Nutrition features of a scout in a zone of military conflicts (Part II)
Additional nutrition and their delights In the first part, we looked at several options for an IRP..
But besides the main ration in the course of combat operations, the reconnaissance group was provided with additional food:
When - according to the standards established for the warring units of the main food authority;
When - beyond all standards;
And when in any way ...
But here everything depended on the commander of the detachment and the rear men.
Almost in all the detachments from Bamut to Novogroznensky juice was given out.
Juices were mostly fruit, and just like mineral water from various manufacturers.
Moreover, manufacturers differed by year.
In one year - the juice "Vico", in another year - "Some sort of garden there" and so on.
It was possible to determine by juices which campaign in a given year entered into a contract with the Ministry for the supply of its products.
I want to note that in the first conflict (in the 95 year) juices were supplied and distributed regularly, and I don’t remember the quality of the Krasnodar campaign of excellent quality.
Especially good was orange.
For the second campaign, juices were also sufficient, but the quality was far from that, although the packages were much more colorful with plastic lids, spills and other “frills”.
Juices were mostly fruit: apple, grape, orange.
Vegetables (I mean my favorite tomato) I met only in the first Chechen campaign, and very rarely.
The groups leaving the “task” often gave out juice in packets.
But in a backpack it is extremely inconvenient to carry it, so the scouts poured juice into plastic bottles and diluted it with mineral and plain water.
I liked the recipe when in a bottle of 1,5 l. From under the mineral water they pour out two hundred and fifty grams of apple and two hundred and fifty grams of orange and all this is diluted with water.
Not too sweet, not too sour and quite qualitatively removes thirst for a long time.
Also included in the scout gear kit (first echelon of equipment) is a flask. The flasks were different for us, but mostly ordinary army ones were found: on 800 grams.
To be honest, this flask is very uncomfortable to wear on a belt, and the capacity is small.
Plastic jars for two liters were also supplied to us, but somehow they very quickly lost their positions to ordinary plastic bottles.
The flask is in fact an accountable thing, and it is necessary that it be fucked on you then sweat before you put tails in front of demobilization or handing over the property of a group or company.
And here is a quite practical bottle that you can just throw away and the angry forefather foreman and yell will not run after you and yell:
““ You are some kind of cattle, well, return twenty empty Pepsi bottles received on the delivery note. ”
The simple flask is good because it can be stolen somewhere or taken away from a dejectedly advancing infantryman who accidentally approached the distance of the barking dog to the "independent" territory of the detachment.
But there are still advantages in this nondescript vessel: water can be boiled directly in it. Just take it out of the case first.
One pill of dry fuel is enough to boil a whole flask, and quite quickly.
The only secret is that you do not need to unscrew the cover.
It is enough to loosen it up quite a bit and from tearing out trickles of steam, twitching flasks and the voices of colleagues claiming that “Now pee ..... no” you will understand that boiling water is ready.
Although, with the accumulation of some experience, it will be possible to understand that the advantage of the flask in boiling comes to naught over the same plastic bottle.
Why?
Yes, everything is very simple: in a plastic bottle, you can also boil water and brew tea. Fill a one-and-a-half pound about 200 g per liter, just unscrew the lid, put it sideways on the fire: so that the water does not overflow and here you are, please - watch !!! Water is boiled.
Well, yes, the bottle korezhit and bends a little, transparent plastic is covered with soot, but it is clear that the water boils.
Water boiled, you can throw away the bottle, there will be no burning plastic taste: it is quite normal boiling water.
This is the simplest law of physics does not allow plastic to burn.
It’s a pity that I don’t remember this law ...
Well, why am I telling all this?
Moreover, in the absence of metal utensils, water can be boiled in a plastic bottle and plastic and paper bags: nothing will happen to them.
You only need to try, so that the flame is exactly above the place of the tank, which is filled with water.
What else can you say about the water?
Now it is possible not to bother much and not to flip through the textbooks of the "grandfather Ovcharenko", carefully outlining the methods of water disinfection.
