British 1980s 24 Hour Ration Pack G.S. - Menu A 

The sundries bag had another use (Tip from Royal Marine attached to us on Dartmoor). If your rat pack had the rolled oats in it, instead of making a goo-ey mess in your mess tin, place the sundries bag in the water bottle cup (tight fit but it will stretch), add oats then milk powder & sugar, stir then add oiling or hot water. Not proper porridge but hot & filling with the same calorie count. If feeling exotic, add the hot chocolate sachet too it for super porridge! Advantage is no gummed up cup or mess tin to attempt to clean in the field plus for one mess tin boil you get a meal & hot drink with minimal washing up. Porridge-ey spoon stirs tea & licked dry!

Sauages were the best ever, babies heads with baked beans were a triumph and worthy of a Michelin Star. Bacon grill and chesse possessed made a mega burger. The curried chicken and chicken Supreme were sublime, tubes of condensed milk and jam were good suckers on a long march, kept in the top pocket.

Ah, happy memories. The smell of bacon grill and hexamine...

Remember having to take everything out of the box and fit it inside my mess tins so it could all be carried in one of my kidney pouches.

In the mid 80's we started getting packs with trials items in to 'improve' them. Most of those I got had dehydrated cook in sauce type mixes. A little while after this we started to get the first "boil in the bag" packs. Choccie bars came in a variety of makes, Caxton, Yorkie, sometimes a single one of the type you got in a 10 man rat pack tin. Only ever cooked the rice once - when I tried to make a rice pud with the dried milk and sugar - it was erm interesting. The AB bics could be used to make a sort of porridge but mostly just scooped out some of the paste with them to eat or munched on while out and about (kept a pack in smock pocket). The boilies could come in a little plastic trough in a wrapper (kind of how jaffa cakes come but of course smaller) and contain the same boilies as in the tins in 4 and 10 man packs. The apple flakes usually just put a little hot water in the pouch to eat or eat dry. Sometimes due to shortages or rat packs being old (they would get checked and redated) you could find "substitute" items either from other menus or totally new (we had our pilchards replaced by tinned salmon in our 10 man packs in Sarejevo in 95 due to the pilchards failing the check)

Curried chicken was my fave. I can still taste it after all these years. Biscuits Anti-Tank, I actually liked them. First time I was given one of those packs was 1983.

Never in my 23 years Regular or TA FTRS did I eat the entire Rat Pack no matter which version

Good to see all these old squaddies reminiscing, reminds me of my step-dad, REME, now passed, miss you Pete

Hi, no happy memories here. The worst was a ration re- supply air drop in early sixties into the highlands of Muscat, a weeks worth of 24 hour ration packs for the platoon; every pack was “F pack” and all we had was Liver & Bacon for the next seven days. Even today, if I see it on a Menu my stomach turns and I feel like I need a good chunder! We were better off with Tins of Bully Beef and Spam with lots of curry powder and pre cooked rice. Brit army food was trash!

Loved ration packs, individual, 4 & 10 man. Hamburgers in a tin, fruit cake, tinned babies head, stew onions with potato powder. Also had tea and coffee powder. Only stuff I couldn't get my head was chicken supreme!!!! As an M2 rig commander / driver, we normally had a 4 man pack issued (4 man crew) every day, with 5 boxes as initial issue at the start of an exercise. Also purchased a load of other fresh stuff from the NAAFI prior to deploying. Many times cooked the rations when we were in bridge taking battle groups over the river 😏 Great video, lots of memories.

The goulash was my favourite! At least there are certain supermarkets that sell bacon grill in corned beef shaped tins, so can still indulge!

I can still remember my father giving us this un-used 24hrs rations as kids in the 1980’s! When I join the Army in late 1990’s,; The 24hr Rat Pack was boil in bag etc and have advance further in today Army’s..! The chocolate bars have always been different each time we were issued them with dodge Arabic writing on them 😂

I thought it was all lovely. One time on ex in Germany ‘80, an announcement was made that the bacon grills were off and giving blokes food poisoning. Much cursing and lobbing tins into the woods ensued. Me, having cast iron guts and loving the stuff went around collecting about 20 tins. A little later it was found the announcement should have included ‘for exercise’. No I didn’t give any back 🤫.

