Parched Rice and Balls!

                On many illustrations of Viet Cong or NVA soldiers you can see them wearing a tube-like item that resembles a thin blanket roll. This would be made of silk, cotton or even from a bicycle inner tube and carried the fighter’s rice ration. Some books I have read claim this was a month’s ration but it is more likely to be about a week’s, for reasons I will explain.

            During a conversation with a friend the other night the topic of rations came up and I found myself trying to locate some information on how much rice an NVA/VC ate in a day. When I cook rice I measure out a 100ml volume in a jug, which is about 100gms. If I am honest this is often more rice than I need. I had a recollection that I had read that the NVA ration was 190gms. That is a lot of rice but credible when you consider a fighter was carrying a heavy load, moving long distances over rough terrain and may have been short of the meat and vegetables I bulk up my meal with. The book I had read the 190gm figure in is no longer available on line, and it is quite possible my recollection is wrong. I did come across another source that indicated that the monthly allowance of rice for a fighter was 20kg. No way that those tubes hold 20kg of rice.

            Surprisingly little good information could be found on line about the VC rations. Some sources tell us fighters were given four cans of fish and nine rice balls, but with no indication as to how long this was intended to last. Some sources claim that the rice carried was either “parched” or pre-cooked. Carrying a week or more’s worth of pre-cooked rice in a jungle environment sounds rather impractical unless the rice has been thoroughly dried after cooking. While much of the VC’s food was portaged in from the north they also took food from local sources and rice from here would have most likely been uncooked. Sources talk about VC eating cold rice balls in the morning or while on the move but also mention a detail of the unit being tasked with cooking rice when the unit halted for the night. What seems probable was that each night enough rice was cooked for the hot evening meal and for the cold rations to be consumed on the next day. The cooked rice not eaten that night was formed into rice balls for ease of handling. These balls were often formed around a small piece of fish or meat. I also encountered mention of raisins being placed in a rice ball, although this was by an American unit that had adapted to eating rice balls since they were lighter than C-rats.

            This diet of canned fish and rice was supplemented by any fresher food that was encountered. Edible leaves were a welcome addition and fruit such as wild oranges much prized. While the VC ration was not particularly nutritionally balanced and a bit monotonous the VC and NVA soldiers were generally well fed, unlike the ARVN soldiers who were often poorly supplied by their logistic forces.

            Did the VC use “parched rice”? I don’t know, but given the frequent mention of rice being formed into balls it seems likely most of the rice carried was uncooked rice that was boiled. Interestingly, you can parch rice and it is rather simple to do. It makes an interesting alternative to pinole.

            I had a go at parching some rice last night using my wok. I cooked it to a light brown colour so I knew it was cooked sufficiently. I think I used a shade more oil than I needed but the result was not unpleasant. It is kind of crunchy, a bit like trying to eat the unpopped bits of popcorn. As you may expect if you have ever tried pinole, it is rather filling. I made a bowl of the stuff and most of it is still uneaten, even though this was all I had for dinner last night.

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The real cost of the Olympics and World Cup

            Regular readers of this blog know that I often encourage people to exercise more and make such simple lifestyle changes as taking the stairs instead of a lift. The subject of today’s blog may therefore come as a surprise to some of you. Some of you may really disagree with my view here, but I only ask that you watch the video and think on the issues raised with an open mind.

            Recently London was the host to the Olympic Games. In the middle of a economic recession and two foreign wars we decide to spend thousands of millions on what are mainly some pretty mediocre spectator sports? All sorts of unlikely justifications were made for having the Olympics. It was claimed that it would stimulate the economy. Never has done in most countries that have hosted the Olympics. Britain is now downsizing its army, police services and medical services due to a budgetary deficit that is oddly very close to what was spent on the Olympics. The Olympics were going to improve public fitness by encouraging people to take up sports. Three solid weeks of spectator sports are going to encourage people to not sit on their sofas snacking? Many of those few who did feel inspired to take up sports probably injured themselves by overdoing it. So we won a few golds in some events? What changes has that made to our lives? Just we have to sit through a few lame advertisements featuring sports personalities. For the amount of money spent we could have saved money minting a gold medal for every single person in the British Isles.

