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Hot Take:
Should have used the U-Boat MAN 2100hp Diesels, and their fuel, for US style Locomotives instead of sub warfare for moving things around central Europe and parts East.
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No Water stops: long range, work great in freezing weather. far higher speed for similar tractive effort. Move that freight fast. 100mph vs 50
We're going to agree to disagree for a number of reasons:Job One is to get rid of these old friends
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For efficiency, you're putting in Oats at 8000 BTU/lbs and Hay is similar, into these guys. Each one of those needs around 25 pounds of Hay and 20 pounds of Oats when doing work. It's not much less when not working hard, you got to feed them each day, working or not. Then 15-20 gallons of clean water for how much they are working.
That's your Dual 'One HP' engine. On a wagon, 5-7 mph, with an expected working time of 8 hours, a 40 mile trip for 45 pounds of Fodder and 18 Gallons of water for moving 1.5 tons of cargo.
If you want more weight pulled or to be slightly faster for your Wagon moved cargo, you add two or four more Horses, but for continuous heavy loads, you need Oxen, that are even slower.
Union Army used six horses to pull a limber and 12 Pounder Napoleon cannon, to be able to move the two ton gun and limber into position quickly, but four was more common at the end of the War, from shortages of decent horses, Each pair of horses would have their own driver on the Left horse.
A 124 HP Sentinel Steam wagon, using 1890s technology, uses 4.3 gallons of water and 7.4 lb. of lump lignite coal per mile. 6 ton payload Top speed 30mph(though by UK Law, limited to 8mph at times). Driver and Fireman for crew, though some lines had the Driver drop coal into the Boiler for reducing labor costs.
We're going to agree to disagree for a number of reasons:
Note: If conditions are damp, you need to get the horses some place dry - just like human toe nails get soft in bath, horses/oxen hooves do. And bad things happen when hooves get soft. It can be a simple as a bunch of logs covered in oats straw, but it needs to be done.
The big one in USSR during winter - the horses grow longer coats and stay functional. Your steamer freezes up in the -20 and colder temperatures and will be parked until thawed and damaged parts replaced.
You can confiscate hay and grain once. Rest assured that next time there will be nothing to confiscate, plus you will have the local populace being even more set against you.d. Hay, grain and water are available everywhere - in Poland, in France, in Russia - you can just confiscate it locally. Coal (and petrol/diesel) need to be hauled in on train (there are a few locations with local coal, but getting supply moving again takes time).
You can only harvest so much firewood per acre per year. It is quite possible to run out if over harvested.Coal and firewood can be mined/harvested year after year, day after a day.
Long term planing of the German logistics - fuel, ammo, spare parts, usage of captured stuff (both finished products and factories), distribution of materials (who gets the fancy alloys, who will have to contend with steel, wood and canvas - granted, that is mostly about LW), engines manufacturing and allocation (from what the cars and trucks get, to the tanks and aircraft) - is probably a material for several threads, both what-if and 'normal'.Like a lot of other things, the Nazi's didn't do very good long term planning.
Not a problem.Steamers can be used on the theaters away from the very harsh winters
Guncrew had to go along with the Cannon, after allI'm surprised at your requirement for a driver on each pair/ riding on one; we drove 2 pairs from the comfort of the wagon seat.
That's why the People's Prime Mover would be fine with 8hp Steam, that would be about the same utility as a 20hp Oliver 60 row crop that ran on kerosene that could do a two bottom plow with ideal soil, a single with heavier.European farms are small, so it is very difficult for individual farmers to afford a traction engine and the fuel to power it...
The best summary I can find:I would like to some numbers for this. The Germans made a lot of trucks that could be diesel powered. Most also had a petrol engined model. Production was split how? Many types of trucks had 4 wheel drive models also, but those were usually a fraction of total production. Total production of large German trucks was in the thousands. The smaller trucks were in the tens of thousands, The US was making large trucks by the tens of thousands and 'smaller' trucks by the hundreds of thousands. Canada made something like over 600,000 motor vehicles.
I would also note that diesel engines in 1930s and 40s were not easy to start in cold weather, or sometimes to even keep running. The Diesel Soviet tanks used compressed air for starting. I have used small diesel auxiliary engines in Firetrucks that used an electric heating element in the intake to warm the air in the manifold/intake system before you engaged the starter motor. Once the engine fired you let go of the heater switch (and this was sometimes in the heated truck bay.) Basically Petrol will give off flammable vapors over 40 degrees below zero (both scales), not many but some. You have to be closer to 100 degrees F (37 degrees C) above freezing for diesel fuel to give off flammable vapors. There are ways to warm the fuel (or air) and some diesels used either sprayed into the intake to start in cold weather (this may have been post war?). This one reason that truckers will just let the engine run while parked. My department's fire trucks were kept in heated bays (at least high 60s F) in New England.