Yorkie bars and boiled sweets ,spent more time trying to get the wrappers off the sweets than anything else.Tinned stew and curry powder. Marathon bars etc, the Dugs Baws.

A superb review. Good to see someone describe the range card accurately.

My husband was in the Army in the 70s and 80s. He used to bring me home the fruit cake back when it was packed in tins. I loved that fruit cake! I had one of those can openers for over 30 years, the best can opener ever! Hubbie used to squash a roll of "comfy bum" in the bottom of his bag to avoid that loo paper!

Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a 1980's United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) 24 hour ration pack. Basically a reduced calorie version of the Army ration pack issued as war stocks only (ie, not to be used on exercise) to the Royal Observer Corps.

I was a boil in the bag squaddie, keep the water for the tea Never put the milk powder in because it ruined the brew The tea bag was kept aside after use to clean the bottom of the mess tin which was black from hexi. Hot chocolate powder which was the best thing ever and nothing comes close to it in the supermarkets. The bullet proof bum wad was replaced by a pack of kleenex tissues which tore to easily, it was not up to the task of dealing with a compo dump. And if memory serves the Mars bar was usually white due to age.

I remember most of our Compo was in tins. The chicken supreme was very popular, though I loved the tinned goulash. Shah's (Mars) bars and Rolos, tinned sausages in lard, Jam in a can (and butter), PK chewing gum, cheese "possessed" (yuk), gritty powdered lemon "screech" drink and those apple flakes that NEVER rehydrated properly. A wee pack of tissues was all we got for "wiping". A houdehold soft bog roll (not IZAL lol), flattened and slid over the handle of the small mess tin stopped everything rattling. Big mess tin closed over the small one and you could get most of your rat pack in your 58 kidney pouch. Thanks for the vid.

Mars Bars that had an almost white powdery coating, all written in Arabic and 20 years out of date. I presume they were on there way to Iran befor the Shah got toppled. Much prefered the Compo Rocks in a tin from the 10 man box. Garenteed mouth ulcers for 2 weeks, im sure they were laced with an addictive substance other than sugar. Never encountered the Trial item either as an Army Cadet or Soldier. As a Cadet, we used to keep our tin openers as a badge of rank, to show how many ration packs one had eaten, obviuosly gave that up as a Soldier as no one wanted to admit how many they eaten. Is there and dating on anything to give an idea when it was trialed?

Biscuits AB- Always Broken.

My brother was in REME in those days. I used to polish off his left over rations! Starburst were called Opel Fruits. Spangles were a boiled sweet sort of thing. Great seeing that stuff again, thanks!

The best way to cook the rice was to pierce the bag repeatedly with the tin opener, turning it into a big teabag. This saved the rice sticking to the mess tin. Cleaning the tins was best done with a wet used teabag.

Exercises with the CCF, and OTC, and DofE Silver and Gold expeditions. The hot chocolate was awesome.

I went through basic training before the Falklands, during the entire 16 week period we were given ration packs at least once a week after the first three. Including eight in one week and a half whilst out on exercise. In that time only one pack had a can opener, we had been warned by our corporal to use a boot lace to tie it to your jacket. They were rarer than rocking horse manure. The other strange thing is that they were all menu B. I was surprised to see small tea bags, we had two catering size bags. I loved the steak and kidney pudding and the tinned cheese.

Spangles were a sugary boiled sweet...that was 'tangy'....I liked 'em, (I regularly bought them as a kid in the 70's)....instant sugar fix that tasted nicer than the destrose-chalk ;-) LOVED the 'Bacon-Grill' 😋

The missing chocolate bar was made by Duncan's of Scotland. I believe they went out of business after losing the military contract.which is a shame because it was bloody good chocolate..

We were issued this box as cadets in the mid 80s. The bacon grill was fantastic. The dessert mix was like eating slushy foam, but as a 14 year old boy at the time on a weekend trip to the Brecon Beacons in June we acted as if it made us into super tough commandos. My grandad said he had also had oatmeal blocks for breakfast in Normandy in 1944 and that made me feel very close to him.

In the T.A. in the early 80s we got these for weekend exercises. Happy memories.

