Additional food and your delights
In the first part, we considered several options for IRP.
But in addition to the main ration ration during the conduct of hostilities, the reconnaissance groups were provided with additional food:
When - according to the norms established for the belligerent units by the main food department;
When - beyond all norms;
And when and nothing at all …
But here everything depended on the commander of the detachment and the rear personnel.
Juice was dispensed in almost all the detachments from Bamut to Novogroznensky.
The juices were mostly fruit juices, and like mineral water - from various manufacturers.
Moreover, the manufacturers varied over the years.
In one year - juices "Vico", in another year - "Some kind of garden there" and so on.
It was possible to determine by juices which company in a given year signed a contract with the ministry for the supply of its products.
I want to note that in the first conflict (in 1995) juices were supplied and given out regularly, and I don’t remember the excellent quality of the Krasnodar campaign.
The orange one was especially good.
For the second campaign, there were also enough juices, but their quality was far from being the same, although the packages were much more colorful with plastic siphon caps and other "bells and whistles".
Juices were mostly fruit: apple, grape, orange.
Vegetables (I mean my favorite tomato) I met only in the first Chechen campaign, and even then very rarely.
The groups leaving on the "task" were often given juice in bags.
But carrying it in a backpack is extremely inconvenient, so the scouts poured the juice into plastic bottles and diluted it with mineral and plain water.
I liked the recipe when in a bottle of 1.5 liters. from under the mineral water poured 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 efficiently removes thirst for a long time.
Also included in the reconnaissance equipment set (first echelon of equipment) is a flask. We had various flasks, but mostly ordinary army ones: 800 grams.
To be honest, this flask is very inconvenient to carry on a belt, and its capacity is small.
Plastic flasks for two liters were also delivered to us, but somehow they very quickly gave up their positions to ordinary plastic bottles.
A flask is an accountable thing, and you need to fucking have it on you later: then you evaporate before demobilization or the surrender of the property of a group or a company to bring your tails.
And here is a completely practical bottle that you can simply throw away and the evil ensign foreman will not run after you and yell:
- "You bastard, come on, return twenty empty bottles from" Pepsi ", received on the invoice."
A simple flask is good in that it can be stolen somewhere or taken away from a dejectedly wandering infantryman who accidentally approached the distance of a dog barking to the "square" territory of the detachment.
But there are also advantages in this nondescript vessel: water can be boiled right in it. Just take it out of the case first.
One tablet of dry fuel is enough to boil a whole flask, and quite quickly.
The only secret is that you don't need to unscrew the lid.
It is enough to weaken it quite a bit and by the escaping trickles of steam, the twitching of the flask and the voices of colleagues claiming that "Now there is…..no" you will understand that the boiling water is ready.
Although, with the accumulation of some experience, it will be possible to understand that the advantage of a flask in boiling fades to naught over the same plastic bottle.
Why?
Everything is very simple: you can also boil water and brew tea in a plastic bottle. Fill the "poltorashka" for about two hundred grams per liter, just unscrew the lid, put it sideways into the fire: so that the water does not pour out and here you are, look! The water is boiling.
Well, yes, the bottle is crinkling and bending a little, the transparent plastic is covered with soot, but it is quite clear that the water is boiling.
The water has boiled, you can throw the bottle away, there will be no taste of burnt plastic: boiling water is quite normal.
This is the simplest law of physics that prevents plastic from burning.
It’s a pity that I don’t remember this law …
Well, why am I telling all this?
Besides, in the absence of metal utensils, water can be boiled in a plastic bottle, and in a plastic and paper bag: nothing will happen to them.
You just need to try so that the flame is exactly above the place of the container, which is filled with water.
What else can you tell about water?
Now you can not bother much and not leaf through the textbooks of "grandfather Ovcharenko", carefully outlining the methods of water disinfection.
Now it is full of all kinds of industrial filters for both military and civil purposes: "Spring", "Geyser" and others.
Individual filters go to the medical service, and filters of greater efficiency, which provide small teams with water, go through the engineering service.
There are a great many pills that disinfect water, and the most used and remembered to me were "Aquatabs" and "Pantocid".
The tablets, in principle, disinfect normally, but the water then gives off a taste of bleach and some kind of medicine.
But the taste completely disappears if the water is boiled.
Although it happens that, and these pills do not help much.
Especially if there is only a dirty puddle from the water sources, in which it is not clear which 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 capture one, the group commander did not check it, the deputy tried on a new camouflage, and the rest feverishly shoved property into their backpacks.
Here again the same plastic bottle comes to the rescue.
Components for the filter are found everywhere, and in the wild mountain nature they are simply bulk.
