Jim Rice
USMA '85
'42 IHC M-3L-4 1.5T Truck
'43 Ford GPW
'46 Willys CJ-2A
'46 Piper J-3
'51 Jaques Power Saw M100 Trailer
'67 Ford M151A1
Antony Castagno wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> Brian Meads interesting post about cooking on Military Vehicles made me
> think and recollect about my time in the service and some of the ways we
> used our vehicles to cook. Now before you get ideas of how I used to cook
> on my GPW or such, I'm probably one of the "younger" side of people in our
> hobby. I'm 32 and graduated from West Point in 1989. I was a Tank Platoon
> Leader with the 24th Infantry Div (Mech) when the Gulf War Broke out. I
> deployed with my platoon on 7Aug 1990 5 days after the Iraq's invasion of
> Kuwait. We supported operation desert shield and Spearheaded the 18th
> Airborne's attack from the deep west that enveloped and eliminated the
> republican guard. Living on a tank for 9 months straight was a very intense
> experience, and deploying on a tank in 126+ degree weather was quite, well
> lets say warm :) Initially, because of the heat you could just bury your
> MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) packets in the sand and they would be cooked in
> about 5 minutes or less but at night and during the colder winter nights, we
> relied on our vehicles for our culinary experimentation. The M1A1 tank is
> unique in the fact that it uses a turbine engine, actually if I remember
> correctly its the same engine as one of the Coast Guard Helicopters, It
> generates 1500 hp and emits an exhaust of over 1200 degrees. During the
> morning startups where all the tanks start their engines in sync to avoid
> giving away tank strengths to listeners (always questioned this given how
> many better ways there are of detection) It made an excellet opportunity to
> put your canteen cup on the back grill and boil water, only took a minute or
> so... great for shaving, coffee, or heating foil packets of food. You could
> also simply put stick the MRE packets in the vertical grill but had to be
> careful of them exploding from the intense heat and quick expansion.... when
> we moved to TRATS (Tray Rations) Cans of food big enough to feed an entire
> tank platoon, we would cook those in the engine compartment. The high
> engine temps, the thick armor and a very conveniently located step plate
> made a great dutch oven..... One of the more interesting things I saw from
> our brethern in Supply, was they used to put their MRE Packs down the stack
> of their HEMMETS for 5 -10 mins and then gun the engine blowing the hot
> meals into the air.... It seemed to be a source of pride if they could
> catch them on the way down... it really didn't matter since they were fully
> wrapped anyway..... Well these are some nostalgic recollections from a not
> so old tanker...... Incidentally I still maintain my armor roots with my
> Ferret Mk 2/3... Nice not to have to do track maintenance every day.......
>
> Keep em rolling,
> Tony Castagno
> MVPA
> 51 M38
> 52 M38
> 55 M38A1
> 63 Ferret Mk 2/3
> 64 M416
> 67 M35A2
> 68 M151A1
>
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