Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
meh not really there are systems on board to deal with that
Military Food/Rations Discussion
- Thread starter Cherico
- Start date
Subs have been working on this stuff for around a 100 years now I think they probally cracked the code around safe fryers by now.
bintananth
behind a desk
That doesn't mean it's either easy or cheap to implement.
Robovski
Well-known member
Because that's what first comes to mind when I think of the US Submarine service; cheap and simple. It's as close as you can get to serving on a starship in this day and age.
keeping a crew of people in a tin can sane is worth the price.
bintananth
behind a desk
Someone once gave me roughly this analogy for Gemini 7: two men in snow suits stuffed into a VW Bug with the window cranks removed and the doors welded shut for two weeks.
Ixian
Well-known member
We start a deployment with good food.
Three months later you have industrial cans of ravioli and powdered milk.
Ixian
Well-known member
We can, we just have to get close enough to the surface to vent via the snorkel. Being able to do so depends on where we are operating, middle of the Pacific? No problem. Chinese territorial waters? Nope.
bintananth
behind a desk
Yikes!
The RN during the age of sail didn't have it that bad. "We're running out of beer*" was reason enough for the Captain to make a port call to buy buttloads** of beer.
* The RN ran on booze back then and the ration was a gallon a day for every sailor.
** An actual measurement: 1 buttload ~= 384 gallons
No you are wrong.
I'm sorry but I've read up on the age of sail, and shit expecially the food could get not only bad but really god damned gross. The naval man eating weevel infested hardtact would have killed for cans of ravoli and powdered milk. This might be bland food but its better then bad food.
bintananth
behind a desk
Consider the technology and conditions of the period. The - what we would call shitty and unacceptable - rations RN sailors got was actually much more expenive and nutritious than what working class landlubbers could afford. This ain't skimping:
I'm pretty sure you don't eat 7lbs of bread, 4lbs of beef, 2lbs of pork, 3/8lb of sugar, 3/8lb of butter, and 3/4lb of cheese every week while also drinking a gallon of beer every day. Plus the oats and peas.
Consider the technology and conditions of the period. The - what we would call shitty and unacceptable - rations RN sailors got was actually much more expenive and nutritious than what working class landlubbers could afford. This ain't skimping:
I'm pretty sure you don't eat 7lbs of bread, 4lbs of beef, 2lbs of pork, 3/8lb of sugar, 3/8lb of butter, and 3/4lb of cheese every week while also drinking a gallon of beer every day. Plus the oats and peas.
those same men would gladly eat canned ravoli.
bintananth
behind a desk
Yes, they would. However canned food was mostly an upper class novelty during the first half of the 19th century.
Can openers were invented in the second half of the 19th century.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Not really the point, what those guys might have been assigned on paper has little to do with what they actually got. Corruption and graft was plentiful and a lot of the money for food wound up padding some corrupt noble's pocketbook.
Alcohol was given plentifully because the water became so contaminated in a week or two it was undrinkable unless the taste was disguised as grog. By the time they got to shore that7 5 pounds of bread would be 2 pounds of bread and 3 pounds of worms a week. There's a reason they needed press gangs to force sailors onto the ships, all sorts of measures to keep them, constantly feared mutiny, and still resorted to forced conscription from other countries (Hullo war of 1812) to get anybody to crew their ships, and it wasn't because sailors were living large with incredibly high-quality food.
Alcohol was given plentifully because the water became so contaminated in a week or two it was undrinkable unless the taste was disguised as grog. By the time they got to shore that
mrttao
Well-known member
Graft would explain why they budgeted for 14.5 lbs of food per day per sailor. It is not physically possible to cram that much food into a human stomach
But it is possible to cram that much money into a pocket of a corrupt official.
bintananth
behind a desk
It was 16.75lbs of food and 70lbs of beer per week, not per day. Officers got the same rations as the crew and good RN Captains often supplemented that with whatever fresh foods they could get their hands on.
The RN tried very hard to keep the corruption and graft to a minimum because the captain would be the first one over the side if a crew mutinied. An RN captain had to really screw up - like Lt. Bligh levels of screwups - for a crew to mutiny.
It was the merchant sailors who really got fucked over back then, much like today.
Yeah -- back in Golden Age of Sailing, the captain and officers knew that, while they still had to maintain and instill discipline in the crew, if they truly fucked up, they were outnumbered and the first for the plank, rope, or musket ball to the head.
Authority and being a rich officer doesn't mean anything if there's a blade in your gut from people who don't give a shit about those things.
Maintaining the rum ration was also critical for maintaining morale, too.
bintananth
behind a desk
And crew health. The rum was used to make the lime juice used to prevent scurvy actually drinkable. Sorta like how the gin in a gin and tonic makes the quinine used to treat malaria symptoms in the tonic water somewhat palatable. Cheers and drink up!
Incidentally, I love the smell of tonic water. It reminds me of Sprite, sorta.
But the taste? Jesus Christ, I'd rather pour raw Carolina Reaper juice on my tongue.
its not so bad when you mix it with something else like juice.