How weren't soldiers always hungry? A normal adult male must be burning 5-6k calorie per day fighting or marching.

>>63887760 (OP)
God-tier logistics if you were the US. lend-lease if you're the UK or her colonies...
As for everyone else. Lol. Lmao.

>>63887760 (OP)
In the french foreign legion this is one of the reasons their preferred profile is "the skinny cat". They say it's a 130lb dude that can carry 100lb on his back and walk for hours with no food just driven by the will to do bad things
>t. frog

>>63887760 (OP)
Soldiers are always hungry, or sleepy, or horny. But then, aren't we all?

Even during wartime, most soldiers spend their days simply waiting and doing their daily routine at their post.

>>63887760 (OP)
Until the industrialized agricultural output of the US in WW2 redefined logistics they pretty much always were. Getting enough food of decent quality to the troops has always been a challenge for any army. There were examples throughout history of empires that could, generally, provide a halfway decent ration during peace or simply marching but once combat started or seige lines went up it all went to shit quickly.

>>63887760 (OP)
They'd live off the land. The citizenry was expected to support them to a degree.
>sometimes they got a little carried away

>>63887760 (OP)
With how dominant american fire support capability is I think more and more grunts and soldiers would find themselves constantly hungry to due to the low stress levels

>>63887760 (OP)
They were. Until the advent of industrial agriculture and motorised logistics, soldiers expected to on the verge of starvation and it was similarly expected they'd loot what they needed from friend or foe alike. There's a reason that before the invention of the locomotive, soldiers were largely perceived as the scum of the earth and hated by all except for whores and innkeepers.

>>63887760 (OP)
They were lmao

>>63887800
cardio is what makes tier 1. you want someone who can hike 30 miles, fuck shit up, and then hike back like it's a day at the office.

>>63887760 (OP)
They are. Modern rations supply about 5k a day, which is also about the max which can be productively metabolized and the level a soldier in the field spends.

The result is the 3 classic military looks.

Keto lean when on long deployments
Slightly pudgy when on desk jobs
Gym fit the rest of the time

>>63888315
That's what the US military thought before GWOT. Cardio uber alles. They learned lifting mattered too. It was part of the ballistics + gym science explosion during the millennials' youth. At the time lifting was considered declasse and running was uber alles. We now know that was BS.

>>63888409
>We now know that was BS.
Which is why I say swimmers make the best operators. They are lean, high endurance, swim like fish, and are strong.

>>63887760 (OP)
>How weren't soldiers always hungry?
They were.
>A normal adult male must be burning 5-6k calorie per day fighting or marching.
Yep. That's why the food they eat in the field is very calorie dense and they still lose weight.
read up on how bad malnutrition was among recruits in the US in WW2. It was a major cause of rejections because a lot of these guys were so malnourished that they were just too frail or couldn't handle the weight fluctuations that come with being a soldier. Among the men who got recruited they all almost all gained because so many of them had never eaten three square meals a day due to poverty. Then when they shipped off they all lost tons of weight again.

>>63887812
I'm all three at the same time

>>63888409
I'm old enough to remember the absolute death grip that endurance running had on the US military up until around 2012-ish. If you weren't a runner you were a shitbag at best, and straight up a second class citizen if you were an officer.
There was a girl from the Air Force who fucked around on a deployment and got pregnant, then faked her own kidnapping and caused a huge international incident in Kyrgyzstan so she could sneak out and get an abortion, and literally got away with it because she was a record breaking marathon runner.
neck too wide or gut too big from lifting? Hope you like remedial PT, bitch.

>>63888602
That also fits with the old mindset, though. Swimming is objectively the best cardio and high-effort sprinting is a distant second.
Combine swimming with even the most cursory lifting/strength regimen and you get the real kings.

>>63887760 (OP)
They were. Iirc the japs in ww2 invaded burma and nam and shit in large part to get more rice flowing for the troops. Logistics is important, food is heavy and (used to be) scarce for large parts of the world.
Hell, many armies back in the day "lived off the land" because of this - which in reality meant aquiring food from locals, be it your territory or not. Also why scorched earth was a real tactic, if you can't haul supplies away during a retreat it's better to burn everything to starve the enemy.

>>63887760 (OP)
Don't ask Armour what they did for the Spanish American War

>>63887760 (OP)
You mean the eternal constant bitch of the soldier?

>>63891344
>up until around 2012-ish.
Why did it change?

>>63891392

Well fuck you ! Now I have to go and read about the army beef scandal.

>>63891858
Just read about that. Seems quintessentially late 19th century that hey would be attempting to preserve beef with formaldehyde.