Brings back lots of memories, served from '72-'87, always remember the Aztec bar, and of course the cheese processed, but my favourite was always the compo sausages in the 10 man packs, unlike nowadays you never checked the ingredients, always to hungry to bother about that, just about getting it down your neck as quick as.

My dad was in the TA signals, my packed lunches for school were compo paste sammidges 🤢 . I still use ration packs when camping and they are bomb proof. I recently had a chocolate pudding that was 9years out of date 😂

God this brings back some memories, I came out of the Royal Signals in 1978, we did not have all the choccy bars but I enjoyed those Oat Biscuits, and the can of Steak and Kidney pudding was gorgeous, if we had a move we used to pop a can of that on the Land Rover exhaust manifold so when we stopped we just opened the can for a hot meal, you had to stand back a bit because it could come out at quite a lick as you first opened it. One of the "Old Sweats " in our squadron told us that you could get cans of rolled up bacon when he first joind ( late 60's I think " Thumbs up to Brucemacallan " Biscuits Anti Tank " loved it !!!!!!!

As always love it. The ration looks really big though. I remember eating very light in the field. Just one strong super sweet tea (if any) for BF with panzer biscuits, a few (2 or 3) canteen cups with electrolyte or energy tabs during the day, one big canned meal with "panzer" biscuits and a chewing gum (if allowed) for late dinner. Boiled sweets in the pocket, chocolate melted so keep it away from your tigh cargo pockets. Love the cold war stuff!

soldiers from the 1980s are usually the most fun people you'll ever get to speak to.

As my dad was UDR in 70s early 80s and as I was army cadets from 81 to 84 and then a army chef from 84 onwards. I remember these very well. But as I was ACC i had the pick of whatever I felt like and the 10 man Pack's aswell.

A friend came to visit about 10 years ago and brought me an original compo tin opener as a reminder of old times, he still works out on the ranges for the MOD. He gave me the opener when we were in the pub and I put it in the breast pocket of my jacket and almost forgot about it until it was picked up by the metal detector at airport security, hmm had some explaining to do to explain what it was. When I mentioned it was used by the British army he quickly gave me it back and said just stick it back in your pocket! The packs in the mid seventies had the meals and snacks separated and each came out of the box in its own brown paper bag. To this day if I see someone with a Mcdonalds takeaway bag I think 24 hr ration pack! I am sure tank crews used to use 4, 5 or 6 man packs rather than the 24 or 10 man issue. Another thing I still enjoy is when I go out for breakfast, you often get a selection of jams to go with your toast, at my regular place they do sachets of apricot jam, always reminds me of the jam that was issued in the white tubes. One item I have always looked for from that era is one of the blue plastic salt pots that came with the ten man packs, in the 90's I traveled all over the country searching for work so my car was completely kitted out for nights spent on the road. I managed to obtain two of those pots from Marcus's Army surplus in Hotwells Rd Bristol but these have been lost over the years!

Awesome video and a trip down memory lane. I was wondering if you vacuum sealed the leaking ( offending) packets then trimmed the edges, essentially laminating them would help in persevering their life span. Cheers 🍻, take care and stay frosty. Happy holidays.🎄🇨🇦🌲🇬🇧🎄

I remember making the curry in my metal mug on the hexy stove, and I couldn’t be bothered to clean it before making a drink. Curried coffee with rice croutons is exactly how you imagine it. But it was hot and wet so I was as happy as I could be in the cold and rain

That brought back some fond memories. The missing chocolate bar was usually Dunhills brand if I remember rightly. It certainly was in later rations. We usually added the Apple flakes to either oatmeal block, or rolled oats, along with drinking chocolate powder to make a fantastic porridge for breakfast. Loved the 'dead fly biscuits' (fruit) but hated the little tins. They were heavy, bulky, a pig to open and miserable if you had to eat them cold. I remember breaking through a crust of hard fat, like creme brulee, inside a cold tin of stewed steak on Catterick Training Area in '91; not appetising. The boil in the bag rations that replaced these were a massive improvement I certainly remember the sheets of izal toilet paper!! Thank god for biscuits brown😬 😵

