In an all out war short of nuclear exchange it’s plausible fuel and electronics could be rationed but the USA produces so much food nowadays and even a huge military has pretty hard ceilings on food consumption it’s hard to see the food rationing (which was most impactful to ordinary people) returning.
Food rationing in the USA wasn’t to ensure a supply of calories to troops, but to ensure that industrially useful foods (e.g. high nitrate fats) got recycled into military use.
The development of synthetic gunpowder via the Haber-Bosch process, which fueled Germany through two world wars, but only became available to the allies after WW2, means this particular form of rationing is a thing of the past.
Nitroglycerin was used as a component of smokeless powder -- propellant for bullets, mortar shells, and artillery.
The Haber-Bosch process was used by all belligerents in World War II. Germany was the only operator of the process during World War I, but it rapidly spread throughout the world between the wars.
Thanks for the correction on glycerin. If I remember my history right, the Haber process spread through the world after WW1 for making ammonia, and from there known techniques were available for transforming it into saltpeter. But BASF / IG Farben continued to develop their high pressure chemistry to stay ahead of foreign competition, and the use of Haber-like processes to turn air into all kinds of war munitions was still limited to Germany until after WW2. A lot of the war restrictions would not have been necessary if they had access to IG Farben’s latest tech.
For the USA at least. The UK was a different issue, as they were actively being bombed and therefore experienced direct shortages.
The Government has invested more than $200 million in 10 synthetic ammonia plants, having a combined design capacity of about 800,000 tons of fixed nitrogen per year. These include eight ordnance plants, of which six have been declared surplus, one Defense Plant Corporation plant and one belonging to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Four plants have facilities for producing ammonium nitrate solutions. The nitric acid facilities located in the explosives plants of (2), and the ammonium nitrate graining facilities found in the ammunition loading plants of of (1) have a definite relationship to the ammonia plants.
