Sometimes the sharpest insights hide in plain sight. This cheeky two-page RNZASC newsletter from 1978—penned by Captain R. A. Armstrong—is cheeky by design, poking fun at mess pecking orders and flirting with the idea that the Soviets might feed their troops better. Still, it also captures a valuable moment in time. Read against what we now know, it lets us compare three things at once:
- New Zealand’s still-serviceable but largely 1940s-era field kitchens and improvisation;
- the Soviets’ purpose-built, highly mobile galley trucks and bakeries that promised hot meals at manoeuvre tempo; and
- how both systems actually performed once reality set in—from NZ’s 1980s push to modernise ration science and packaging, to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, where interdicted convoys turned elegant kitchen fleets back into tins, biscuits, and tea.
Crucially, this snapshot also foreshadows New Zealand’s hardware catch-up in the following decade, when the Army modernised its field kitchens with state-of-the-art German Kärcher TFK-250 field-kitchen trailers—a step-change from veteran cookers to modular, hygienic, road-mobile capability. In short, the article is satire with teeth: a Cold War snapshot that helps us separate platform glamour from supply-chain grit, and headline claims from what cooks could really deliver day after day.
SO YOU THINK OUR CATERING IS LOUSY?
By Capr D.A Armstrong
A recent article in the “Army Logistician”, the official magazine of the United States Army logistics, compared the Soviet Army’s catering services and attitudes to those of the US Army. Several interesting points were made which indicate some marked differences between Soviet and Allied thinking on the subject of feeding their respective armies. If you are thinking of defecting, but enjoy your “nosh”, perhaps you had better read on.
The first interesting point is that, despite the so-called classless attitudes of the USSR, better food is a privilege of rank in the Soviet military, with the conscripted rifleman being the lowest in the pecking order. (No prizes for guessing who gets the best food!) NCOs receive more meat than enlisted mem, while officers have a greater variety of meat, eggs, dairy foods, fruit, and vegetables. Some soldiers need to receive food or money from home to supplement their military diets. Many enlisted men suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies because of the lack of a variety of foods, especially vegetables, in their diets.
A typical daily menu for enlisted men is shown below.
Compare that to our rationing system, where generals and private soldiers receive exactly the same monetary allowance per day for the purchase of rations. Because of the different feeding patterns in officers’ and junior ranks’ messes, our soldiers often receive better food than the officers, although standards of service may differ between the two messes.
In combat, food supplies take the lowest priorities of all items supplied through the logistic channels. Ammunition and fuel supply priorities are not relaxed even if the troops have to forage for their rations. It must be very difficult to fire weapons or operate vehicles in the middle of a Russian winter when your stomach thinks your throat has been cut, and your navel keeps knocking on your backbone.
Within garrisons and camps, Soviet forces supplement their ration supplies by running farms for livestock, rabbits, vegetables, and poultry. Soldiers are detailed to work in the unit’s garden and to care for the animals. Where camps do not run their own farms, a unit commander may make an agreement with a neighbouring collective farm to provide soldiers on Sundays to assist with labour in exchange for foodstuffs. (And we complain about the odd maintenance days in camps).
The quantity and quality of food received by the Soviet soldier depend on a number of factors. The most important is the regimental or garrison commander’s concern for and understanding of the nutritional needs of the troops. Supplies of rations are the responsibility of the regimental mess officer. He procures the foodstuffs from division or area headquarters, and the local market.
SOVIET ARMY DAILY MENU FOR OTHER RANKS
Breakfast: White bread 2 Slices Black bread 1 Slice Butter/Margarine 20g Sugar 3 Cubes Tea Unlimited Kasha*/Potatoes 300g Fish/Meat 50g Midday: Soup 400g Kasha with Meat 400g White bread 1 Slice Black bread 2 Slices Fruit Compote 200g Dinner: Fish 100g Potatoes/Kasha 300g White bread 2 Slices Black bread 2 Slice Sugar 3 Cubes Tea Unlimited Butter 20g * Kasha is rice, buck wheat, wheat or oat porridge with salt, pepper, onion and fat.
Soviet military nutrition norms are similar to most Allied countries with a weight ratio of 1:1:5 for protein, fat and carbohydrates respectively. It is significant that no other nutrients are tabulated to ensure that all the nutrient requirements are met. By comparison, the New Zealand weight ratio of protein, fat and carbohydrate is roughly 2:0.5:4.5. (We have a far greater ratio of meat and dairy products.)