It is now full of all sorts of industrial filters, both military and civil: "Spring", "Geyser" and others.
Individual filters are in the medical service, and filters of greater performance, which provide small teams with water - pass through the engineering service.
Water disinfectant tablets are plentiful, and the most used and remembered to me were “Aquatabs” and “Pantotsid”.
Tablets, in principle, disinfect normally, but the water then gives the taste of bleach and some drugs.
But the taste completely disappears, if the water is boiled.
Although it happens that, and these pills do little to help.
Especially if there is only a dirty pool of water sources, in which it is not clear who of the militants washed their feet.
I will give the simplest example of making the most simple filter.
It will have to be done if no one from your group remembered to seize one, the group commander did not check, the deputy tried on a new camouflage, and the rest of them frantically stuffed the property into their backpacks.
Here again the same plastic bottle comes to the rescue.
The components for the filter are found everywhere, and in the wild mountainous nature they are just in bulk.
Homemade filter
So, my friend, take two plastic bottles and carefully cut them into four parts.
(For special forces who beat bricks on their heads, I explain: four is as much as a wolf’s fingers from the cartoon “Well, wait!”)
First part together with the neck we will pick up fresh grass, and we will cover the weed with some matter: a piece of hemming (preferably not after a month of socks), a handkerchief, a piece from a liner from a sleeping bag, etc.
In the bottom of one of the bottles we will put pebbles, pebbles, etc.
In the bottom of another bottle impose ash from the fire.
Put the sand in the neck of the second bottle, it is also desirable to wrap the neck itself with a cloth.
It is advisable that the filter ingredients be placed in bottles in an even layer, so that there is an empty space until trimming: a centimeter of 3-4.
Then we fasten all this business, inserting the filled-in pieces into each other.
In the upper part there should be a neck of a bottle with grass, turned upside down, then a bottom with pebbles, then a bottom with ashes, well, and the last neck of the bottle (neck down): with sand.
Everything! Filter is ready.
Draw water from the puddle and pass it through the filter.
Be surprised by the metamorphosis of dirty and stinking water.
But the filtered water is still better to boil.
Well, if there is absolutely no water, then take a plastic bag, put a couple of pebbles into it and look for a bush or a tree with the most juicy and beautiful foliage. Push a few branches with the largest number of leaves in the package, try to put all this structure in the sun and wait patiently for the result.
In just a few hours, the leaves condense for you from 100 to 200 grams of water, which in principle, although not very good, is the result.
Wear a few bags and by the end of the day you can completely quench your thirst (if you don’t die of dehydration) or make coffee.
By the way, about coffee.
On the exits to the first campaign I somehow suffered because of the absence of this noble drink.
One of the scouts, seeing my sufferings, dug up the roots of dandelions, stuffed them on a small infantry shovel, and made me quite a good drink, which tastes like coffee.
Although, if you have coffee, you shouldn’t bother with this “forest kitchen”: the most darned “Nescafe” is more delicious than the brewed dandelion roots.
But if you have "Pele" or "thirty-three in one" - my advice to you: think about dried roots after all.
The group commander also needs to monitor the use of water, and not to disturb the drinking regime, especially during long transitions.
But since most intelligence officers become conscious only after ... the 15th exit, and even with armed clashes, then go ahead with the "unwise":
“Do not drink, brute! You will become a little goat! Your legs will swell, then you will go out uselessly.”
Anyway, someone from the irresponsible will pull a bottle out of the pocket and begin to sip avidly, and then my friend will turn around and sip:
- "Leave decl!"
In the end, the bottle will return to the owner is already empty.
Scouts will get drunk and begin to sweat, and then gasp, and the head will spin.
With such phenomena to fight, by the way, is very easy.
We must go on the contrary.
I wanted to drink a little - let him have his bread.
For a while, quench thirst, and the water slowly comes out naturally. Wanted to sip more - please.
Only here is the problem: you constantly have to either remove the flask from your belt or get a bottle from the pocket of your backpack.
