Mobile Butcher Shop?

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Papa G
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Mobile Butcher Shop?

#1

Post by Papa G » 09 Jul 2014, 03:58

Did any country utilize mobile units for processing animal carcasses to feed their troops? I would assume they would process horses or cattle. Any sites that may have information?

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Maxschnauzer
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#2

Post by Maxschnauzer » 09 Jul 2014, 11:00

Papa G wrote:Did any country utilize mobile units for processing animal carcasses to feed their troops? I would assume they would process horses or cattle. Any sites that may have information?
Hello Papa,
I found this photo on e-Bay captioned Soldaten Wehrmacht ziehen Seil zu LKW Kennung Wappen Feld-Fleischerei.
$T2eC16N,!w0FIZzCQVNnBSHwtQWEmg~~60_57.JPG
The symbol on the rear of the vehicle appears to depict a horse, which perhaps is what is on the other end of their rope. :lol: :
a.jpg
a.jpg (12.48 KiB) Viewed 1312 times
Cheers,
Max


Alanmccoubrey
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#3

Post by Alanmccoubrey » 09 Jul 2014, 14:32

Max, if that looks like a horse to you I suggest you never bet on a horse race, it is I believe the standing "cat", although I always thought it looks more like a ferret than a cat, of 125 Infanterie Division. The tactical sign in not a butchery unit but an engineer unit. Butchers would have had the rectangle with a meat clever in the centre, this one has the double arrows of the engineer.
Alan

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Maxschnauzer
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#4

Post by Maxschnauzer » 10 Jul 2014, 04:27

Yes Alan, I thought the horse looked a little peculiar from the neck down but it's not a very convincing cat either. :? Just goes to show that you should never believe every caption you see on eBay.:lol:
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Max

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ChrisMAg2
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#5

Post by ChrisMAg2 » 22 Aug 2014, 14:07

Papa G wrote:Did any country utilize mobile units for processing animal carcasses to feed their troops? I would assume they would process horses or cattle. Any sites that may have information?
The Wehrmacht did have mobile butcher units, just as they also had mobile bakeries for their bread. As for the meat sourceses, butchers would process, what they are used to -that's usually pork and beef- but wouldn't mind, what ever else would have been available, like sheep, goat or even game. Horse is a more regional delicassy, but it was processed too, especially if there was nothing else.
Unfortunately there seems to be no dedicated sites or even books on this topic, except for the vehicles used.
Last edited by ChrisMAg2 on 22 Aug 2014, 17:42, edited 3 times in total.
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Christian M. Aguilar

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ChrisMAg2
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#6

Post by ChrisMAg2 » 22 Aug 2014, 17:19

Hi,
this is what the organisational symbols of bakery and butcher units in the Wehrmacht looked like,

1. As platoons (Zug): left: butcher, right: baker
ID-WH Org-Back-Butch-platoon.jpg
ID-WH Org-Back-Butch-platoon.jpg (29.33 KiB) Viewed 1061 times
Source: http://niehorster.orbat.com/011_germany ... welle.html

2. As a company (Kompanie): left: baker, right: butcher
WH-Org-Symb-bak-butch-comp.jpg
WH-Org-Symb-bak-butch-comp.jpg (52.23 KiB) Viewed 1061 times
Source: http://niehorster.orbat.com/011_germany ... ls_39.html
Regards
Christian M. Aguilar

gebhk
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#7

Post by gebhk » 21 Sep 2014, 18:25

Given that mobile refrigeration units were only beginning to become available to many armies when the war broke out, that on the spot butchery was essential to 'living off the land' and that leather was an important war material (and therefore animal carcasses were better left to people who knew what they were doing) one would think every army would have had appropriately equipped butchers. Yet I have to confess I have seen photos of specialised equipment only in the German army.... Food for thought, if you pardon the awful and unintentional pun.

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Leo Niehorster
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#8

Post by Leo Niehorster » 22 Sep 2014, 13:54

I think that in WWII, the US Army depended on meat bought from contractors, and then shipped the meat in refrigerated transport (ship, train, truck) to the troops. So there was no need for specialized meat-processing equipment besides carving knives and meat grinders.
The same probably applied to the British Army.
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URL: World War II Armed Forces

gebhk
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Re: Mobile Butcher Shop?