In normal feeding, the Soviets provide about 25 per cent of the calorie requirement at breakfast, 45 per cent at midday and 30 per cent for the evening meal. Usually, our meals reverse the midday and evening meal calorie contents.
As far as cooking in the field goes, the Russians are streets ahead of us in terms of equipment. The concept is that field kitchens and bakeries must keep pace with the troops they support while still providing meals on schedule. Since 1965, the Soviets have introduced four field kitchens and a field bakery which can cook on the move. With the exception of a West German kitchen truck, the Soviet Union is the only country with field kitchens mounted on trucks and tracked vehicles. These kitchens are better able to keep up with fast-moving combat forces and can cover a greater variety of rough ground than even the new US Army trailer-mounted kitchen. (Mind you, they haven’t seen the kitchens we mounted on the M818 semi-trailers for Ex Truppenant. Perhaps we are also unique?)
Two of the kitchens are known to provide physical protection in chemical, biological and radiological environments. The tracked vehicle-mounted kitchen (similar to an M113 Command Post vehicle) is hermetically sealed and is probably outfitted with a filtering ventilation system.
Makes the old sheet of canvas off the side of an RI Bedford seem pretty archaic, doesnt it?
The conclusions to be reached from reading this article are.
- All RNZASC cooks should defect to the Soviets. They could no doubt use our knowledge, skills and comradeship, and we could certainly use their field cooking equipment.
- Any soldier who enjoys even basic food should not even consider defecting to the Soviets. Officers, on the other hand, may be more persuaded. although the promotion and security of employment prospects are not as bright
RNZASC Newsletter No 8 July 1978
What NZ cooks actually worked with in 1978
Despite a professional corps of cooks, much NZ Army field catering kit in the late 1970s still traced its lineage to the Second World War and early 1950s:
- Wiles trailer kitchens (1940s-era): still around in numbers into the late 1970s; robust but hardly “mobile ops” by modern standards.
- US-pattern ranges (M-37 → M-59): the ABCA-standard M-37 (1950s) and its successor the M-59 (from the late-1960s) framed much Allied field cooking practice; NZ experience mirrored this long tail of legacy equipment.[1]
Armstrong’s quip about slinging a canvas off a Bedford tailgate wasn’t far off the mark: mobility came from trucks and improvisation, not from purpose-built kitchen vehicles. The upshot was sound, honest food—but with slower start-up, more weather exposure, and more manpower to erect, fuel, and run.
What the Soviets were advertising: mobility first
Armstrong contrasted our “Bedford and canvas” with Soviet kitchen trucks and tracked galley vehicles able to cook on the move, some even CBRN-protected. Contemporary Western handbooks and studies back him up:
- Soviet materiel tables put kitchen trucks and mobile field bakeries inside divisional service units, not as bolt-ons—so hot food was designed to keep pace with manoeuvre.[2]
- Cold-War analyses describe powered PAK-200 and KP-130 kitchens, with tracked/van variants and filtration for contaminated environments—exactly the “streets ahead” mobility Armstrong flagged.[3]
Bottom line (1978): on paper, the Soviet field-feeding platforms were more mobile, better integrated, and harder to knock off the timetable than our trailer-and-tent solutions.
Scales, menus, and who ate what
Armstrong summarised a Soviet conscript’s day heavy on bread and kasha, with small meat portions, tea “unlimited,” and rank privileges inflating the officers’ variety. He also cited a Soviet macro ratio of 1:1:5 (protein: fat: carbohydrate) versus a NZ pattern nearer 2:0.5:4.5—more meat/dairy in the Kiwi diet. (Those figures are his 1978 comparison, not a NZ regulation.) In Soviet doctrine, ration “norms” were calorie-based, bread was central, and a “dry ration” existed for when hot feeding wasn’t possible; a new one-meal combat ration appears in Soviet sources around 1978–80—again aligning with the article’s timeframe.[4]
By contrast, NZ was already edging toward modernisation on menu science—even if the pots were old. By 1985 the Army commissioned a formal redesign of the One-Man 24-hour ration, targeting ~3,678 kcal, adjusting for vitamin losses over shelf life, and—crucially—surveying soldiers about what they actually ate (and binned). High dissatisfaction with the then-current pack and heavy discard rates drove reform of menus, beverages, and packaging.[5]
Field reality check (1970s–80s NZ): long exercises in Singapore/Malaysia and NZ’s alpine winters meant weight on the back, wet/cold heat loss, sleep disruption—and the need for rations that were palatable, quick, and resilient. That lived experience shows up clearly in the Army’s 1980s ration-pack redesign work.[6]
Priorities in combat supply
Armstrong wrote that in Soviet practice, ammunition and fuel took precedence over food when push came to shove. The formal record shows why: Soviet Rear Services concepts after WW2 put huge emphasis on mobility and survivability of POL and ammunition flows, with kitchen/bakery assets nested inside that machine. In other words, feeding rode in the same convoy system dominated by POL and ammo.[7]
What the Soviet soldier actually carried (c. 1975–82)
Post-1945 Soviet feeding relied on:
- Organised field kitchens.
