How Much Food is in an Urban US Armory?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by thrash

T

One dodge that could be available in 1983 is Civil Defense fallout shelter supplies. Simply declare that the basement of the National Guard armory doubled as a community fallout shelter, and you can justify practically any amount of shelf-stable food by varying the size of the "community."

I think that by WWI the hard tack came in cans so that would be the first time the hard tack (probably) wasn't infested wiith weevils. However as the original "loose" hard tack ordered for use in the US Civil War was issued more than 30 years alter in the Spanish American war there just isn't any certainty about what happened to all the 'old" hard tack.

Then there's the "D-Ration" bars......

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by thrash

One dodge that could be available in 1983 is Civil Defense fallout shelter supplies. Simply declare that the basement of the National Guard armory doubled as a community fallout shelter, and you can justify practically any amount of shelf-stable food by varying the size of the "community."

That's essentially what I'm doing: I've described the building as containing 17 actual military staff and a bunch of civilians. I'm aware of the program because my grandparent's basement was designed as one, but I'm not sure where to get information on the program beyond that... my google foo fails me.



Its not the PC's base, they're in a bunker actually designed to outwait the apocalypse... They're trying to get an extra source of food to outfox the AWOL three-star general who inserted himself at the top of their command chain so that they can buy an atomic clock from the year 2038 where a version of airborne rabies killed almost everyone.


Yes, the PC's have mentioned fragging as an option. We'll see how long "general smiles" lasts.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm aware of the program because my grandparent's basement was designed as one, but I'm not sure where to get information on the program beyond that... my google foo fails me.

Ah, I was just reading online a 1960's book on survivable urban design, but I can't find the citation. You could do worse than searching the Universal Library for "civil defense", e.g.: https://archive.org/details/shelterd...e/n85/mode/2up

[(E)]

If there is a commissary or canteen attached to the armoury there might be in transit supplies nearby or even passing through...

The good "there's a truck load of food'
The bad "it's outside in the radiation"
The ugly "it's all canned beans"

[safisher]

Back in the early 1990s there was an expected earthquake in NE Arkansas.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/...ryId=941700708

In response, the Arkansas National Guard, of which I was a part at that time, prepared for it. We went through training (I learned Heavy Urban Search and Rescue and advanced first aid) and prepositioned supplies. Our armory was full of pallets of water and MREs.

Your armory could have been a site for pre-planned civil defense feeding point, for something called Continuity of Operations or Continuity of Government. That means there could be anything on site for that purpose, from supplies and ammo to food and water.

https://www.gpo.gov/docs/default-sou...2017FCD1-2.pdf

This document suggests at least 30 days of supplies.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by ericthered

SNIP I'm aware of the program because my grandparent's basement was designed as one, but I'm not sure where to get information on the program beyond that... my google foo fails me.
SNIP

You can try some old books and reprints from that time, the survivalist scene and the gouvernment produced a lot oft lists which stuff to store and were. either for officila sites and for private people. I got a reprint of a 1979 book, it contains among els a complete list of personal medical supplies a person / family should have at their hor and shelter as a full list of medical stuff for a disaster field hospital, sadly nothing to MREs or rations, just the mormon 4 and a bit other stuff in that book.

If it were free pubications have you checked the internet libraries, like gutenberg or the library of congress and such?

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by safisher

Back in the early 1990s there was an expected earthquake in NE Arkansas.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/...ryId=941700708

In response, the Arkansas National Guard, of which I was a part at that time, prepared for it. We went through training (I learned Heavy Urban Search and Rescue and advanced first aid) and prepositioned supplies. Our armory was full of pallets of water and MREs.

Your armory could have been a site for pre-planned civil defense feeding point, for something called Continuity of Operations or Continuity of Government. That means there could be anything on site for that purpose, from supplies and ammo to food and water.

https://www.gpo.gov/docs/default-sou...2017FCD1-2.pdf

This document suggests at least 30 days of supplies.

All true except his campaign is set in the early 1980's, very shortly after the official roll out of the MRE program. (IIRC roll out 1981 campaign 1983). Also the plan was 'use up stocks of CRI then restock by ordering MRE'. Since the location is a Guard/Reserve Armory in all likelihood they will not have depleted the CRI stocks enough, so no MRE's will have been even ordered, nevermind fulfilled.

10 years is a long time in terms of feeding the troops, if it were the same Armory in 1993 then yes the rations to be found would be MREs.

Guess the good (?) news is that they will have lots of handy (?) tin cans.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I think that by WWI the hard tack came in cans so that would be the first time the hard tack (probably) wasn't infested wiith weevils. However as the original "loose" hard tack ordered for use in the US Civil War was issued more than 30 years alter in the Spanish American war there just isn't any certainty about what happened to all the 'old" hard tack.

Then there's the "D-Ration" bars......

Well technically the US Army (or more accurately manufacturers under contract) first started incorporating canned items as part of rations as early as the Civil War. Of course with the state of technology, the inconsistency of manufacture, and the rampant grey scale corruption (a boot that isn't much better than cardboard and falls apart on the first march or rain, is technically a 'boot') to maximize profit over lives; you might be right that the canned hard tack in WWI might have been the first competently done.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Witchking

All true except his campaign is set in the early 1980's, very shortly after the official roll out of the MRE program. (IIRC roll out 1981 campaign 1983). Also the plan was 'use up stocks of CRI then restock by ordering MRE'. Since the location is a Guard/Reserve Armory in all likelihood they will not have depleted the CRI stocks enough, so no MRE's will have been even ordered, nevermind fulfilled.

It seems like either the location maintains a large supply of food, and thus would have CRI's enough to still have some left when the PC's show up, or it does not and only has enough for the occasional exercise, in which case it will have depleted its CRI's in short order and switched to MRE's. I guess there's a third option, where the location gets its rations from a warehouse elsewhere that is stocked up on CRI's... but in that case said warehouse should probably service a lot of armories/bases, so its stock will have been depleted and replaced with MRE's at around the same rate as active-duty locations.

So, I'd say either there's food available but it's all CRI's, or there's no food available but at least the civilians sheltering there had MRE's instead of CRI's in the beginning.

Of course, given the personnel there probably know where the food comes from, there's also the possibility that they sent a convoy to the warehouse to stock themselves back up (or even just moved all the survivors to the warehouse).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Witchking

you might be right that the canned hard tack in WWI might have been the first competently done.

<shrug> I can't say whe canned hard tack was first issued for exercises but it's generally accepted that US troops in the Civil War were issued hard tack stocked for the Mexican-American War and troops in the Spanish-American War were still working on the back log from Civil War stocks. Nothing mentioned about Spanish-American War stocks.

Before WWI hard tack was baked twice (and sometimes baked 4 times) and left to air-dry for as long as 6 months. The weevils got into it then