#9

Post by gebhk » 24 Sep 2014, 11:37

Since you've mentioned the British Army, I read in some bumph about HMS Belfast that battleships had sausage makers with sausage making machines making miles of sausages every day - why? Surely if fresh meat could be delivered and stored why not sausages? That aside, if the Navy required sausage makers, surely the Army did too? And if so where were they stationed in the Divisional structure?

Your point is well taken with regard to technologically and commercially advanced countries (and foodies might say gastronomically backward ones :P ). But what about countries like, say, Poland whose army had only just completed testing a prototype refrigerated trucks to transport meat from field butcheries to the units when war broke out? Never mind a national meat distributor it could tap into, it didn't even have a national bakery supplier and thus even in peacetime the army had to operate its own central bakery and bake or source supplies locally. Meat was therefore supplied down to divisional/brigade level on the hoof and necessitated the operation of a field byre (obora polowa) and a field butcher's shop (rzeznia polowa) as part of its admin park (park intendentury).

I have some detail regarding the arrangements in the motorised brigades, courtesy of Gaj K. 10 Brygada Kawalerii w 1939 roku

The 'meat handling unit' (officially: rzeznia i obora) consisted (at the end of 1938 - but I see little reason why that would have changed between then and 1/9/39) of HQ (intendency officer in command, officer veterinarian and batman) two butchering teams (2 NCO slaughterers and one EM butcher responsible for portioning the meat each), the field byre (NCO in command + 3 EM 'hands') and a transport section with 3 EM drivers and 2 EM assistant drivers with one 4-seater car (for the unit COs livestock purchasing trips) and 2 trucks (one for the slughtering teams and their equipment and one for transporting meat). The officers had their private pistols and two of the NCOs were also pistol armed. The remainder were armed with rifles or just bayonets (those cows can be dangerous when roused!)

The process consisted of 4 stages:
1) Livestock (ideally beef cattle but if that was unavailable, whatever else came to hand) was either collected from a railhead or purchased locally for cash. In the first case it was collected by the commander of the byre with two hands (one hand always remained with the herd). In the second case, the byre team was accompanied by the veterinarian and admin park finance officer and was transported by the latter's pickup. They could be accompanied by the commander of the butchery and byre and his car, making travelling conditions less cramped. Once collected, the livestock would be moved to the field byre the old fashioned way - on foot herded by men with sticks (shades of raw-hiiiiiiiiiiiiiide without the horses for the older folk among us).
2) The cattle joined the field byre which was expected to contain enough livestock for 1-3 days plus supply for the days kill - a total of 18-34 standard-sized cattle or equivalent in smaller specimens or other species. This required some 180-680kg of feed per day and ensuring 900-4896m2 of pasture every four days in summer. In winter, in the absence of pasture, 900-3400kg of feed.
3) The animals were slaughtered and processed by the two teams. The maximum output for each team was 6 cattle per day so given that the daily requirement of the brigade was 9 'standard' beef cattle, there was significant leeway to deal with larger numbers of equivalent smaller animals.
4) The meat, divided into portions, was transported forwards to the brigade's sub units food collection point. Given that the brigade was motorised and the byre was not, predicting the brigade's movements and working out the best locations for the byre during a retreat was no doubt a significant headache for brigade staff.

Without going into details, it was a minimum of 15 hours from the time the cattle arrived at the field byre to the time they could exit as portions of meat in specially designed metal boxes (this could be reduced by up to 3 hours if vehicles adapted for meat drying on the move were available). In practice, therefore, meat from animals slaughtered one day, reached the cooking pot no earlier than the following one. On a hot day and without the benefit of mobile refrigeration, this must have created some health problems.

The meat processing facilities of infantry divisions had to be larger (say twice the size or thereabouts) and while the admin parks of infantry divisions and horsed cavalry brigades had a few motor vehicles at their disposal as did regimental supply units, to what extent they were used for meat transportation I don't know. Be that as it may I suspect the journey of the meat from slaughter to pot was longer than was the case in motorised units, increasing the hygiene problems further.

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