- group-feeding sets for squad cooking,
- “mobile” individual rations when kitchens couldn’t keep up.
The “individual” ration wasn’t very individual. Early sets leaned on large tins—fine for crews to share, poor for dismounted troops. Specialist units often received ad-hoc mixes (e.g., East German E-Päckchen biscuits, emergency bars, malted milk and vitamin tablets, iodine water tabs, and condensed milk tubes—even commercial West European supplies), which were useful but never standardised.
1970s “Preserved” ration (three menus, thin calories):
- A: tin of tushonka (fat-heavy), ~100 g crackers, small cheese tin, tea, sugar.
- B: Two tins of kasha with meat plus crackers or plastic-sealed bread.
- C: tin of stew/meat, tin of fish or vegetables/fruit, crackers, tea, sugar/drink mix.
Portable on paper, these packs were monotonous and underpowered for altitude, cold and hard marching.
The 1980 response: “Improved/Mountain” 24-hour pack + supplements. Spring 1980 introduced tins of meat dishes (e.g., chicken-and-dumplings, beef-and-vegetables), instant kasha (buckwheat/oatmeal, meat/fruit-flavoured), tea, and sugar—sometimes with early bar-coded labels. Critically, the basic pack hovered around ~1,200 kcal, so commanders were authorised supplements to scale intake:
- Biscuits/wafers (~500 kcal), hard sweets and sugar (granulated or tablets).
- “Army Loaves” high-nutrition crackers; extra tinned meat, jam/honey, condensed soup; a daily vitamin sweet.
Implementation varied—sometimes excellently, more often poorly—but the logic was sound: use supplements to tune calories to mission and climate.[8]
When Afghanistan stripped off the gloss (1979–89)
The Afghan war is where Armstrong’s wry “I wonder what it’s really like for the Russian soldier” meets evidence. Once the invasion forces surged past 100,000 men, convoy-based logistics over two treacherous mountain MSRs became a running battle of ambushes, mines, and blown bridges. Soviet responses included helicopter lift, pipelines down the Salang route, fixed security posts, and longer, better-armed convoys. Hot feeding kept pace when it could; when it couldn’t, soldiers fell back on dry rations and whatever reached them through interdiction. The system survived—but food variety, regularity, and morale inevitably rode the same roller-coaster as fuel, water, and spares.[9]
What’s for lunch? A typical Afghan outpost menu (c. 1979–89)
Afghanistan “eating out” ranged from canteens to mounted and dismounted operations. Outposts—typically 10–20 soldiers—sat at the hard end: weekly resupply, minimal refrigeration, soldiers doing the cooking. Long-life items dominated; variety was limited.
A day on an outpost looked like:
- Breakfast: kasha with a little meat/fish, bread, and (rarely) butter—small-batch cooking could taste better than garrison fare.
- Lunch: nominally soup + main (macaroni/potato/kasha) + “salad” (often sauerkraut). In practice, this collapsed to one hot main—mashed potato or pasta with tinned meat—because water, vegetables and time were scarce.
- Dinner: much the same as lunch; repetition was regular.
- Drinks: tea, coffee, and cocoa were standard.
