use in 1942, when it was issued to U.S. Airborne troops on an experimental basis. Initial reports praised it for the variety of the foods incorporated, as well as the light weight. However, testing in extreme climatic and operating environments was extremely limited: in jungle testing, for example, the K-ration was evaluated in Panama by paratroopers and the Panama Jungle Test Platoon in an experiment lasting only three days. Marching was done not through jungle, as might be expected, but only on flat or gently rolling terrain on cleared roads, for an average of only per day. The test platoons carried one K-ration, weapon, poncho, shelter half, and a single filled one-quart canteen. No testing was done of men on extended patrols or with heavier individual loads of ammunition and water. At the end of the three days, the men were weighed, and as no abnormal weight loss was noted, the K-ration was deemed successful. These findings were later used in 1943 to support a decision to discontinue production of the Mountain ration and the Jungle ration. Both of these specialized rations had proved costlier to produce in their original form, and were intensely disliked by the Army's Subsistence Branch staff of the Quartermaster Corps, who had to secure additional supply contracts and storage facilities for the new rations. Though the K-ration was designed to be an emergency ration, Quartermaster Corps officials would continue to insist until the end of the war that the K-ration would satisfy all requirements for a lightweight complete field ration for all front-line troops at a scale of one K-ration per man per day, using the prior experiments with airborne forces as evidence. The ration's intended use as a short-term assault ration would soon fall by the wayside once U.S. forces entered combat. One major criticism of the K-ration was its caloric and vitamin content, judged as inadequate based on evaluations made during and after World War II of the ration's actual use by Army forces. There was also a danger of over-reliance, which could cause the three meals to become monotonous if issued for long periods of time. The K-ration allowance was one ration per man per day (breakfast, dinner and supper), because of the short duration and hasty nature of experimental testing of the K-ration before adoption. Ration planners did not realize that soldiers fighting, digging, and marching in extreme conditions would require