MOSCOW. Oct 10 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry believes that producers of compo rations for the Russian Armed Forces discredit the idea of a combat individual food ration in the army and undermine combat readiness of units.
"The rations are made to be used in combat, and that is why their quality must be extra high," Airborne Chief-of-Staff Lieutenant General Alexander Staskov said in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper published on Thursday. According to him, supplies of low-quality compo rations to the armed forces are like "a time bomb planted by suppliers to destroy combat readiness."
The individual compo ration was compiled by the research and technical committee of the Defense Ministry's central food department during the first Chechnya campaign. There are different variants of the ration, but all of them are fitted with a portable heater. In addition to traditional canned meat and porridge, the ration contains canned fish, dry drinks, milk, sauce, tea, coffee and dried fruit. All products are packed in lamister, which makes it possible to preserve their taste for a long time. According to specialists and servicemen, the ration is extremely valuable in combat conditions, when there is no other way to provide food to servicemen in the field.
At the same time, the compo rations supplied to military units do not have much in common with the set designed by the research and technical committee. Instead of hermetic plastic packs with convenient handles, they come in cardboard boxes that take in water even under a small rain. Meat and fish in tin cans are hard to worm, they burn on even a small fire, and mostly consist of fat. Waterproof matches are replaced by regular ones and packed together with vitamins. Raisins recommended by experts are not served for dessert. They are replaced with dried fruit that have nearly turned to stone.
Colonel Yevgeny Khanin, chief of the operations department in the 7th airborne division, told Krasnaya Zvezda he was extremely critical of the compo rations. "New compo rations in cardboard boxes perplex me. If their creators think that they can save money by supplying this to troops, it is obviously an incorrect way. The quality and utility of the compo ration are nearly reduced to zero," he said.
Colonel General Vladimir Moltenskoi, commander of the unified federal troops group in the North Caucasus and first deputy commander of the Land Forces, voiced the same opinion. "Compo rations in cardboard supplied to military units are bad from any point of view and inconvenient in combat," he told Krasnaya Zvezda.