Homemade filter
So, buddy, take two plastic bottles and carefully cut them into four pieces.
(For the special forces who beat bricks on their heads, I explain: four is as many as the number of fingers on the hand of a wolf from the cartoon "Well, wait a minute!")
We'll fill the first part together with the neck with fresh grass, and cover the grass with some kind of material: a piece of hem (preferably not after a month's wear), a handkerchief, a piece from a sleeping bag liner, etc.
Put pebbles, pebbles, etc. in the bottom of one of the bottles.
Put ash from the fire in the bottom of another bottle.
Put sand in the neck of the second bottle; it is also advisable to wrap the neck with cloth.
It is advisable to put the filter ingredients in bottles in an even layer, so that there is an empty space before the cut: 3-4 centimeters.
Then we fasten all this business by inserting the filled scraps into each other.
In the upper part there should be the neck of a bottle with grass, turned upside down, then the bottom with pebbles, then the bottom with ash, and the last neck of the bottle (with the neck down): with sand.
Everything! The filter is ready.
Draw water from a puddle and pass it through a filter.
You yourself will be surprised at the metamorphosis that happened with dirty and smelly water.
But it is still better to boil the strained water.
Well, if there is no water at all, then take a plastic bag, put a couple of cleaner pebbles in it and look for a bush or tree with the juicy and beautiful foliage. Put a few branches with the most leaves in the bag, try to put the whole structure in the sun and wait patiently for the result.
In a few hours, the leaves condense for you from 100 to 200 grams of water, which, in principle, is poor, but the result.
Put on 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 some coffee.
By the way, about coffee.
On the exits to the first campaign, I somehow suffered from the lack of this noble drink.
One of the scouts, seeing my suffering, dug up the roots of dandelions, dried them on a small infantry shovel and brewed for me quite a good drink, which tastes like coffee.
Although, if you have coffee, you shouldn't bother with this "forest cuisine": the most worthless "Nescafe" is tastier than brewed dandelion roots.
But if you have "Pele" or "thirty-three in one" - my advice to you: think all the same about dried roots.
The commander of the group also needs to monitor the use of water, and not allow to break the drinking regime, especially during long transitions.
But since most of the scouts become conscious only after … the eleventh exit, and even with armed clashes, then talk to the "unreasonable":
- "Don't drink, you brute! You will become a kid! Your legs will swell, then you will go out uselessly."
Anyway, someone from the irresponsible will pull a bottle out of his pocket and begin to sip greedily, and then his friend will turn around and sizzle:
- "Leave the decl!"
In the end, the bottle will return to the owner empty.
The scouts will drink water and begin to sweat, and then suffocate, and the head will spin.
By the way, it is very easy to deal with such phenomena.
We must go from the opposite.
A little thirsty - let him take a sip.
For a while, it will quench your thirst, and the water will slowly come out naturally. I wanted to take another sip - please.
Only here is the problem: you constantly have to either remove the flask from the belt or take the bottle out of the pocket of the backpack.
Now this problem is solved very easily: go to the store and buy yourself a tank with a Camel Back drinking hose.
Put it on your back, then on top of a backpack and - go, drink some water from the hose, here it is, in front of you - just turn your head and stretch your lips.
But then the "toad" problem arises again.
Will you pay a hundred bucks for a three-liter American "heating pad" with a straw?
Personally, no.
If the state gives me, then - please!
(Aha! How! Will give out!
And if it does, then its cost will no longer be a hundred bucks, but three times more expensive at the military price tag and again: invoices, property hanging on you, etc.).
Of course, the best option is when a magician arrives in a blue helicopter and gives you a Camel Back.
However, miracles do not happen.
Although I was still given such a thing by some kind guys "subcontractors".
Imagine if a conscript soldier can afford to buy this "device"?
Well, I'm not talking about contractors.
They are absolutely unpredictable creatures: they can buy themselves socks for a thousand rubles and wear them to the exits, or they can regret a hundred square meters for good vodka and become a "surrogate".
What am I leading to?
Besides, if you have hands and … a plastic bottle, you can build everything yourself.
The plastic bottle also needs a transparent long tube from the dropper, on which there is such a small plastic retainer.
That's all there is to it.
Pierce the bottle cap and lower the dropper needle to the very bottom, screw the cap, attach the bottle to the backpack.
You can attach it with straps, you can insert it into elastic bands, you can stuff it into a side pocket: whatever you like.
Attach the tube through the backpack on the form, thread it either into a button slot or somewhere else.
Yes, at least attach it with a paper clip (in winter it is advisable to hide the tube under clothes).
And that's it, you're done!