Now this problem is solved very easily: go to the store and buy yourself a reservoir with a drinking hose "Camel Back".
Put it on your back, then on top of your backpack and - go, give yourself some water from a hose, here it is, in front of you - just turn your head and stretch your lips.
But then again the problem of "toad" arises.
Will you pay for a three-liter American “hot-water bottle” with a straw a hundred bucks?
I personally do not.
If the state issues me, then please!
(Yeah! How! Give out!
And if it gives out, then its cost will no longer be in a hundred bucks, but three times more expensive at the military price tag and again: invoices, property hanging on you, etc.).
Most certainly the best option is when a wizard arrives in a blue helicopter and gives you Camel Beck.
However, miracles do not happen.
Although I still gave such a thing some good guys "accessory".
And imagine if a fighter-conscripts can afford to buy this "device"?
Well, I'm not talking about contractors.
They are absolutely unpredictable creatures: they can buy their socks for a thousand rubles and walk into them at the exits, or they can spare a hundred for a good vodka and be cut off by a "surrogate."
What am I leading to?
And besides, if you have hands and ... a plastic bottle, you can build everything yourself.
A plastic bottle still needs a transparent long tube from a dropper, on which there is such a small plastic retainer.
That's all you need.
Pierce the bottle cap and lower the dropper needle to the very bottom, twist the cap, attach the bottle on the backpack.
You can attach the straps, you can insert into the gum, you can shove in the side pocket: yes as you like.
You attach a tube through a backpack on a uniform, pass it through a button-hole or somewhere else.
Yes, even attach a clip (in winter, it is desirable to hide the tube under the clothes).
And that's it, it's ready!
Here you have the Camel Back, which is absolutely not a pity to lose, not even worth a hundred rubles, and not requiring any maintenance.
He walked with such a bottle and everything is fine, you go when you want water - sipped ("sucked").
I think that's enough about liquids, because this topic can be developed and exaggerated infinitely.
Also, both the first and the second campaigns provided various canned food as supplementary food: both meat and fish.
In the first campaign, the assortment of canned meat was not very rich.
Basically, meat pate in small jars is very similar to baby food and big cans of pork and beef stew.
Pork, as I wrote above - was good only in the cold.
From fish - mainly "Saira" and "Sprat in a tomato".
For the second campaign, the range was much more diverse.
In addition to the small jars of "Pork Pate", large rectangular jars of ham of some kind of foreign production were issued.
The contents of the jar are mostly well-cooked and tasty ham, which can be sliced in a jar and absorbed with pleasure.
In the same banks were issued "Chickens".
Chicken swam in very tasty jelly and was also very bad in taste, but only chilled, although in the contents of the jar there were a lot of bones, which pleasantly crunched on the teeth, but in principle were well ground.
Also, in the campaign of the two thousandth years, fish preserves were pleased with a wide variety.
In addition to "Saira" and "Sprat", "Pink Salmon", "Salmon", "Sardine", "Sprat" began to appear in the diet (for some reason, sprats were always in cans with badly glued labels).
If the chief of the detachment has any connections at the Khankala warehouses and is able to achieve the position, then he may well get sausage and cheese.
Of course, the sausage was not of very good quality: it was all white, and often the kitchen workers had to wipe it with oil.
The sausage was mainly given out to the companies as an additional power supply when it was located at a station of permanent dislocation. The commander of a group or reconnaissance team usually knocked out "doppaka" in the form of dried sausage stick to perform the task.
Sometimes, when the "delicacy" began to deteriorate and all the measures taken to "rescue" did not give results - the sausage was given to the task of everyone, even to motorists working in the provision of withdrawal and evacuation.
We got the cheese as heads, which were then cut and just served on the tables, and canned in jars.
This cheese is already in the form of additional food was issued in groups.
Also in the banks often issued butter, slightly sweet and overheated.
The oil in the cans was good only during the winter, in the summer it was rapidly melting, and it could be used only for cooking.