A real Pandora's box, I'd love to get my hands on a copy of one of these with edible contents, and take it out into the woods and sleep under a poncho and cook up some feasts on a hexy stove. I served 1988-93 both TA and Regs. The Rolos were much shorter packs than the normal ones, so virtually impossible to recreate btw. The chocolate bars we had were in plain white covers, the same as the ones in tins of ''chocolate, matches'' (I think) in the larger 10 man ration packs. The menu you have there was probably, together with the one containing baby's heads (steak and kidney pudding), the most popular back in the day. As to concoctions, these weren't so much done with 24 hour packs as with the larger 5 and 10 man packs. Having said that, many mixed hot chocolate in with their apple flakes (in mylar type bags) or rolled oats, or even all 3 together. Bacon Grill, or Baconburger, is food of the Gods if fried and I still do this with civilian equivalents such as Tulip Bacon Grill purchased in that wonderful emporium Iceland, but we never used to do that in the field as it would have been a real pain to get the inside of the mess tins clean afterwards, due to them being aluminium, so we used to just pierce or dent the tin, and place it in what I now call a bain-marie i.e. a mess tin of water which is boiled, using the water then to reconstitute oats, make a brew, or wash and shave. In my TA infantry recruits Cadre at Whittington Bks our Hampshire Regt Platoon Sgt (DS) said with regard to the biscuits, brown : ''the best thing to do with this bastard is to stamp on it in the pack, and mix it into the soup and contents of the main meal tin''. He also said that as the toilet paper was basically greaseproof paper and therefore limited in terms of absorbency, the correct way to use it was to tear out a very small hole in the middle of a sheet, and poke your finger through that hole and clean your bum with that. The small circle torn out of the centre should then be used to clean under the nail of said finger.

I eat rations this age quite often. Some have fared better than others, but anything in tins needs to be emptied out before the contents eat the tin away and destroy the rest of the rations. I have a late 70 US B unit up for review in a few days.

Our boiled sweets came in tins with a bar of chocolate. The possessed cheese was also popular. The bag of rice has shrunk . Where's the mutton (soya) and beef mixes ? . I lived and fought for the oatmeal blocks 😂 .

I served from 1982 to 1997 , so saw these packs , the improved packs post Falklands and then the start of boil in the bag ....7 menus were luxury ,never dreamt of the ninety twelve menus that are around now, the old 4 menus for a month or six were thought to be okay in those days.

back in the late 70s when I joined all we ever got was ration pack A. we all thought ration packs B C and D were urban myths, as we never saw one. but you always heard about a guy who had one once.😂😂😂

I loved menu A , biscuits and all , the oatmeal block was yummy

Some may have worked it out already, but the nickname for biscuits AB was 'Arse Blocker' because they gave you constipation. The chicken curry was everyone's favourite.

I had a 24-hour ration containing a tin of fruit cocktail sitting on a shelf of my bookcase. One evening I heard a loud bang and went to see what had happened. Apparently the fruit cocktail tin had exploded after the contents fermented.

Veteran of this period loved this menu combined the Apple flakes with the curry or made a porage with that and AB bic's fruit sugar milk, Bacon grill was great could be cooked and sometimes we had beans, all meals could be eaten cold under tactical conditions. Water boiled at 4 mins with Hexamine blocks so a quick shared brew was possible in a 15 min break. Good pack my fav. Brings back memories though small it was enough.

Fond memories of Biscuits fruit ( like Garibaldis) and Apple flakes. But when in the field, it all went down with gusto !! We were always hungry. 😊

i remember boil in the bag stuff in the late 70s, i think they were labeled "artic rations" or something to do with cold weather, I was told they took these to the Falkland's and it was not a good idea because there was not a lot of usable water on the islands, my favorite part was the toothpaste tube of condensed milk, squirt on the AB biscuits, made them actually quite good, as i remember, was a long time ago. or was i eating the toothpaste?

Finally Another Food related episode.

I went through Royal Marines training during the very hot summer of 1976, without a doubt recipe c with a small tin of fruit cocktail was much sought after 👍 , especially as we had to survive on one pint of water per day only !

