Potentially Stupid Science/Engineering Question

[Thumpalumpacus]

You would have preferred, perhaps, Meals Rejected By Ethiopia?

My first tour we had to eat one a day for lunch, because the chow hall was too far from the flightline and our upload schedule was too busy anyway. My favorite MREs of the time were chicken a la king and beef stew. Both tasted pretty good and didn't go through me like the Wehrmacht through France. I preferred both to the salted grease that is Spam.

 

[special ed]

To continue off thread, I am reminded of an incident in one of my books, I think it was concerning Gen. Kenney. A B-24 had arrived in a thunderstorm while the troops were standing in the rain in the chow line. As the newly arrived pilot and copilot walked towards the front of the line, from the middle of the line came a voice ordering the two to the back of the line. It was Gen. Kenney in line, in the rain, with his men.

 

[fannum]

Not sure why the Navy would store milk in walkways, but hey, them Navy guys are a little odd.

Who said milk was ever stored in passageways? Only so much space in the reefers, usually for high protein meat needed to keep a large crew effective, so milk was at bottom of list, behind more space efficient cheese.
The Navy was smart enough to only store non-perishable foodstuffs in refrigerated spaces, and even then, many ships operating off Vietnam were of WWII vintage w/o air conditioning.
In my quarter century as an AF brat and in Navy service, I concluded the most wasteful service is the Air Force, with Army not far behind, and then a big gulf of efficiency to the Navy, then Marines, and most resourceful Coast Guard.

 

[pbehn]

As a descriptive word "steel" is hardly more informative than "metal". A steel is an alloy of Iron and Carbon. Some steels have as low as 0.05% Carbon, most I worked on had around 0.1% however they are still steels because other elements like Manganese Chromium Vanadium and Titanium are combined in a formula to calculate the "Carbon Equivalent" to determine the actual properties. However I worked on Super Duplex stainless steels which had 25%Chromium and 5% Copper in them. The difference between the properties of all the steels available is vast.

 

[MIflyer]

The difference between the properties of all the steels available is vast.

As is true with Aluminum, Inconel, etc.

 

[swampyankee]

I am quite sure that in WW2 Spam would have been received with the same joy as manna from heaven in much of the world, even if provided every day. One of the negative aspects of reading about aircrew escape and evasion in WW2 is that it is bad for your diet. Food was a obsession for escaped POWs and evading aircrew. Each nearly decent meal is recalled and recounted in detail. Food was not a trivial problem even for civilians in places like France, Belgium, Holland, etc. So reading about it makes you hungry.

As for Spam, I discovered the pleasures of it when cooked in a pan like bacon. Then one evening in 1979 I made a meal of it and shortly thereafter came own with a case of the stomach flu, which a friend of mine had contracted earlier that day. And I never ate Spam again. I know I was not the Spam that made me sick, but tasting it the second time around, in reverse,. finished me with the stuff.

The German occupiers of the Netherlands caused a famine in 1944-45 that killed something around 20,000 people. Spam would probably be quite happily received.

 

[MIflyer]

The German occupiers of the Netherlands caused a famine in 1944-45 that killed something around 20,000 people. Spam would probably be quite happily received.

My thoughts exactly! I recall reading that the Germans agreed to allow Allied aircraft to drop supplies there. The same could no doubt be said of the Polish uprising in Warsaw and any POW camp or Concentration camp in Europe or the Far East.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Who said milk was ever stored in passageways?

When you could walk down a passageway without tripping over boxes, you knew there was no more milk, eggs or veggies that didn't come in a box or can.

 

[Snautzer01]

The German occupiers of the Netherlands caused a famine in 1944-45 that killed something around 20,000 people. Spam would probably be quite happily received.

That is not the whole truth.
Allies shot at all that moved including the one carrying food. Blew bridges, attacked anything.
I know of a family member that was in a train and was attacked by the RAF. Much death and no military target as such.

Lot of gear blown to pieces but that had a down side. It was not a german plan to starve so many if any. They simply could not transport enough besides feeding their fighting force.

One could argue that denial of transport by the Allies caused a lot of this. Certainly around Den Haag and other locations where v-2 where fired from. Look up Bombing of the Bezuidenhout - Wikipedia to get a feel for the situation

War is far from simple. And in the end it is simpler to blame the ones that lost.

 

[GregP]

Considering what the Nazis did, there is PLENTY of blame to assign to them. Not all Nazis were monsters of the Concentration Camps, nor were they all SS people. The average German solider was just that, a soldier doing his duty as he saw it, and joined the Nazi party, if he did, so he and his family could get food. By 1943, if you were NOT in the party, you didn't get food or other rations.

After years of war, and casualties that were caused by the war, yes, the Allies attacked anything that moved until the war stopped and there was an official surrender. I tend to believe the root cause of the war was the Treaty of Versailles and that, without it, Hitler would never have come to power. Regardless, the Allies were taking no chances on more casualties based on some hoped-for goodwill and a desire to end the war from retreating German troops. They still had ammunition and still used it when encounters happened.

Sure, there is always a story from the other side about how it really was, and many, if not most, are true. The average German didn't start the war, likely didn't WANT the war, and had no say in anything concerning the war. He or she was likely just trying to eat every day due to the poverty created by the Treaty of Versailles ... none of which stopped the war from beginning a few minutes early on 1 Sep 1939.

 

[GTX]

a soldier doing his duty as he saw it, and joined the Nazi party, if he did, so he and his family could get food. By 1943, if you were NOT in the party, you didn't get food or other rations.

I don't believe it was ever that extreme. Happy to be corrected but I am pretty sure non-NAZI party Germans were not denied food.

 

[tyrodtom]

Considering what the Nazis did, there is PLENTY of blame to assign to them. Not all Nazis were monsters of the Concentration Camps, nor were they all SS people. The average German solider was just that, a soldier doing his duty as he saw it, and joined the Nazi party, if he did, so he and his family could get food. By 1943, if you were NOT in the party, you didn't get food or other rations.

After years of war, and casualties that were caused by the war, yes, the Allies attacked anything that moved until the war stopped and there was an official surrender. I tend to believe the root cause of the war was the Treaty of Versailles and that, without it, Hitler would never have come to power. Regardless, the Allies were taking no chances on more casualties based on some hoped-for goodwill and a desire to end the war from retreating German troops. They still had ammunition and still used it when encounters happened.

Sure, there is always a story from the other side about how it really was, and many, if not most, are true. The average German didn't start the war, likely didn't WANT the war, and had no say in anything concerning the war. He or she was likely just trying to eat every day due to the poverty created by the Treaty of Versailles ... none of which stopped the war from beginning a few minutes early on 1 Sep 1939.

There were 8.5 million Nazi party members in Germany in 1945, Germany's population was almost 80 million.
Looks like a lot Germans volunteered to starve.
Nor were you required to join the Nazi party if you were in the military.