Beginning with the 2004 year, a variety of “delicacies” began to arrive in the grouping in colorful packages: “Pork in Stroganov’s style with potatoes”, “Plov” and others.
In a dense insulating package was already ready dish.
To prepare the package, it was necessary only to dip it in hot water and hold it there for some time.
The meals in the packages were not bad in principle, but they were all for the same taste: that "Pork in Stroganov style", that "Lamb with green peas".
Yes, and they warmed up all the same quickly, if all this fell out in some suitable container.
A good energy and flavor additive in the nutrition of scouts is ... lard.
In the detachment, in order to improve the additional nutrition, they themselves salted the fat according to some recipes: I was not interested in which one.
It’s also irrational to give it out to every scout in the form of chopped pieces: a product without packaging quickly deteriorates, and it also takes precious place.
Therefore, the finished lard was twisted in a meat grinder with garlic and onions, various spices were added, and the resulting pate was stuffed through the funnel into the same plastic bottle.
Very tightly tightened the lid.
For a group, for a five-day exit, one liter bottle was enough.
"Pate" is very pleasant to the taste, satisfying, it is not necessary to cut shmat into slices: squeeze out of the bottle, put it on the biscuit and chew it for your pleasure and drink tea.
Also received additional condensed milk in standard cans.
He was simply boiled for PCBs and given out to the group in banks, and there they were already scouts at their own discretion: either they shifted the finished product to another container or they were dragging the banks as they were.
Even at the point of economic satisfaction, the cooks somehow managed to dry the meat.
The finished product looked like small dry strips, and tasted like simple jerky, slightly salty.
You could go and nibble it on the go or use it as food, for breakfast or dinner, or when there was no time to cook something more substantial. Chewed, swallowed with water, and that's the whole breakfast-dinner.
When cooking, meat (usually beef) was cut into thin long strips, salted abundantly and beaten, almost to transparency, then poured into the oven for eight to nine hours and all the liquid was evaporated from the meat at 50 degrees.
It turned out even dry strips, very good quality and taste.
Were good not only in carrying out the task, and just like that in a peaceful atmosphere: “for beer”.
Going myself
I remember myself young and stupid, gathered at the first "way out".
I, in ecstasy, smashed cardboard boxes of rations and shoved the jars into the MG backpack (airtight bag).
Thanks to the extensive "connections" in the galley, I still took a bag of potatoes, pasta, and a couple of loaves of bread with me.
Then he tried to "fly up" with all this garbage.
For the first ten kilometers I felt like a hovering falcon, and the rest of the exit I felt like a cormorant.
And on halts, I felt like a voracious pig.
After considerable physical exertion and long transitions there is .. but what is there, I wanted to eat incredibly.
Yes, that somehow did not have time.
The maximum that could be done was to open a jar with a stew and throw a couple of spoons into the firebox, and then into guarding or for additional exploration.
I baked the potatoes after all, when the group was already tightly zabazirovalas.
Yes, and pasta managed to use for its intended purpose.
The commander of the group did not let the flour products go to pieces.
Subsequently, I made several conclusions for myself.
1) The basic "grub" does not happen much.
2) No matter how long it is, it will still be small.
3) Do not drag off all the food with you.
How would you not want to take with you, something tastier, but more - your back and legs, then they will curse your stomach for a long time.
Over time, with the number of kilometers traveled (on hills and on slides), I developed my personal attitude to the wearable stock of food.
The ration should be light, it should be enough for a long time, it should always be at hand, and it should be tasty.
Well, all components must be perfectly combined with each other.
As a result of all sorts of experiments, my weekly ration began to quietly fit in one of the side pockets of an old RD-54.
Well, let's take a look into this wonderful side pocket and consider what we have there.
- 7 packs of Chinese noodles.
Only not in plastic boxes, but in simple packages.
Now, in principle, and our produce such in such quantity that this product is particularly scarce and expensive is not.
What is good about this package?