Missing two packages of sugar ,so 1 per pint of tea or coffee. Chocolate bars were same shape and size as the old long and thin yorkie bar. These were in a dark blue wrapper with white writing, if I remember correctly they just had the plastic wrapper folded around, with no foil layer inside. Hope this helps, brought back a memory or three!

Had those in 88 when I joined TA infantry. Then when I transferred to Reme on my recovery vehicle we were issued 2 ten man packs 2 20ltr water containers and a boiler in the cab, luxury. We used to carry a small gas stove as well.

Great memories watching this. The Dextrose tablets were rectangular rather than round and the missing chocolate bar from that period would have been made by Duncan’s of Scotland. There’s a picture from the National Army Museum website if you’re looking to recreate the missing item for display. The ‘confectionary bar’ mentioned on the menu sheet would’ve been a Mars bar

Happy memories! The slightly earlier pack had tubes (like a small toothpaste tube) of margarine, jam & condensed milk. The Jam & margarine were supposed to be spread on biscuits AB but you could never get the margarine out so we just sucked the jam out of the tube. At one point they must have been short of margarine as we had rolos as an alternative, which were much better! Condensed Milk was far better than powdered milk as the latter never mixed properly & you got solid bits of milk in your coffee and in place of tea bags we had a sachet of Nestles instant tea, which was pretty disgusting- hence everyone had their own brew packs! Cooking in the mess tins was fun as you could never get them clean in the field and thus I used to just pierced the tin, boiled them, remove, open & eat from the tin and then you could use the water for coffee etc.. With the rice if you were very careful & cut the top of the bag you could fill it half way with boiled water & then reboil with the curry tin - eating was more difficult but the tins stayed clean! I never saw dextrose tablets. AB biscuits we found could be used if you ran out of hexamine blocks - yes it was difficult to start burning but once alight it worked ok - I remember one bloke saying he took them home for his dog but she refused to eat them!

No bodys mentioned the best in a 10 man ration pack Compo sausages

Brilliant brilliant 👏

We used to have to use these in the Arctic before the Arctic ration packs were developed/issued and I remember many a night in a snow hole trying to sleep with all the tins in my sleeping bag trying to thaw them out LOL

That is a nice find 😀

Many a fight about the oatmeal blocks and the bacon grill....Nice memories 😊

Thank you for sharing National Service MRE rations.. Q: was bromine added to food ?

There was Angel Delight and curry in a Squaddie's ration pack? Truly we are a civilised nation. A mate's rescue post in Iceland had some British ration packs following a joint exercise.

Once my dad brought me some home when he'd been to Germany..and I ended up feeding the biscuits browns to my class mates several ended up feeling ill and I got told off 😂

Would have been nice to see these opened up and tried where possible but still good to see the pack laid out like that.

Remember these from Army Cadet days still use the tin opener to this day, two of My sons have been Cadets but they never had the delight of the smell of bacon grill cooking or the trouble of trying to clean Your mess tins after, all boil in the bag.

Loved the Mulligatawny soup!

some of the later yorkies played on the marketing slogan "not for girls " and were printed up "not for civies" , the issue chocolate had a higher calorific value than the standard bars

I read a colour supplement article in a British newspaper in 1988 that commented on Army rations, perhaps this exact one. Mention was made of the packet of Rolos and that they were not good for dental health, although I would have thought the Spangles were an even bigger problem in that respect.

Wow. I was a 2434 from 74…24 years in. I hated bacon grill…..but! I loved babies heads and the sausages….I do not recall the vanilla pudding though…

I’m a 2434 from 1974…….Delicious babies heads. Dead fly biscuits, yummy. Bacon grill was utterly vile; never understood the stuff…..fab video btw.

Imagine compo included an egg banjo kit. I'd never have left.

I wish I kept at least 1 tin opener from these packs - my favourite item was the mixed fruit pudding- but biscuits AB = supposedly means Alternative Bread but most blokes called it ARse blocker - as menu A was a rare thing in my unit some of us carried spices for an 'All-In' stew if conditions allowed for it, else if you were on 'hard routine' it meant no cooking, smoking, sound or lights... btw I didnt notice any of the horrendous orange or lemon flavoured screech powdered squash that found its way in to the packs or the puri-tabs in that pack - thanks for the memory

I loved the orange powder drink

Spangles were a hard boiled fruit flavored sweet square in shape with an indentation on each side.

