C-ration
Sign in to savethumb|right|300px|A selection of United States military C-ration cans from World War II with items displayed. Note that the Old Gold cigarettes and vanilla caramels were not part of the C-ration.The C-ration (officially Field Ration, Type C) was a United States military ration consisting of prepared, canned wet foods. They were intended to be served when fresh or packaged unprepared food was unavailable, and survival rations were insufficient. It was replaced by the similarly canned Meal, Combat, Individual (MCI) in 1958; its modern successor is the retort pouch-based Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE),
~19 min read
Article
18 sectionsContents
- Background and development
- Iron Ration (1907–1922)
- Reserve Ration (1917–1937)
- Field ration, Type C (1938–1945)
- "M" Unit
- "B" Unit
- Accessory pack
- Crates
- Field ration, Type E (1946–1948)
- Ration, Individual, Combat, Type C (Revised) (1948–1958)
- Type C-2 ration (1948–1951)
- Type C-3 ration (1951–1953)
- Type C-4 ration (1954–1958)
- End of the C-ration
- Influence
- See also
- Notes
- Further reading
thumb|right|300px|A selection of United States military C-ration cans from World War II with items displayed. Note that the Old Gold cigarettes and vanilla caramels were not part of the C-ration.The C-ration (officially Field Ration, Type C) was a United States military ration consisting of prepared, canned wet foods. They were intended to be served when fresh or packaged unprepared food was unavailable, and survival rations were insufficient. It was replaced by the similarly canned Meal, Combat, Individual (MCI) in 1958; its modern successor is the retort pouch-based Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE), introduced in 1980.
Development of the C-ration began in 1938. The first rations were field-tested in 1940, and wide-scale adoption followed soon after. Operational conditions often caused the C-ration to be standardized for field issue regardless of environmental suitability or weight limitations. Though the C-ration was replaced in 1958, the new MCI was very similar to the C-ration, and was indeed still nicknamed the "C-ration" until its replacement by the MRE in the late 1970s.