British Army 24-Hour Operational Ration Pack

The Contents of a British GP (General Purpose) Ration Pack

By and large, the British Soldier is the best fed in the world, if you go by the ration packs. You'll see from the photo and menu sheet below, that the choice of menus are quite good (containing a breakfast, and main mean plus dessert); in addition, the drinks and sundries packs are well- stocked. Remember: "Hurry Up And Wait" and "If In Doubt, Brew Up!" are almost bye-laws of the modern military, so there should be a few hot and cold drink mixes in there!

The Contents of a British GP (General Purpose) Ration Pack from Surplus and Adventure secure online Army and Navy superstore

So what's in the box?

Here's a typical temperate climate GP ration pack, with all the contents laid out. You'll note that there's quite a lot in that 20cm x 18cm x 10.5cm box!

Note the three silver pouches on top of the box. These are your Breakfast, Main Meal, and Dessert packs. Most are very tasty and the Treacle Pudding has replaced the Soldiers favourite - Mixed Fruit Pudding.
So, what do you get in addition to the pouched foods?
All in all, it averages out at 30-odd separate packs of one sort or another:
  • An Oatmeal block (really a sweet oatmeal biscuit - quite tasty!)
  • Chocolate bars or a bar of Kendal Mint Cake, according to the menu
  • Biscuits, brown (malted and hard, pack of six)
  • Biscuits, fruit-filled (malted hard garibaldi-like, pack of six)
  • Cheese, processed, or meat paté, according to the menu
  • Tea, Instant, White, 4 x sachets
  • Coffee, instant, 2 x 5 grams sachets
  • Sugar, quick dissolving, 8 x 10 grams sachets
  • Drinking chocolate mix, 1 sachet
  • Vegetable stock drink mix, 1 x sachet
  • Instant soup (varying flavours), 2 x sachets
  • Beverage whitener (non-dairy creamer), 2 x sachets
  • Gum, chewing, PK, 5 sticks
  • Sweets, boiled, 1 pack assorted flavours
  • Fruit drink mix, either orange or lemon (enough for 1 litre of drink)
  • Tissues, paper (Kleenex individual pack)
  • Waterproof matches (10) and striker (1)
  • Water purification tablets (6)

This is far in excess of the sundries that other nations military forces are supplied, and just goes to show that a British Soldier truly marches on his stomach !
By the way, in case you were wondering where the Hexamine fuel tablet packs (for the issued folding HEXI stoves) are, they don't come with the ration packs; they're separately supplied. Intended to last two days, they are re-supplied to troops in the field at the same time as rations are supplied, which is, on average, every two days (at least, that's how my old unit scheduled re-supply runs).