Hi Nice video. I review some modern military and civilian rations. The bulging tins and other decay is the reason I like to review modern rations. I like to taste them besides from seeing what is in it.

We were eating that shite in depot 1995 - the Chocolate that I remember was bloomed white and stale, marsbar and rolo's. The chewy was PK gum, the tea bags we used to clean the hexi marks off the mess tins. Curry and rice was the best, never bothered with the soups, they got lashed. Oatmeal blocks were decent, as was the porridge. To save arsing about, we used to pour the water in the pack. Boil in the bag was a revelation when I got to Batallion 😀

Ahh.. memories... chocolate bar was normally a Yorkie bar, but there was another type if I recall, more generic. Also I was once told that AB really meant ‘Alternative Bread’... makes sense but not as much fun as the colloquial term we all enjoyed....

Steve would be trying one of these

I remember biscuits AB or dog biscuits as we called them. Sometimes would get tubes of condensed milk. The toilet paper was like tracing paper. Always bring ya own bog roll. I usually only used the mess tin for making tea as would get greased up with all the tinned stuff. To be honest I think the modern packs look a thousand times better. The eighties packs seemed twenty years out of date at the time. They did have boil in the bag apple flakes which seemed more efficient but tasted horrible. The chocolate bars were often out of date and the boiled sweets pretty dull. When you’re cold, wet, hungry and tired it tasted like a gourmet meal.

Mars bar missing I think, the yorkie was a year or two later, then a flatter square chocolate bar. Don’t recognise that chewing gum mine was always the PK version ( same size though). I do remember the night time all in ones mixing soup the biscuits broken into pieces then the rice, curry and apple flakes, if these weren’t used in a choc drink and porridge oats mix in the morning also nice. Yes loved bacon grill and the biscuits brown

No doubt whatsoever that Menu D was the best! Purely because of the Mixed Fruit Pudding! I've still got a can of that dating from about 1989 that I'm saving for a special occasion. I should still be ok! I wonder if the 'Biscuits AB' (Alternative to bread) is where Father Jack got his exclamation 'Arse Biscuits' from!?

i was in the British Army in 1990 to 1993 and theres hardly any difference apart from used to get lucozade energy tablets and yorkie bars which were always out of date. Nobody ate the biscuits.

I used to love eating these, not sure I ever managed to eat a whole box in 24 days tho.

I use to love the Dog biscuits with the processed Cheese 🧀 🧀 The boiled sweets and Clacky bar are missing!

Very interesting what you guys put in your rations. I'm not prior military, but was in the ROTC, years ago. Long story. However, U could never understand why, the American rations, never had soup packs? We had cocoa powder, coffee, and billion. Until fairly recently. But, soup would have been an really good idea. Ohh well?

Takes me back

Heavy duty plastic bag, open or unwrap everything put it all in the bag with two pints of water. Put that down the front of your combat jacket to warm it eat handfuls as required

Biscuits AB ( arse blockers ) . Loved the smell of bacon grills cooking . Happy days

Ha 😂this brings back memories 85 to 93, I can smell the hexy burner as I type.....apple n apricot flakes......mulitiganwy soup. Used to have those can openers everywhere, now I cant find one! Tea bags were always torn / holed😤

Ah, dead fly biscuits!

The biscuit wrappers haven’t changed that much

Nice video mukka can’t beat biscuit browns on exercise how I ate them I don’t know haha I’ve liked & subbed you ATB Rucksack Adventures

I expect you're missing chocolate bar would have been a yorkee, in Arabic of course. Still got the tin opener on my car keys (is that sad?).

Chocolate cover caramels are Rolos always saved the last one for that some one special .... me !!!

Range Cards on a Ration Box great Idea !

I seem to recall they had water purification tablets in the sundies pack.... or is my memory going???

I had blackcurrant juice in my water bottle once, very refreshing but I came unstuck when it came to cooking my rat pack 🤣

yap boil in bags we got plus kendo's mint cake too

The first 24 hour packs I got issued had jam and condensed milk in what looked like toothpaste tubes and tea came in packs of powder.