Here is "Camel Back" for you, which is absolutely not a pity to lose, worth not even a hundred rubles, and does not require any maintenance.
I walked around with such a bottle myself and everything is fine, when you wanted water - you took a sip ("nipped").
I think that's enough about liquids, because this topic can be developed and exaggerated endlessly.
Also, in the first and second campaigns, various canned foods were provided as additional 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 large cans of pork and beef stew.
Pork, as I wrote above, was good only when cold.
From fish - mainly "Saira" and "Sprat in tomato".
In the second campaign, the assortment was much more diverse.
In addition to small jars of "Pork pate", large rectangular jars of ham of some foreign production were issued.
The contents of the jar are mostly well-cooked and tasty ham, which can be sliced right in the jar and consumed with pleasure.
In the same banks were issued "Chickens".
The chicken swam in very tasty jelly and also tasted very good, but only chilled, although the contents of the jar contained a lot of bones that crunched pleasantly on the teeth, but in principle they were well ground.
Also in the campaign of the 2000s, canned fish were delighted with a wide variety.
In addition to "Saira" and "Sprat", "Pink salmon", "Salmon", "Sardines", "Sprats" began to appear in the diet (for some reason, sprats were always in jars with a badly glued label).
If the chief food officer in the detachment has some kind of connections in the Khankala warehouses and knows how to achieve what he needs, then he may well get sausage and cheese.
The sausage was of course not of very good quality: it was covered in white stains, and often the kitchen workers had to wipe it with oil.
The sausage was mainly given to the companies as additional food while at the point of permanent deployment, for the task to be completed, the commander of the group or reconnaissance detachment usually knocked out "doppayk" for himself in the form of a dried sausage stick.
Sometimes, when the "delicacy" began to deteriorate and all the measures taken to "save" the results did not give results - the sausage was given out for the task to everyone, even motorists working to ensure the withdrawal and evacuation.
We received cheese both in heads, which were then cut and simply handed out on the tables, and canned in jars.
This cheese was already given out to groups as an additional food.
Also, cans often gave out butter, slightly sweetish and overheated.
Oil in jars was good only in winter, but in summer it melted rapidly, and it could only be used for cooking.
Beginning in 2004, the group began to receive a variety of "delicacies" in colorful packages: "Stroganoff Pork with Potatoes", "Plov" and others.
There was a ready-made dish in a dense heat-insulating bag.
To prepare the package, it was only necessary to immerse it in hot water and hold it there for some time.
In principle, the dishes in the packages were not bad, but they all tasted the same: either Stroganoff Pork or Lamb with Green Peas.
Yes, and they still warmed up faster, if all this was dumped into some suitable container.
A good energy and flavor supplement in the diet of scouts is … lard.
In our detachment, in order to improve additional nutrition, they themselves salted lard according to some recipes there: I was not interested in which one.
It is also irrational to give it to every scout in the form of cut pieces: the product quickly deteriorates without packaging, and it also takes up precious space.
Therefore, the finished bacon was twisted in a meat grinder with garlic and onions, various spices were added, and the resulting pate was stuffed through a funnel into the same plastic bottle.
The lid was tightened very tightly.
One liter bottle was enough for a group for a five-day trip.
"Pate" tastes very good, nourishing, no need to cut the shmat into slices: squeeze it out of the bottle, spread it on a biscuit and chew it at your pleasure and wash it down with tea.
Condensed milk was also additionally obtained in standard cans.
It was simply boiled on PCBs and given to a group in cans, and there - scouts at their own discretion: they either transferred the finished product to another container or dragged the cans as they were.
Even at the point of household allowance, cooks somehow contrived to dry meat.
The finished product looked like small dry strips and tasted like plain jerky, slightly salty.
You could go and gnaw it on the go or use it for food, for breakfast or dinner, or when there is absolutely no time to cook something more essential. Chewed, swallowed washed down with water, that's the whole breakfast and dinner.
When cooking, the meat (usually beef) was cut into thin long strips, salted abundantly and beaten, almost to transparency, then thrown into the oven for eight to nine hours and at a temperature of 50 degrees all the liquid was evaporated from the meat.
The result was smooth dry stripes, of very good quality and taste.
They were good not only when performing the task, but also just like that in a peaceful atmosphere: “to the beer”.
Going myself
I remember myself young and stupid, gathered for the first "exit".
In ecstasy I smashed cardboard boxes of rations and stuffed cans into MG's backpack (airtight bag).
Thanks to my extensive "connections" in the galley, I also took with me a bag of potatoes, pasta, and a couple of loaves of bread.
Then I tried to "fly up" with all this garbage.
