BEIJING, Jan. 12 -- In a recent maneuver training exercise, the cooks assigned to a combat support battalion under an Army brigade prepared food for troops by using a newly commissioned military field cooking container truck, which was specially tailored for troops operating in the plateau areas.

No sooner had the troops arrived at their destination than the fresh made food was ready to serve. "With this cooking truck, military members have had access to hot and delicious meals wherever they go on the plateau," said Battalion Commander Pan Xiaojun.

Modern warfare set higher standards on the scale, efficiency, and maneuverability of military catering support. Over the years, the Chinese military has always focused on the improvement of such support capabilities. Nowadays, the new-type field cooking container trucks designated for the plateau use have achieved a new leap in the troops’ hot meal support capability .

"The new cooking truck adopts a self-propelled method, which greatly improves its maneuverability," according to the driver He Aijun. “The old-type mobile kitchen trailer needed to be fixed on the ground before operation and could not support the troops' high mobility training in time. In the past few days, I had driven the new truck through the canyons and across the glaciers. The cooks had cooked the delicious meals on the move, and the whole process was so fast and efficient.”

The development of the new field cooking container truck has taken various actual needs of the field troops into consideration. For example, since it’s difficult to light a fire under icy conditions on the plateau, the cooking truck has been equipped with advanced combustion technology and can operate in an environment with temperatures ranging from minus 41to 46 degrees centigrade at an altitude of 4,500 meters. Such a “mobile kitchen” can satisfy the food and beverage needs of more than 100 troops in the battlefield.

It is said that, with the deployment of new-type logistic support equipment in batches, the PLA’s plateau catering support pattern is undergoing qualitative changes and will be more adaptable to the future battlefield.