            It was very interested to hear Brazil was hosting the World Cup and Olympics. Even more interesting was the suggestion that the favelas were to be knocked down to make way for the Olympic village. My Brazilian girlfriend’s response was one of amazement. “There will be a civil war! Last time they tried anything against the favelas they went into police stations and shot everyone!”

            This video, which I came across today, is worth a watch.

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Two Methods for Better Shooting.

             200th Blog Post!

            I must have been little more than a toddler when my father told me “you don’t pull a trigger, you squeeze it.” He had been trained this in the army and so deeply ingrained was this that he felt obliged to pass it on even though I was knee high and using a toy.

            Many years later I was visiting Los Angeles and my hosts took me to shooting range. My hostess was very proud of the fact that she had been on a firearms training course run by well know trainer and gun writer. In a passing I mentioned something about “squeezing the trigger” and got a blank look. She had been on this intensive and expensive course and yet the concept of not jerking a trigger was new to her.

            The other day I came across this article posted up on scribd. It is well worth a read and has some interesting ideas. It could have used an illustration of the recommended one handed grip, but you can probably work this out once you have mastered the two handed techniques. The idea of balancing things on you pistol while dry firing to check stability is kind of neat. I will also note that if you suspect your gun may not be suited to dry firing you can always chamber an empty casing or acquire some dummy/drill rounds.

Handgun Accuracy Overnight by A DANGEROUS MIND

            Another article I recently read suggested ways to improve your instinctive aiming. I don’t have a weblink for this one since it was rather old. The idea was quite simple.

            With an unloaded gun you close your eyes, aim at the target and then open your eyes. Correct your aim and then repeat the process again. The idea is to improve and educate your “muscle memory” to improve coordination of where you point and where you want to aim. The author suggests progressively making your target smaller as you improve. The latter echoes something I observed when I learn knife throwing. Throw at a man sized target and soon you are hitting a man sized target most of the time. Put a chest sized mark on the same target and soon most of your blades will stick in that area. Put a simple X on the target and most of you blades will hit within a few inches of here. It is all a question of focus. Often I would end up hitting knives I had already stuck.

            If your gun has a laser spot system this can be a useful training aid in using the above techniques. Toy guns such as Airsoft pistols can also be useful training aids.

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Shooting Over Trenches and Around Corners

 

            Given that it is Monday morning I will am going to avoid making this post too text intensive and just pass on some interesting images today. These are not really that useful for self-defence but they may interest or amuse, which is not a bad thing for a Monday morning.

            Someone brought this image to my attention.

          What you are seeing is an attachment for an MG-42 that allows it to be aimed and fired from a trench or foxhole without the user exposing their heads. Similar devices date back to the First World War. Trench warfare was a predominant facet of this conflict and understandably a number of devices to facilitate firing from trenches were developed. Many of these devices adapted the standard service rifle, which often necessitated some mechanism to work the bolt action the chamber a new round. There were also periscope equipped Lewis guns.

            During World War Two the Germans developed an alternate approach. The story goes that an institute that developed turrets for aircraft had a problem. The guns and their mountings had to fire a variety of directions including straight upwards, but bullets raining down from thousands of feet was a problem. A curved barrel fitting was created that would deflect the rounds into a mound of earth. The German army was concerned about the high number of head injuries that occurred while troops tried to fight from trenches. They also had a problem with Russian soldiers who would succeed in getting so close to Panzers that they could not be engaged with standard tank weapons. Someone saw the potential of a curved barrel fitting to solve both problems. The “Krummlauf” attachment was fitted to the StG44, a 30 degree model with a prismatic sight being used by infantry and a 90 degree model with a mirror being used by Panzer crews. 45 and 60 degree models are also known to have been made and the sighting system might vary depending on the vehicle it was used from.

 

            After the war both the Americans and the Russians experimented with the Krummlauf for a number of weapons including the M3 and the PPSh-41. The fitting for the M3 is interesting in that part of the barrel is a gutter, open on its inner side. In recent years we have seen a new “gun that can shoot around corners”  for SWAT teams. This is the Cornershot, using a video camera system.

 

            I will leave you with another image, a rather ingenious way to blind fire utilizing the MP40’s folding stock.

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