The first ten kilometers I felt like a soaring "falcon", and the rest of the way I felt like a "cormorant".
And at the halts I felt like a gluttonous pig.
After significant physical exertion and long transitions, there is … but what is there - I wanted to eat incredibly.
But somehow I didn't manage to do it.
The maximum that was possible was to open a can of stewed meat and toss a couple of spoons into the "firebox", and then into security or for additional exploration.
After all, I baked the potatoes when the group was already firmly stocked.
Yes, and they managed to use pasta for its intended purpose.
The commander of the group took pity on my "efforts" and did not let the flour products go to waste.
Subsequently, I made several conclusions for myself.
1) The main "grub" is never too much.
2) No matter how much it is, it will still be small.
3) You can't take the whole food with you.
As much as you want to take with you, something tastier, and more - your back and legs, then they will curse your stomach for a long time.
Over time, with the number of kilometers traveled (along the hills and along the hills), I developed my own personal attitude to the wearable food supply.
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 the components should be perfectly combined with each other.
As a result of all sorts of experiments, my weekly ration began to fit easily in one of the side pockets of the old RD-54.
Well, let's take a peek in that fancy side pocket and see what we have in there.
- 7 packs of Chinese noodles.
Only not in plastic boxes, but in simple bags.
Now, in principle, ours also produce such quantities that this product is not particularly scarce and expensive.
Why is this packaging good?
The fact that before putting it in a backpack it can be specifically crumpled, significantly reducing in volume and not losing the contents.
All the same, then the noodles will swell and take up their volume in a hungry stomach.
- 5 bouillon cubes: chicken beef pork, but not mushroom.
The more varied the cubes, the more varied the menu (although, dissolving in boiling water, in my opinion, they are no different from each other).
- Several bags of croutons with different flavors to add to the noodles.
- 3 small jars of canned meat or minced meat.
Why small?
Let me explain: each jar can be stretched over two meals, but the weather conditions are different.
In winter, at subzero temperatures, half-eaten canned meat or fish will survive well.
But in the summer it will disappear immediately.
If the temperature outside was below zero, my scouts got rid of the tin cans altogether: they dumped all the contents into several tight plastic bags, and threw the cans away.
They left only one, just for everyone: what if the chef of the group "pro …"
So, back to the pate in small jars.
Three pieces are enough for a week, if you use half a can at each meal or add to some brew.
What else do we have there?
1 pack of tea bags.
Carrying loose tea with you and then brewing it is a waste of time and unnecessary body movements for me.
So I just bought a box of tea bags.
I just threw away the box, 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 intelligence people, always scurrying in different directions in the conflict zone - I got a couple of recipes for "special purpose" tea in my tenacious hands.
A pack of tea is taken and completely brewed to the state of the strongest "chifir", then all this is poured into a plastic bottle of 0.5 liters.
An incredible amount of sugar is poured there: about one third of the bottle.
Then lemon sliced into slices is also added there.
Lovers can drop a little alcohol or brandy there.
Here is the ready-made tea in strong concentration.
It does not deteriorate in the heat for about two weeks, and in the cold it retains its freshness for a month and a half.
Just add "concentrate" to a mug of boiling water to taste and stir.
Everything! Tea is ready! And you don't need to brew or squeeze the bag.
Of course, the bottle takes up space, but there's nothing you can do about it if you are used to ruling.
In this way, in addition to tea, I made coffee for myself:
Two bottles of 0.5 liters each. provided me with hot and aromatic drinks for a week or two.
The sugar problem has been resolved: it is already in the tea or coffee bottle.
So … What else do we have in our backpack?
- Several packs of biscuits: 5 packs are enough for a week.
- Packing some lollipops, so that you can slowly suck during the transition, enriching the body with glucose.
- A spoon, a mug, a set of "tagans, dry alcohol, matches".
That's all.
If there is room, then you can add a can of meat and vegetable or canned meat.
The products described above are enough for a week - if you eat twice a day.
Yes, the diet is not varied, but it is quite nutritious and does not weigh so much.
Since this is still your personal kit, you can vary it as you like: based on your taste preferences, the nature and duration of the task, or weather conditions. Such a set, already being in "positions", I always carried with me in a "cracker"
Crackers with "nishtyaks" at unloading.
If we were going for a long time - I, of course, received rations and additional food and then stuffed "nishtyaks" in my backpack.
But the kit I described was considered "NZ" for me.
Does not pull the shoulders, does not take up a lot of space, it is not necessary to collect it, it is always ready (unless just tea or coffee).
Once we flew to the task and together with the "gigolos": set up ambushes around the mountain village during the cleansing and targeted actions.
