How to stack cases of rations, etc. on a pallet.

[Big Frank]

If you need to stack cases of rations on a pallet, this is the way I learned to do it in the army. One day when I ws in Germany I helped the mess sergeant, actually a Specialist, and her husband, a lower ranking Specialist like me, stack cases of C-rations on a pallet. I don't remember ever pulling KP duty the years I was there because I couldn't be spared without hurting the shop and our customers. But somehow, I had enough free time and was sent over to the mess hall to help my friends load a pallet, or pallets. 

They showed me how to stack what they called an 8-block (not 8 in an en bloc clip ) on a pallet that was too small to hold 9 cases per layer. I can't find the term 8-block online anywhere, but can remember that little bit from 40+ years ago. The 2 rows of 3 cases each were stacked right to the corners of the pallet, and the 2 turned sideways went to the end of the pallet, but not the sides. The next layer was stacked exactly the same, except starting from the other end up to the corners. You keep alternating direction until the pallet is full. The "joints" between the cases are staggered just like bricks in a wall and won't fall over before you can get them banded or wrapped. You could crawl around on them if you were even somewhat careful.

If you're storing cases of anything at home you can do the same exact thing. It doesn't matter if you're stacking stuff on a pallet, or just filling an available space on the floor of your house or garage, this will still work. And if you have room for an extra row on the side or end, you do the same thing, making sure to stagger the joints like dry laid masonry. You could add 3 to the end and stack 11, or add 3 to the side to stack 11 that way. Since I couldn't find an illustration of this particular pattern online, I made my own with Microsoft Paint using same sized rectangles that gave the same approximate proportions. If yiou have cases with even proportions of width to length, like 2x3 or 2x4, there are several ways to stack them according to patterns you can find online. This is for odd numbers of things that are much harder to stack properly if you don't know this little trick. It will work with cases of bottled water too, and with more people stocking food and water, this could really help.

[MikeBjerum]

Separate the two boxes on the side. With the gap in the middle the bridging boxes will help support each other. With the overhang on the outside the box will sag.

We see it daily on inbound and do it on our outbound. The outer perimeter should touch all four corners with any gaps left on the edges or interior of the stack.

[Rastus]

Stacking boxes???  pfffttt.  Nothing to it.  Stacking hay is where it's at...or was anyway.  Too old now.

I've stacked hay since my 20's but moving just 40 or 50 bales nowadays is a real drag. 

[Big Frank]

That's good to know, Mike.

I remember helping out with the hay on my uncles' farm. They had straw too. Hay for the cows to eat and straw for them to Poupon. One of them, or both, feels like it's poking a bunch of holes in your leg if you use your knee and thigh to bump them up when you lift bales. When you take your jeans off after a day of that and look at your leg, it looks a lot like cube steak, but not quite as red. When I grabbed them by the twine and lifted, the side of the bale would get me. I couldn't hold them in a way that I wasn't hitting a cut side. The horses ate oats, so their food was easier to put up.

P.S. Hey Mike, if you stacked this number of boxes that way, wouldn't they all be stacked straight up instead of the sides being staggered? That's not good, and C-ration cases were tough enough not to get smashed when you wrap them, band them or whatever. I know I've seen larger numbers of boxes with the hole in the middle of the pallet and you could still stagger them by making a pinwheel or other pattern, but I don't see how on these.

[MikeBjerum]

P.S. Hey Mike, if you stacked this number of boxes that way, wouldn't they all be stacked straight up instead of the sides being staggered? That's not good, and C-ration cases were tough enough not to get smashed when you wrap them, band them or whatever. I know I've seen larger numbers of boxes with the hole in the middle of the pallet and you could still stagger them by making a pinwheel or other pattern, but I don't see how on these.

No, you rotate 180 degrees with each course. Pallets aren't square, so you can't do 90 degree turns, but a complete 180 interlocks everything.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

Do you mean just pulling the 2 cartons on the small end out to the corners with the space between them? That makes sense. But I thought you meant making it solid all the way around the perimeter by putting the empty space in the middle.  If you do that and rotate it 180 degrees it's exactly the same.

[MikeBjerum]

The two pallets go on the end: 3 - 3 - 2, then 2 - 3 - 3, then 3 - 3 - 2, etc.

You're last diagram shows the correct gap between the two, but they go to the end of the pallet.

[Big Frank]

Okay. With the pair of boxes pulled out to the corners of the pallet, instead of butted together. But I don't think it mattered with C Rations. Instead of corrugated, the box is hard, strong, solid cardboard, inside a sleeve of if hard, strong, solid cardboard. They're so strong they're Grunt-proof, as much as anything can be. Some people could break an anvil with a feather, and leave you scratching your head.

[Big Frank]

The more I think about it the more I think we probably did stack them with the 2 cartons on the end setting at the corners of the pallet. But it was more than 40 years ago and the details are a little bit fuzzy. The other end and both sides were right at the corners and sides of the pallet.  I do remember for sure they had to be stacked 3,3,2 or they wouldn't fit. Then the next layer was 2,3,3 so the joints between the boxes was always staggered and not stacked in a straight line. I think the people running the mess hall knew what they were doing even if I didn't. You just repeat the pattern over and over until they're stacked 5 high or whatever number it takes to reach the right height.

Armament Section, which was 3 squads of my platoon spent at least 180 days per year in the field, and the mess hall usually supplied us with a few loaves of bread and a case or 2 of UHT milk when they could. The 4th squad were all clerks in Tech Supply and stayed in the rear unless the whole company was in the field, which I think happened for a couple of weeks, once a year. Like during Reforger -- REturn of FORces to GERmany. That was a big yearly war game with units from across the U.S. shiping over to train with other NATO countries. Pretty much like many other days in the field for us, on call 24 hours a day until it's over and we went back to the barracks. The longest I was on call was 1,630-1,640 hours straight. After awhile the number of hours becomes meaningless, and I didn't work all of them.

The ultra high temperature pasteurized milk was in Tetra Pak cartons, just like juice boxes, but a couple decades before I heard of juice boxes. It was shelf stable and didn't need to be refrigerated if you used it in a reasonable amount of time. If it was kept refrigerated it would last 10 years. In winter we just tossed it on the roof of one of the trucks. You reached up there and grabbed one whenever you wanted and let it thaw out. I think I mentioned it before. It's nice having friends with food.   The bread came in really handy because we ate C-rations for lunch every day. Some of them were a lot more tolerable when made into sandwiches. One was barbecued beef that was shredded IIRC. When the tent stove was fired up it didn't take long to toast bread on it. No one worried about germs and stuff back then. Mutually Assured Destruction, yes, but not catching cooties and things like that. If there was fuel spilled on the stove, you just find a clean spot or wait for it to burn off. Diesel fuel gives plain white bread extra flavor too.   I still remember getting a ham and cheese C-ration and trading my peanut butter to someone else for their cheese spread. It was as close to a ham and cheese omelet you were going to get for lunch. I called it a ham and cheese canlet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetra_Pak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Reforger