War Park
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- Feb 22, 2016
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Whether in the extreme cold eastern front or in the hot and intolerable North Africa, there is always a strange-shaped vehicle behind the German front troops, which has no weapons and is towed by other power vehicles, but it has one of the most obvious characteristics - a striking chimney. It can make delicious hot meals and coffee for soldiers. Without it, the soldiers could only eat bread raw, drink cold water, and even their morale dropped sharply. It's a field cooker, a movable kitchen.
The field kitchen used by the German army in World War II was actually a legacy of World War I. It was equipped with German ground forces before World War I. However, at the beginning of World War I, the German plan for a quick battle went bankrupt quickly and the Western Front fell into trench warfare, which made it useless. In the narrow trenches, such large-scale equipment could not be used at all, and there was no need for mobile warfare. So during the whole World War I, the German army was less equipped and the German troops in the eastern front were relatively more equipped.
After the outbreak of World War II, the German army used Blitzkrieg tactics to fight. The troops needed high-speed mobility. This kind of mobile cooking car just met this need. It did not need improvement at all, so the German army used it directly.These field kitchens have the nickname called "Gulaschkanone" because they all have a striking chimney. Each field kitchens is actually made up of two parts: a material truck and a cooking truck. The former is used to store food and fuel, and the latter is a mobile kitchen.The field kitchen is towed by 2-4 horses. Chefs and grooms (also cooks'assistants) sit on the material trailers. Mechanized units use cars to tow or load field kitchens.
The main part of the working platform of the cooking car is a cooking pot and a coffee pot. Cooking pot is a pressure cooker with enamel iron double-layer structure. The liquid is injected between the two layers of pot, which can make the inner pot heated evenly. This structure can cook a large amount of food in a short time and save cooking time and also achieve the effect of preventing scorching and heat preservation. The coffee pot is a single-layer structure. If you want to drink coffee, You just need to unscrew the front tap. Each pot has a separate stove under it, but the waste smoke is discharged through a shared chimney. It can use any of the fuels of coal, coke, coal balls and wood. In order to save fuel and avoid exposing its position on the battlefield, the cooking car is designed a unique overheating device. Closing its safety valve can isolate the air in the stove, and the stove fire quickly extinguishes. In addition, there are several storage panels around the working platform, in which spices such as pepper are packed.
At mealtime, soldiers without combat mission can queue up for dinner in front of the field kitchen. For the soldiers in the front line, the food need to be sent to the front line by the company supply team.
In order to bring hot food to the front, the German army also equipped a special metal food container. In order to maintain the temperature of soup or stew, the food container is double-decked, with a capacity of 12 liters and a net weight of 8.2 kilograms, and a strap attached to it.
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