dork then proceeded to get his tail end reemed by a cavalry Lieutenant Colonel, promotable, a graduate of the Citadel, a combat vet of the Black Horse and an expert in tearing a new asshole in his victim while never raising his voice and never cursing. Too bad I didn't have a camcorder, could have won $10,000 on america's funnest videos...or an even larger fortune selling copies to my squadron!!!!!
__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#236
12-25-2010, 07:44 PM
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So was the dick in question from the 3rd ID Brigade you were to work with?
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#237
12-26-2010, 07:30 AM
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It was always a kinda of an odd thing, but whenever 2ACR had to be pulled off of its border patrol duties for gunnery/field exercises, our relief was always pulled from the 3ID...and when we got back, the BGS troopers would inquire as to just where the US Army had located that band of idiots. Then there was the rock wars...being a cavalry outfit, the dog-and-pony show always kept the big rock right outside of the border camp gate painted red/white...whenever the 3ID showed up, the rock got painted blue/white stripes. We would come back and get orders to paint the rock again. It was always an article of faith among the troopers that the rock had originally started life the size of a baseball and had accumulated so many layers of paint that it was now the size of a VW Bug! You know the Russians who were watching this entertainment had to be convinced that it was actually some kind of propaganda ploy...because they were always painting this rock red with the ole yellow hammer/sickle...on their side of the grenze!
__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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#238
12-27-2010, 04:27 AM
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Much like soldier in the Ukraine who would be used as general laborers on the local collectives to harvest bumper crops...
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#239
12-27-2010, 07:33 AM
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And how many of us have painted rocks or cut hedges into squares?
__________________
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons...First We Take Manhattan, Jennifer Warnes Entirely too much T2K stuff here: www.pmulcahy.com
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#240
12-27-2010, 09:36 AM
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If you can't pick it up, paint it! If you can't paint it, salute it!
__________________
The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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