How much storage/shipping space did German garrison rations take up?

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CSEverett
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How much storage/shipping space did German garrison rations take up?

#1

Post by CSEverett » 22 Feb 2023, 21:46

A highly unusual question, I know, but I'm wondering how "big" garrison rations were, in terms of "X rations took up about Y volume/space/etc." for purposes such as storage or shipping of large quantities. I've been able to find how much food was in a ration, but that's not particularly helpful in this particular case. Possibly the easiest and most useful way would be finding the rough size of the crates that garrison rations came in (I think a garrison ration might have come packed across multiple crates with multiple rations in each, but I'm not sure), and how many rations were in it. From what I've found the Germans considered a ration to be a complete day's allowance for one man, so that could be helpful I suppose.

Thanks, and apologies for the unusual question.

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T. A. Gardner
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Re: How much storage/shipping space did German garrison rations take up?

#2

Post by T. A. Gardner » 16 Mar 2023, 06:02

Rations in garrison in this period, regardless of which military you are discussing are normally made up of a combination of locally procured fresh foods and canned, preserved, and otherwise processed ones that are shipped to the garrison. The exact ratio will vary considerably, but the command is expected in most cases to buy a large part of their rations from the local civilian market.


CSEverett
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Re: How much storage/shipping space did German garrison rations take up?

#3

Post by CSEverett » 22 Mar 2023, 07:06

T. A. Gardner wrote:
16 Mar 2023, 06:02
Rations in garrison in this period, regardless of which military you are discussing are normally made up of a combination of locally procured fresh foods and canned, preserved, and otherwise processed ones that are shipped to the garrison. The exact ratio will vary considerably, but the command is expected in most cases to buy a large part of their rations from the local civilian market.
Very true, and a very good point. I'm going for more along the lines of the number needed to figure out "for strongpoint A to be provisioned for a siege of X days, it would take Y amount of bunker storage space to store Z man-days of rations." I suppose finding the sizes of ration crates would be a route toward that. But it seems that rations for other countries tend to take of a volume of around 1 to 1.2 cubic feet per - will check notes for that. German rations were more then a bit different from that of other countries, or at least the US (canned, canned and more canned) and what little I have for the Brits (updated preservation methods for the centuries-old salt beef and hardtack essentially - but apparently actually quite a good diet for soldiers from a nutritional standpoint, and unlike K-rations actually provided enough calories.)

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T. A. Gardner
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Re: How much storage/shipping space did German garrison rations take up?

#4

Post by T. A. Gardner » 22 Mar 2023, 07:14

CSEverett wrote:
22 Mar 2023, 07:06
T. A. Gardner wrote:
16 Mar 2023, 06:02
Rations in garrison in this period, regardless of which military you are discussing are normally made up of a combination of locally procured fresh foods and canned, preserved, and otherwise processed ones that are shipped to the garrison. The exact ratio will vary considerably, but the command is expected in most cases to buy a large part of their rations from the local civilian market.
Very true, and a very good point. I'm going for more along the lines of the number needed to figure out "for strongpoint A to be provisioned for a siege of X days, it would take Y amount of bunker storage space to store Z man-days of rations." I suppose finding the sizes of ration crates would be a route toward that. But it seems that rations for other countries tend to take of a volume of around 1 to 1.2 cubic feet per - will check notes for that. German rations were more then a bit different from that of other countries, or at least the US (canned, canned and more canned) and what little I have for the Brits (updated preservation methods for the centuries-old salt beef and hardtack essentially - but apparently actually quite a good diet for soldiers from a nutritional standpoint, and unlike K-rations actually provided enough calories.)
For the US, you should watch this guy's videos. Here's a typical one.


ewest89
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Re: How much storage/shipping space did German garrison rations take up?

#5

Post by ewest89 » 07 Apr 2023, 18:43


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