- Bread & extras: base bakeries supplied nearby posts; remote sites got crackers/biscuits and sometimes flour for flatbreads. Condensed milk was the near-universal dessert/morale item. Limited local purchasing occurred only when security allowed.[10]
Even excellent mobile kitchens cannot defeat interdiction and distance alone—once convoy tempo slips, menus shrink to what rides and stores well. It also explains the premium soldiers place on palatability and speed—the very factors NZ targeted in its 1980s ration redesign
Side-by-side (1978, as seen then)
| Feature (1978) | NZ Army (RNZASC) | Soviet Army |
| Field cooking platform | 1940s Trailers, US-pattern ranges (M-37/M-59)& tented setups | Purpose-built kitchen trucks/vans; tracked variants; mobile field bakeries. |
| Mobility & protection | Vehicle-towed or improvised; weather-exposed; slower to set. | Cook-on-the-move; better cross-country; some CBRN-protected kitchens. |
| Feeding concept | Unit-level kitchens; hot meals when set up; heavy on improvisation. | Timed hot meals from integral kitchen assets; dry ration when needed. |
| Breadth of diet | More meat/dairy in practice; equality of ration money across ranks (per Armstrong). | Bread- and kasha-centric; rank-based variety favoured NCOs/officers (per Armstrong). |
| Doctrine & priorities | Practical but kit-limited; modernisation brewing (ration-pack science by mid-80s). | Rear Services designed for manoeuvre; POL/ammo priority shapes what food arrives, when. |
What changed after 1978—for both sides
- Soviet reality check: Afghanistan exposed just how hard it was to protect long, road-bound supply chains—even for food and water. The Soviets adapted (escorts, pipelines, more airlift), but “guerrilla-controlled logistics tempo” was a real thing.[11]
- NZ step-change: Through the mid-1980s, the Army professionalised the ration—calories, vitamins over shelf life, soldier acceptability, packaging weight and noise—and began phasing in newer field cookers (Kärcher TFK-250 field-kitchen trailers) to replace Wiles trailers and M-37/M-59 ranges. The rollout was uneven, so for a time, menu science ran ahead of hardware, with many still cooking on veteran kit.[12]
So—how did the “Russian scale” compare to the NZ scale?
Using Armstrong’s 1978 snapshot: the Soviet scale he quotes (roughly 1:1:5) aimed for calories cheaply with bread/kasha and small meat portions, shading more variety up the rank ladder; the NZ pattern he cites (about 2:0.5:4.5) reflected a higher meat/dairy intake and, crucially, equal ration money across ranks—even if mess practice meant the plates sometimes looked different. Later Soviet sources note a late-1970s combat ration meal and a formal dry ration for when hot kitchens couldn’t keep up—consistent with Armstrong’s comparison.
Conclusion
On the 1978 scoreboard, the Soviets looked ahead on platforms: integrated kitchen trucks, some with CBRN protection, promised mobility NZ’s trailers and tent lines could not match. But that advantage was conditional. Once lines of communication were contested (as in Afghanistan), menus collapsed to what could ride and survive—just like fuel and spares—while NZ, for all its veteran cookers, spent the 1980s fixing the contents problem (calories, vitamins, soldier acceptability, weight/noise in the pack) and then closed the platform gap by introducing Kärcher TFK-250 field-kitchen trailers. The net effect: Soviet kitchens won on paper and on roads they controlled; NZ kitchens won fewer style points in the 1970s but fed reliably—and, by the late 1980s, paired modern rations with modern kitchen platforms, delivering a balanced, resilient feed system that travelled and performed at the tempo the Army required.
Notes
[1] “Feeding the Force: A History of NZ Army Field Cooking Systems,” To the Warriors their Arms, 2024, https://rnzaoc.com/2024/12/28/feeding-the-force-a-history-of-nz-army-field-cooking-systems/.
[2] US Army, “FM 100-2-3 the Soviet army: troops, organization and equipment,” Washington: GPO (1991).
[3] Gilbert H Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?” (1989).
[4] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”
[5] Bing David Soo, “Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University” (Massey University, 1987).
[6] Soo, “Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University.”
[7] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?.”; Army, “FM 100-2-3 the Soviet army: troops, organization and equipment.”
[8] “Rations of Soviet and Russian Forces during the Cold War,” THE PEACE THAT WAS NOT-Wars following the Second World War, 2020, https://17thdivision.tripod.com/thepeacethatwasnt/id28.html.
[9] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”
[10] Vlad Besedovskyy, “What’s for lunch? Typical menu of the Soviet soldier in Afghanistan,” Our Blog Safar Publishing, 4 Sept, 2024, https://www.safar-publishing.com/post/what-s-for-lunch-typical-menu-of-the-soviet-soldier-in-afghanistan.
[11] Edmondson, “Logistics: The Soviets’ Nemesis to Conventional War in Central Europe?”
[12] Soo, “Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University.”