According to the combat order, the mission was only two hours long.
On the second day of the "two-hour" mission, I crawled out of the base and, taking with me a radio operator and a scout, I trudged off to check the ambush sites.
In one of the groups, the scouts sitting on the "chip" with sadly inspired faces boiled rosehip berries in the lid from under the battery compartment of the R-392 radio station and cursed the bad weather.
There was no way to deliver food to us by air. I had to passionately "fall in love" with the group commander for his preparation and for the ridiculous hope that the task would really last two hours …
So, one more axiom: if the task is "two hours" - take a ration with you for a couple of days.
At that time, the group with which I landed - held out and did not "light up" for exactly three days on the stocks of my "biscuit", rose hips and one ration, grabbed by a quick-witted radio operator.
The rest had much worse.
About the kitchen utensils.
The most important thing is to remember to grab a spoon.
You can stew the soup with a spoon, and pick out the stew from the jar.
Then wash it after use and let it always lie in your "cracker", along with a mug.
By the way, I noticed that many scouts used coffee cans with a lid instead of mugs.
Tin conducts heat very well and water in such a jar boils much faster than in a soldier's mug.
The advantage of a tin can is the presence of a lid (which is sometimes knocked out under steam pressure).
One of the scouts of the Berdsk brigade (the honor and glory of this combat unit, disbanded for the sake of reforms), I saw an interesting know-how from the same cans.
A small coffee jar was welded to the bottom of a medium-sized can, in which several holes of various diameters were made.
When I asked him why and why this was adapted, the scout showed me a trick.
He poured water into a large jar and closed it with a lid, and into a small jar he threw twigs and thrust a tablet of dry alcohol into it - set it on fire.
In just a couple of minutes, the boiling water was ready.
Not a bad device, of course: a mini-stove, a boiler, and a mug.
As the saying goes: "all-in-one".
But I had a great China-made folding gas stove with a spray can (two hours of continuous burning): quite compact and powerful.
At that time, such a tile cost only 120 rubles.
The money is small, but the benefits are huge.
One thing is bad: such cans could only be obtained on the "mainland".
Now such tiles and cans can be purchased at any hunting store.
And finally, I will tell you one case that characterizes my personal attitude to the "scout's dietary habits"
I was discharged from the hospital at the same time with a bunch of people.
We sit, it means, and celebrate this case.
Among us was a senior lieutenant: a scout from the Internal Troops.
Everything seems to be fine: the river, cold vodka, kebabs, herbs, lemon.
And how he became attached to me - he pisses on and on.
The essence of the question was as follows: - what are we, specialists, cooler than their scouts, "Vovanov"?
What are the differences?
And he tries to prove his steepness with all his semi-adequate actions.
He bothered me worse than the prosecutor.
I ask him:
- Kid, do you consume frogs?
He hesitated and deflated. However, after the "Istok" stopper rolled, he yells that they are not trained in this, but if necessary, they will easily devour frogs.
- Come on, - I say, - go catch amphibians.
Starley scared all the toads, but he caught a couple of frogs and, triumphantly, brought them to me in a plastic bag.
Then he began to act according to my instructions: he checked the frogs for arrows in their teeth and other signs of royal blood.
Then he peeled them off, planted them on skewers and began to fry.
We gave him no salt and he sprinkled the unfortunate carcasses with ashes.
In short, he prepared them, sits and frowns: he does not dare to eat.
Here his crowd of people urges:
- Ooh! And he yelled: “We are scouts! We sit down on hedgehogs with our bare ass! And then you can't eat a frog."
Starley asked for vodka to tone him up.
He, of course, was sent to the anus and said: eat like this.
For a long time I instilled in him that he was alone, there were no supplies for a long time, there was nowhere to wait for help, and frogs were his last chance to survive.
Finally, he made up his mind and carefully began to gnaw at the flaccid legs.
And here we have just a shish kebab arrived in time.
Young pork on the bone, with a golden brown crust, marinated in mineral water, apples and lemon, sprinkled with herbs.
Then we poured it, wished the elders a bon appetite, grunt and began to eat steaming meat.
- Why don't you eat frogs? - Starley bleated in bewilderment.
- And what for us to eat this muck, when the fig is normal food? What are we, idiots, or what? - I replied getting older.
The scout skewed and ran to puke in the bushes, never realizing how we were different …
So, why did I say this?
If you have a kebab, or stew, or crackers, or noodles (the list is endless) - why the heck eat frogs and gnaw bark from trees?
The main thing in preparing meals for the "exit" is the brains!
This opinion is mine personally, and it may not coincide with many others.
