ro, perhaps you should do your research before slagging iDave off for his lack of knowledge……
if your chum would care to post links to the relevant research papers i'll gladly wolf down some humble pie. 2 seconds on pubmed produced this:
Energy requirements of military personnel.
Tharion WJ, Lieberman HR, Montain SJ, Young AJ, Baker-Fulco CJ, Delany JP, Hoyt RW.
Military Nutrition Division, US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Kansas Street, Natick, MA 0176-5007, USA. william.tharion@na.amedd.army.mil
Abstract
Energy requirements of military personnel (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines) have been measured in garrison and in field training under a variety of climatic conditions. Group mean total energy expenditures for 424 male military personnel from various units engaged in diverse missions ranged from 13.0 to 29.8 MJ (3109-7131 kcal) per day. The overall mean was 19.3+/-2.7 MJ (mean+/-SD) (4610+/-650 kcal) per day measured over an average of 12.2 days (range 2.25-69 days). For the 77 female military personnel studied, mean total energy expenditures for individual experimental groups ranged from 9.8 to 23.4 MJ (2332-5597 kcal) per day, with an overall mean of 11.9+/-2.6 MJ (2850+/-620 kcal) per day, measured over an average of 8.8 days (range 2.25-14 days). Women, presumably due to their lower lean body mass, resting metabolic rate, and absolute work rates, had lower total energy expenditures. Combat training produced higher energy requirements than non-combat training or support activities. Compared to temperate conditions, total energy expenditures did not appear to be influenced by hot weather, but tended to be higher in the cold or high altitude conditions.
PMID: 15604033 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
he last sentence on the abstract appears relevant