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First Strike Rations |
The FSR is
a compact, eat-on-the-move assault ration designed for short
durations of highly mobile, high intensity combat operations.
The FSR is substantially reduced in weight and cube and
enhances Warfighter consumption, nutritional intake, and
mobility.
Why Is It Needed?
The FSR is designed to improve tactical mobility and meet the
maneuver sustainment needs of the joint Warfighter during
first to fight and high intensity conflicts.
Technology
The FSR takes advantage of major advancements in food
processing, preservation, nutrient delivery, and packaging
technologies to include innovative methods in intermediate
moisture foods, glucose optimization, and novel packaging
materials and configurations.
Key Features / Benefits
Enhanced mobility: All components of this lightweight ration
are familiar, eat-out-of-hand foods that require little or no
preparation by the Warfighter. Innovative packaging
technologies enable the beverages to be reconstituted and
consumed directly from the drink pouch.
Characteristics: The FSR has a minimum two year shelf life
at 80°F and provides an average of 2900 calories per day. The
FSR has nine meals per shipping container, consisting of three
each of three different menus.
Lightweight: When compared to three MREs, the FSR weight and
cube of one day's subsistence is reduced by approximately 50%.
Comments
The FSR has been extensively tested by the Warfighter during
OEF/OIF on an asymmetric battlefield and has received positive
feedback.
The FSR is currently part of a continuous product improvement
program based on Warfighter feedback. In January 2009, the
ration was approved for a menu expansion of 3 menus to 9, with
over 40 new components being approved by the Joint Services
Operational Rations Forum for incorporation into future menus.
These menus will be part of the second procurement of the FSR. |
RELATED
ARTICLE
First-strike Ration Aims for Better Nutrition
By
Christen N. McCluney, Special to American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2009 - Several military organizations are
working together to provide soldiers with healthy,
good-tasting, sustainable and nutritionally sound combat
rations.
"We're charged with a fairly awesome task, and that is to fuel
the Defense Department's most flexible and adaptable weapons
platform, and that of course is the individual warfighter,"
said Gerry Darsch, director of the Defense Department’s Combat
Feeding Program at the Massachusetts-based Natick Soldier
Systems Center. He spoke during a Nov. 23 interview on the
Pentagon Channel podcast “Armed with Science: Research and
Applications for the Modern Military.
Darsch was joined by Andy Young, chief of the Military
Nutrition Division at the U.S. Army Institute of Environmental
Medicine.
Because many military personnel have jobs similar to those in
the civilian sector, their nutritional requirements aren't
going to be very much different from those of their civilian
counterparts, Young said, but some servicemembers in
operational specialties do require more fuel and energy then
most civilians. Achieving their nutritional requirements while
working in the field can be especially difficult, he added.
The MRE -- shorthand for its designation in the supply system
as Meal, Ready-to-Eat -- is the standard military ration. Each
meal provides one-third of the military-recommended dietary
allowance and must meet a variety of requirements, including
long shelf life, tolerance of changes in temperature and
stability in varying conditions, Darsch said.
“We do have a business philosophy here, and that is,
‘Warfighter recommended, warfighter tested, and warfighter
approved,’” he said. “And that is driving our continuous
product-improvement program.”
One of the latest developments that has come out of this
program is known as the first-strike ration, or FSR. Before
its introduction, servicemembers who were outside of a forward
operating base for two to seven days were given MREs to travel
with. Because of space limitations, soldiers would field-strip
the meal and throw away more than half of the food, including
a large portion of nutrients.
“The first-strike ration, in essence, is issued at one per
warfighter per day, instead of two or three MREs,” Young said.
It reduces the weight and volume of the MRE by 50 percent, and
also is more cost-efficient.
“The first-strike ration provides all the components that can
be easily eaten on the move,” Young said. “And we now can
regain control, if you will, of nutrition and make sure that
those warfighters are getting the nutrients that they so
desperately need to maintain [or] enhance both cognitive and
physical performance.”
Working with the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of
Medicine, the group convened a panel of nutrition experts from
all over the world, many of whom had served in the military,
and challenged them to get the best nutrition possible into a
limited amount of space.
“After that, it was simply a matter of testing the actual
performance improvements and capabilities of the ration in
human subjects in the field conditions that would be used,”
Young said.
Focus groups and surveys revealed what products were being
left behind, and from there, a list was put together of items
that servicemembers wanted.
Packaging was one of the main issues, Darsch said. When the
design of an electrolyte drink was changed into an
hourglass-shaped package with a feature that allowed water to
be added directly from a canteen or CamelBak, the consumption
rate went from 33 percent to more than 70 percent.
The addition of a shelf-stable, pocket-style sandwich was
another request from soldiers. Because microwave ovens and
frozen food items aren’t available in the field, the combat
feeding team’s technologists used “hurdle technology,” a
packaging process that balances water, atmosphere and acidity
in the package, creating hurdles to bacterial growth and
keeping the products shelf-stable.
The groups did field tests with the U.S. Forest Service,
testing the rations on forest firefighters who have similar
metabolic and work demands as infantry soldiers on the ground,
Young said. They later tested the rations at Fort Benning,
Ga., on the 75th Ranger Regiment’s Pre-Ranger Course and with
the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Va.
The next goal, Darsch said, is to expand the first-strike
rations menu from three to nine meals and to go into the field
and allow warfighters an opportunity to rate the new menus.
“The most important thing about the first-strike in
particular, and nutrition in general, for the warrior in the
field is, it's not nutrition unless it's eaten,” he said. “So
it doesn't do you any good to take the package; you've got to
actually eat it. And that's why the first-strike is such an
important step forward for the particular audience it was
targeted at -- that it actually improves consumption, and
that, in turn, improves the nutrition.”
(Christen N. McCluney works in the Defense Media Activity’s
emerging media directorate.) |
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