The fact that before laying in a backpack, you can specifically change it, significantly reducing in volume and not losing the contents.
Anyway, then the noodles will swell up and take up their volume in the starved stomach.
- 5 bouillon cubes: chicken pork beef, but not mushroom.
The more varied the cubes - the more varied the menu (although, dissolving in boiling water, in my opinion, they do not differ from each other).
- Several bags of crackers with different flavors to add to the noodles.
- 3 small jars of canned meat or minced meat.
Why small?
I explain: each jar can be stretched for two meals, but the weather conditions are different.
In winter, when the temperature is below zero, the half-eaten canned meat or fish can be preserved well.
But in the summer - immediately disappear.
If the outside temperature was below zero, so my scouts got rid of the cans altogether: they dumped the entire contents into several dense plastic bags, and the banks threw them away.
They left only one, just in case: what if the cook of the “project ...” group, or rather lost the big big pot from the “group kit”.
So, back to the pate in small banks.
Three pieces is enough for a week, if you use half a can at each meal or add to some kind of brew.
What else do we have there?
1 tea bag packaging.
To carry loose tea with me, and then brew it - for me it is a waste of time and extra gestures.
So I just bought a box of tea bags.
I just threw the box away, and the bags themselves in a bag of shiny foil crumpled to indecently small sizes and threw them into my backpack.
Well, since I am a big coffee lover, I was constantly tormented by the question: what to take, or what more to take?
Then, thanks to communication with various scouting people, always wandering in different directions in the conflict zone - I got a couple of special-purpose tea recipes in my prehensile hands.
A pack of tea is taken and fully brewed to the state of the strongest "chifira", then all this is poured into a plastic bottle 0,5 l.
An incredible amount of sugar is poured there: about one third of the bottle.
Then add sliced lemon to the same place.
Fans can drop a little alcohol or brandy there.
Here you have ready-made tea in a strong concentration.
It does not spoil in the heat for about two weeks, but in the cold - and a month and a half it retains its freshness.
Just add the "concentrate" to the mug of boiling water to taste and stir it.
Everything! Tea is ready! And do not brew or squeeze the bag.
Of course, the bottle takes place, but there's nothing you can do if you are used to barge.
In this way, besides tea, I also prepared coffee for myself:
Two bottles of 0,5 l. provided me for a week or two hot and fragrant drinks.
The problem with sugar is solved: it is already in the bottle with tea or coffee.
So ... What do we have left in the backpack?
- A few packs of biscuits: for a week, 5 is enough packs.
- Packing some candy to slowly suck during the transition, enriching the body with glucose.
- A spoon, a mug, a set of "taganok, dry alcohol, matches."
That's all.
If there is space, you can add a can of meat and cereal or canned meat.
The products described above are enough for a week - if you eat twice a day.
Yes, the diet is not diverse, but quite nutritious and weighs not so much.
Since this is still your personal kit, you can vary it as you please: based on your taste preferences, the nature and duration of the task, or weather conditions. Such a set, already being in the "posts", I always dragged with me in the "cracker"
Cracker with "nishtyaki" on unloading.
If we were going for a long time - I, of course, received both rations and extra food and then stuffed “nishtyaki” along the backpack.
But the set described by me for me was considered "NZ".
Shoulders do not pull, do not take up much space, it is not necessary to collect it, it is always ready (perhaps, just tea or coffee).
Once we flew to the task and together with the "Alfonso": ambush around a mountain village during the stripping and targeted events.
According to the order, the task was only two hours long.
On the second day of the "two-hour" task, I crawled out of the base and, taking a radio operator and a scout with me, I went around to check the ambush sites.
In one of the groups, scouts sitting on the "chip" with sadly inspired faces boiled berries of a dog rose in a lid from under the battery compartment of the radio station Р-392 and cursed bad weather.
There was no opportunity to deliver food to us by air. I had to passionately “fall in love” with the group commander for the training and for the ridiculous hope that the task would indeed last two hours ...
So, one more axiom: if the task is for “two hours” - bring a ration with you for a couple of days.