You can solve a lot of problems, but if you need a lot of trucks in a hurry and you can get petrol engined ones that don't require as much work to operate in cold weather you may want to think about that aspect.
Only the Bergius process allowed the production of aviation gasoline, although some fractions from the Fischer-Tropsch process could be used in the production of aviation gasoline as additives.I suspect they had an idea that Fischer-Tropsch could be more efficient. However, the Bergius process was invented a decade earlier than FT (1913 vs 1925), so it wouldn't surprise me if they thought FT was still too immature when they made the decision to start building large scale synthetic fuel infrastructure?
Thank you.The best summary I can find:
Exactly. 1940 was the opportunity to consolidate the gains with a white peace. Mussolini is a nuisance in Africa so perhaps turn on Italy instead of the Soviet Union and simplify the situation.I believe the main point here, is if you intend to start a global war, plan ahead.
Hitler was planning on bluffing his way into a short war that would cow the potential adversaries into allowing him to have relative "wiggle room" with his domestic economy.
That theory looked good on paper, but when Britain did not fold AND he attacked the Soviet Union, he ended up taxing his manufacturing's ability to meet the needs of his military.
Germany delaying the attack against the Soviet Union until a workable peace is achieved with the UK would've made them a far greater threat to the UK, and a far tougher nut to crack once the war is on vs. the USA.Exactly. 1940 was the opportunity to consolidate the gains with a white peace. Mussolini is a nuisance in Africa so perhaps turn on Italy instead of the Soviet Union and simplify the situation.
Correction: Of the 1.5 ton trucks Borgward and Mercedes used diesels, although there were some petrol while Opel and Steyer used petrol. Milsom states the Phanomen as using diesels while other sources state petrol. Again specific production by manufacturer is difficult to find.The best summary I can find:
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As I noted the heavy trucks were all diesel. As far as I know the light trucks were all petrol. The 3 ton truck get tricky. Opel and Ford used petrol, Mercedes and Borgward used diesel. Opel was the largest producer but determining how many went to the front line and how many stayed on the home front is difficult. According to John Milson in "German Military Transport of World War Two" Opel built 27,000 A type (4x4) and 70,000 B type (4x2) during the war. Accurate numbers for individuals manufactures are difficult to find, I guesstimate about 1/3 of the front line 3 ton trucks had diesel engines.
The RSO was originally petrol but switched to diesel.
Italy's folly in Abyssinia and greater East Africa in the mid/late 30's should have been a warning sign to Hitler.Germany delaying the attack against the Soviet Union until a workable peace is achieved with the UK would've made them a far greater threat to the UK, and a far tougher nut to crack once the war is on vs. the USA.
My position: until there is a workable peace with the UK, Germany not invading the USSR works to their advantage. If Germany needs 2 years of warfare against the UK to achieve that condition, so be it. If they need 5 years, so be it.Avoiding involvement in North Africa would have saved Germany a huge amount of men, equipment and supplies which would have otherwise reinforced European positions as well as strengthened elements used to invade Soviet Russia.
Barbarossa was planned to quickly knock out the USSR, so that the German economy could be fully oriented towards a conflict with the UK&US, as well as give Germany more resources to use. The longer they waited, the more the industrial capacity of the Allies would turn the table in their favor. And given the success of the German Army in France, what could possibly go wrong? That is, the sooner they attack the better.
There were no Allies between Summer of 1940 and Summer of 1941.
The Reich vitally needs the resources of the USSR - it cannot wait five years or even two years. And the USSR will rearm and reorganize the army by the summer of 1942, after which the probability of its entry on the side of Britain will exponentially increase every month. It will enter the war with a fully mobilized army on its own conditions, while the qualitative superiority of the Germans will not have such a catastrophic effect. Yes, the Soviets would suffer heavy losses, but in the end it would cost them far fewer sacrifices.There were no Allies between Summer of 1940 and Summer of 1941.
A good, hard look at the geography charts, and comparing distances in the West vs. in the East should've given the German planers a pause. Considering the enemy weak was known as 'underestimating the opponent', a thing that was known for centuries, and that bit the Nazi leadership in their rear end already by Autumn of 1940.
Not formally, but the US was increasingly helping the UK, and given the scale of it's own rearmament it was but a question of time when it would fully enter the war.
I recommend the above mentioned book to explain the logic from an economic perspective.