War on an empty stomach. Super-soldiers of the future

For any soldier, not a strategy and battle tactics, but his own stomach is much more important. A hungry army will not be able to resist the enemy, and the supply of food is no less important than weapons - this was understood by the ancient generals. In the 21st century, innovations have appeared in this difficult matter ...

In Russia, servicemen themselves for a long time took care of their food. Suffice it to recall the tale "Porridge from an Ax" in order to understand what ingenuity and resourcefulness a soldier should have in order not to go hungry. In military campaigns, the soldiers relied solely on themselves, bought food and feed for horses on their salaries. They left for the war with their stocks - breadcrumbs, cereals, lard ...

They also made their own meals, and the conditions for this were not always the case. In addition, the supplies ran out quickly, and very often there was no opportunity to purchase food. As a result, the soldiers were starving, sick and sometimes dying from malnutrition.

Significant changes in the supply of food to the army were introduced by Peter I. He instituted a “cottage of provisions” - flour and cereals and “welding” - a monetary allowance for the purchase of meat, salt and vegetables. But the food was also prepared by the soldiers themselves, and the conditions for this were not always the case.

As time went on, the issues of feeding the soldiers were given more and more attention; marching kitchens, army chefs, and approved daily allowance rates appeared. Although earlier it was claimed that the food in the tsarist army was simply terrible, but in fact it was not.

The food ration of the Russian soldier in 1914 consisted of three parts: provisions, issued directly by the products, welding and tea money. A little more than a kg of bread (sometimes crackers or flour) and 200 g of cereals were given as provisions. Meat, vegetables, peppers, lard, butter were bought with welding money. For tea - tea and sugar. In wartime, the allowance rate doubled. Cooks cooked food - for the whole company, and at least once a day, even in the harsh marching conditions, the soldiers received hot food.

After the revolution, there was a serious confusion in army nutrition, centralized food supplies were not conducted, but then the daily allowance of soldiers was approved again. From September 1941, the daily ration of the soldier’s combat units was: bread - 900 g, croup - 140 g, meat - 150, fish - 100, 500 g potatoes, 170 g cabbage. In addition, soldiers were given tea, sugar, carrots, beets, onions, greens, cucumbers, peppers, bay leaves, etc.

Naturally, most of the products were not handed out, and the food was prepared by cooks. Nutritional standards varied depending on the belonging of the troops - the pilots' food allowance was not much better. They received milk, dried fruits, condensed milk, and canned food. In addition, the pilots had at each departure a food reserve for each person: 3 cans of condensed milk, 3 cans of stew, 800 g of biscuits, 300 of chocolate and 400 of sugar.

Kosher ration

The principles of nutrition of the American army initially differed from the Russian ones. In the US, food rations have always been much richer than Russian. Even during the civil war 1861-1865. almost half a pound of crackers, about a kilogram of bread or flour, 200 of lard, more than half a pound of meat, as well as beans, rice, crackers, coffee, sugar…

True, the army of southerly-kofederatov was supplied much worse, the soldiers were starving and were practically incapacitated. In the novel Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell figuratively described the situation of starving soldiers and their suffering from dysentery: “Four years of existence on the verge of starvation, four years on the diet of the roughest, often stale, often almost inedible food did their job, and every soldier or suffered from this disease, or just recovered from it. "

But the war is over, the USA and their army have changed. The soldiers' food was given away and still very much attention is given. A soldier is obliged to receive a sufficient amount of meat, butter, fish, bread, vegetables, eggs, and, in addition, fruits, juices, chocolate, confectionery, and even ice cream ...

Meals are put on a big foot, and soldiers sometimes squeamishly refuse to eat burnt toast or too fat scrambled eggs. But at the same time, research and improvement of the nutrition system is constantly underway. Over the past few years, the dry ration assortment in the USA has doubled - there are 24 names in it. This takes into account the interests of vegetarians, Jews and Muslims who do not eat those or other products.

Soldiers serving in the Soviet army, such food standards seem exotic - we all know that ordinary soldiers sometimes did not see meat or eggs for months, eating exclusively frozen potatoes or barley porridge. But the main reason for this was theft at all levels, because the nutrition standards of a soldier in the USSR were also quite decent. Every day the soldier was supposed to: 750 g of bread, 120 g of cereals, 40 g of pasta, 200 g of meat, 120 g of fish, 20 g of animal fat, 20 g of vegetable oil, 4 eggs, 70 g of sugar, 20 g of salt, 900 of potato and vegetables, 30 g kissel or dried fruit.

Nowadays, army officials claim that the poor nutrition of soldiers is a thing of the past. Instead of fat, it is now necessary to cook in butter, barley replaced by buckwheat, rice and pasta. On the table should be every day meat or fish. In addition, soldiers are required to take a multivitamin once a day. In the near future, it is planned to revise the rations, as a result of which soldiers will receive juices, sweets, sausage and cheese, although this is fraught with financial difficulties.

Piss for breakfast

While the Russian army is looking for money to buy sausages for soldiers, the US is preoccupied with research into military nutrition. Recently, they developed a special freeze-dried food for difficult field conditions in hot countries. The peculiarity of this food is that it can be diluted with dirty water or... your own urine. The main objective of the development was to lighten the weight of soldiers' equipment, in which water takes up a lot of space. Now it is enough to carry bags with dry mixtures, which are then filled with liquid and turn into a completely edible lunch of chicken and rice. These bags are filters that have the property of not letting through almost 100% of bacteria and chemicals. The liquid passes through the shell - thin layers of cellulose-based plastic, the gaps in which are no more than 0,5 nanometers and reaches the dry mixture, which is practically sterile.

According to representatives of the US Army, this invention will reduce the weight of the daily supply of food for the military from 3,5 kg to 400 g!

Week without food

But the inventors are ready to go even further. In the United States, work is under way on the consciousness of a completely new technology of feeding soldiers. It is called the “subcutaneous nutrient transport system”. The essence of this technology is to provide the soldier with food in conditions where it is not possible to arrange a field kitchen. According to the inventors, they are working on a mechanism that injects all the nutrients directly into the blood.

According to preliminary data, the “dry ration” of the 21st century will look like a small device attached to the skin of a fighter. This device is equipped with a microcomputer that monitors the physical condition of the soldier. It calculates the metabolic peculiarities of its host and determines the optimal dose of nutrients.

In addition, it is possible that drugs will be introduced to deceive the soldier’s stomach in order to avoid hungry spasms. The mechanism for entering the "food" into the body is still being developed - either nutrients will be ingested through the skin pores or directly into the blood. The developers claim that the "dressing" will go on continuously. If the experiments succeed, it is planned to equip the soldiers with this invention by 2024 year.

But there is another development in the United States related to army power ... Its essence is to “teach” soldiers to do without food at all! To do this, studies of metabolic processes at the cell level are conducted and the processes of its slowing down and changes are being investigated. The project "Metabolic domination" aims to ensure that soldiers can not eat for five or six days and not experience feelings of hunger and fatigue ... It is not known whether these studies will be crowned with success, but it seems that the soldiers themselves would prefer hot and tasty food cooked in the field kitchen by a skilled cook ...