>>63887760 (OP)
Hunger is regulated by multiple factors. Your body isn't actually counting calories. If you can get regular meals, you're doing tasks instead of sitting around bored, and you have coffee and cigs you're gonna suppress hunger even at a caloric deficit. You may find yourself irritable due to low blood sugar but you won't get the painful cramps if you can get chow on the regular.
However if your supply lines are fucked or you're advancing faster than your supplies you WILL feel hunger.
And like others mentioned in the pre-industrial era hunger and disease were part of soldiering.
>>63891776
I don't know what happened specifically with the military but I can tell you that weightlifting became way more acceptable everywhere from weight loss to Strength & Conditioning and injury recovery. It was a matter of time until the floodgates opened because the benefits from strength training are undeniable and can even help at mitigating injuries from excessive endurance training.

>>63891204
You must be a Marine

>>63891776
>>63892064
Crossfit and Grunt Style-type dudebro culture took over. Everyone came back from the insane ops tempo that was the Afghanistan surge in the early 2010s with a fat stack of cash in their pockets and a hankering for crossfit from being cooped up on FOBs 24/7, as well as mainstream special ops cock stroking coming into vogue after the Bin Laden raid

>*saves your morale*

>>63887760 (OP)
Modern rations carry a lot of saturated fat. It keeps the food fresh while maximizing calories.

>>63887760 (OP)
WE ARE.
The thing about combat is that you are ALWAYS tired, hungry, thirsty, scared, bored, sad and horny. Combat fucking sucks, it's 99.9% suck with 00.1% cool and that percent will often lead to someone you know getting hurt or killed. Try to tell me otherwise you fucking /k/ids, don't worry I'll fuck you up if you reply.

>>63887760 (OP)
>A normal adult male must be burning 5-6k calorie per day fighting or marching.
When I was in basic training I estimated my calorie intake and weight loss, and 6-7k was my conclusion (I am on the taller/bigger end for soldiers)

>>63887760 (OP)
>How weren't soldiers always hungry?
Soldiers are always hungry

>>63891776
It honestly didn't, at least in the units I've been in. Anyone who prioritized lifting over running was seen as not being very serious about their soldiering

>>63893240
Thats a shame because cardio is one of the most boring exercises you can do. When I go on a run, my adhd ass has to have a tv show on or have an audiobook going or something. At least lifting is fun

>>63894448

Boring, sure.

But useful. A lean body with high endurance has to be the ideal soldiering bodytype. Soldiers are already overburdened by all the gear they have to carry, and extra bodymass only makes things worse.

Being able to ruck all day long without burning through all your food and water rations is more useful type of physical fitness than having a 300lb bench.

Lots of complaining from lifting bros that they get dinged by PT standards that are mostly designed to discourage obesity, but having a bunch of heavy muscle mass is not really that helpful for the type of strain that soldiers typically face.

Have to assume that soldiers are merely following the same exercise trends that are common outside the military, and the Army is probably happy when any soldier shows an interest in fitness beyond their required PT. Getting impractically swole is only a problem for the most dedicated lifters.

In Kassabian's memoir of Afghanistan, lifting was also a way to pass the time while in shitty FOBs that didn't offer much space or facilities for anything else. Strength training certainly seems more fun than running a million laps around the small footprint of a FOB.

Long distance hiking is probably the best exercise type if your goal was to produce the ideal, fit soldier.

>>63894503
Rucking is the best way to mog uppity runners. Make sure to remind them we don't fight in basketball shorts and tennis shoes around mile 6.

>>63894503
I need to start rucking. I try running but can never stick to it. Not a soldier but I want to get more fit.

>>63894714

Unless you're specifically trying to train for long distance backpacking or whatever, I'd skip carrying any additional crap you don't need.

Soldiers are constantly plagued with overuse injuries that comes with carrying heavy loads and there's really not much to be gained from doing so if you don't have to.

Just hike without all the shit and you'll get much of the same benefit without the needless strain on your knees.

I can't think of any good reason to ruck march unless you're specifically training to be able to do so as a soldier or through hiker, and there's a lot of downsides.

>>63894745
It's good fun cardio. It burns lots of calories too.

>>63887760 (OP)
That stuff looks good

>>63887760 (OP)
>How weren't soldiers always hungry? A normal adult male must be burning 5-6k calorie per day fighting or marching.
War is ninety-nine parts boredom and, now and then, one part arse-opening terror. You have to be realistic about these things.

>>63894714
Rucking is no joke, I got seriously humbled doing a Norwegian for the first time with no real practice rucking, only weight lifting and PT running. Literally made it with only a minute to spare, my final time was something like 4:29:16, I had to shuffle-jog the last couple miles or I wouldn't have made it.
Right around mile 12 my bussy blew out and I just felt my legs buckling. You definitely need to train your legs and back to maintain good posture and not destroy yourself.

>>63887760 (OP)
A pound of meat per soldier, per day. Dear god I'm gagging, even though I like meat.

>>63894962

It's very intense exercise, but you also have to worry about things like stress fractures and other over-use injuries that don't bring any benefit and make you more vulnerable to similar injuries in the future.

I cringe whenever I see people running in those fitness plate carriers. LARPing as the troops and giving yourself a bulging disc doesn't make you eligible for VA disability rating.

There's probably better ways to endurance train that won't irreversibly wreck your joints.