At that time, the group with which I had mated — stretched out and did not “light up” for exactly three days on the stocks of my “rusk”, dog rose and one soldering, stuck by a smart radio operator.
The rest had a lot worse.
About the kitchen utensils.
The most important thing - do not forget to grab a spoon.
Spoon can soup and pohlebat, and stew from a jar to pick out.
Then, wash it after use and let it always lie in your "rusk", along with a mug.
By the way, I noticed that many scouts used cans out of coffee with a lid instead of mugs.
Tin conducts heat very well and the water in such a jar boils much faster than in a soldier's circle.
Plus tin cans - the presence of a lid (which sometimes knocks out under the pressure of steam).
One of the scouts of the Berd Brigade (honor and glory of this war unit disbanded for the sake of reform), I saw an amusing know-how from the same cans.
A small coffee can was welded to the medium-sized can from below, in which several holes of different diameters were made.
When I asked him why and why this adapt - the scout showed me the focus.
He poured water into a large jar and closed it with a lid, and set it in a small jar of twigs and put a dry alcohol pill in it - set it on fire.
Just a couple of minutes the boiling water was ready.
A good device, of course: a mini-stove, a boiler, and a cup.
As the saying goes: "all-in-one."
But I had a great folding gas stove made in China with a can (two hours of continuous burning): quite compact and powerful.
Such a tile cost at that time only 120 rubles.The money is small, but the benefits are huge.
One thing is bad: such cartridges could be obtained only on the “big earth”.
Now these tiles and cans can be bought at any hunting store.
And finally, I will tell you one case that characterizes my personal attitude to the "power characteristics of the scout"
I was discharged from the hospital at the same time with a bunch of people.
We sit, it means, and we note this matter.
Among us was a senior lieutenant: a scout from the Internal Troops.
It seems everything is fine: the river, cold vodka, kebabs, greens, lemon.
And he as attached to me - everything nudites and nudites.
The essence of the question was this: - what are we, specialists, steeper than their scouts, “Vovanov”?
What are the differences?
And he tries with all his semi-adequate actions to prove his toughness.
I'm sick of the worse than the prosecutor.
I ask him:
- Baby, do you consume frogs?
He hesitated and blown away. However, after rolling the stopar of the “Source” - yelling that they are not trained in this, but if necessary, it will be easy for the frogs to be eaten.
- Come on, - I say, - go, catch amphibians.
Starley of all the toads scared away, but he caught a couple of wahs and, triumphantly, brought them to me in a plastic bag.
Then he began to act on my instructions: checked the frogs for arrows in his teeth and other signs of royal blood.
Then he stripped them, planted them on skewers and began to fry.
We did not give him salt, and he sprinkled the unfortunate carcass with ashes.
In short, he prepared them, he sits and frowns: he cannot eat.
Here his crowd motivates:
- Uuu! And shouted something: “We - scouts! We bare ass on a hedgehog sit! And then you can not eat a frog. ”
Starley asked for vodka for tonus.
He, of course, was sent to the anus and said: eat it like that.
I told him for a long time that he was alone, there was no supply for a long time, there was no help waiting, and the frog was his last chance to survive.
Finally, he decided and cautiously began to gnaw sluggish paws.
And here we just arrived in time.
From the young pork on the bone, with golden brown, pickled in mineral water, apples and lemon, sprinkled with greens.
Then we poured out, wished the elder bon appetit, yelled and began to have a snack with steaming meat.
- Do not you eat frogs? - starley puzzled.
- And what for us to eat this crap, then, when to fig a normal meal? We are idiots, or what? - I answered older.
The scout was lost and ran to vomit into the bushes, and did not understand how we differ ...
So, why did I tell it?
If there is a kebab, or stew, or crackers, or noodles (the list is endless) - why the heck do you have frogs and eat bark from trees?
The main thing in the preparation of food for "output" - is the brain!
This opinion is my personal, and it may not coincide with many others.
Information