Groundhog Thread v. 2.0 - The most important battle of WW2

NightHawk said:

what was the most important battle of ww2 ?
1.Stalingrad
2.Normandy
3.El alamain
4.BOB
5.kursk

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Kursk. Utterly unnecessary. No, BoB was not decisive- but it defanged the Luftwaffe. The lack of fighter range was suicidal- it should have been easily foreseen and drop tanks developed prior to it. All of them are important but not solely pivotal.

I'm gonna' like this. I sense another educational opportunity for me.

JohnnyRackham said:

Kursk. Utterly unnecessary. No, BoB was not decisive- but it defanged the Luftwaffe. The lack of fighter range was suicidal- it should have been easily foreseen and drop tanks developed prior to it. All of them are important but not solely pivotal.

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In principle both were exactly the same, the German military came up against defences that couldnt be overcome and gave up.

ljadw said:

And, why did the Germans use only synthetic fuel for the LW, not imported fuel, not domestic fuel ?
The fact that they used only synthetic fuel for the LW means that it matters if the fuel was made from coal or was crude .

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What tosh. Germany used synthetic fuel because they didn't have reliable access to enough fuel, so they made their own at exceptional cost both in financial terms and resources. One outcome was that they never had enough high octane fuel, the Luftwaffe couldn't use C4 fuel for all their missions simply because they couldn't get enough of it.
Note - this has been mentioned before

A small aside, after the battle for France they used captured stocks of RAF 100 octane fuel.

Glider said:

A small aside, after the battle for France they used captured stocks of RAF 100 octane fuel.

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They had special teams to capture fuel stocks "
From a purely fuel standpoint, the fall of France has to be considered the greatest victory of the war for Germany. That is, for the first and only time, Hitler ended a campaign with more oil than he had when he started.

The German army and air force had learned enough from the Polish campaign to build up significant reserves for the war in the West. When that blitz was over, the Wehrmacht had captured more than 20 million barrels of oil from the French, Belgians and Dutch. Since the invaders had used only 12 million barrels through the campaign, the conquests represented a net gain of 8 million barrels. (For reference, though, and to show how precarious the Germans' situation remained, the United States in 1940 produced an average of 4 million barrels per day.)

During the campaign, the Oil Commandos were deployed to seize the French oil wells at Pechelbronn, in Alsace. On 21 June, with the help of French collaborators, they succeeded in doing so without firing a shot. The French demolition squads charged with destroying the machinery were entirely unsuccessful. Not only did the Oil Commandos get the 1.5 million gallons of petroleum in storage there, they returned production to full capacity in a few months.

swampyankee said:

I know the engines I worked with (I was a development test engineer at AVCO Stratford) could run on Jet -A, Jet-B, JP-5, and JP-4 without adjustment. I don't know about any other company's engines.

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GE J79s

Hey ljadw,

I think you might be confusing the terms sometimes used for the different types of manufacture and the different type of source for the raw materials, with the end user types and grades of fuel.

For example, these are the different organic petroleum end user fuel types in WWII, and their primary base:

Diesel (diesel)
Jet A (kerosene)
Jet B (kerosene-gasoline mixture)
Avgas (gasoline)
Alcohol (usually methanol and/or ethanol)

Usable compounds/mixtures that meet the chemical behavior (in ICE, jet, or rocket engines) of the above types can be produced using synthetic manufacturing processes alone, or distillation processes from organic petroleum alone, or a combination of the 2 types of manufacturing.

Depending on the additives used in the end user fuel types, there can be a problem with using a specific blend in one company's engine design vs another company's design. However, as far as I am aware, an additive of this type would have the same effect on the engine regardless of whether it is in a synthetic or organic based fuel. One example is isopropyl alcohol, which tends to dissolve natural rubber, most types of synthetic rubber, and many types of plastic.

Using higher than normal levels of TEL might cause the spark plug performance to degrade more quickly, but this was countered by changing the spark plugs more often.

Using isopropyl alcohol in a one shot rocket engine worked very well, but repeated/prolonged use in an ICE can lead to gasket/hose leaks and serious failure. The solution was to use alcohol resistant gaskets/hoses and/or switch to ethanol.

Due to the combatants involved in WWII all having pretty much the same level of technology and scientific knowledge in the area of fuels, there were no significant difference in fuel types needed. As mentioned upthread, the opposing sides sometimes even used the enemy fuel, sometimes (but not always) after mixing in certain additives (such as additional TEL to bring the knock rating up, or alcohol for the same reason). What additives and amounts being decided by skilled teams originally fielded for the purpose of quality control monitoring of the fuel received by the combat units.

As well as in France as mentioned above, the Germans sometimes used British stocks captured in NA, and vise versa. The Japanese, who also used a large amount of synthetic fuel (though not as large an amount as the Germans (I think)) also used captured US, British, and Dutch fuels. They dealt with any deficiencies in the captured fuels in the same way as other nations.

Glider said:

What tosh. Germany used synthetic fuel because they didn't have reliable access to enough fuel, so they made their own at exceptional cost both in financial terms and resources. One outcome was that they never had enough high octane fuel, the Luftwaffe couldn't use C4 fuel for all their missions simply because they couldn't get enough of it.
Note - this has been mentioned before

A small aside, after the battle for France they used captured stocks of RAF 100 octane fuel.

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Army and KM used crude and synthetic oil.
LW used for its aircraft almost exclusively synthetic oil.
Why was it not the opposite ?= LW using crude and synthetic oil and the army and KM only synthetic oil ?
A possible reason is that the engines of the new LW aircraft demanded synthetic oil and were unfit for high octane fuel .
In 1941 Germany produced/imported 8,5 million ton of oil of which 4,1 million ton synthetic oil .
The military consumed only 4,6 million ton ,of which 1,3 million ton for the LW .
That means that there was a surplus, also for the LW ;they made the choice of not to use high octane fuel, because they did not need it and because the engines of their aircraft could not handle the high octane fuel .

ljadw said:

In 1941 Germany produced/imported 8,5 million ton of oil of which 4,1 million ton synthetic oil .
The military consumed only 4,6 million ton ,of which 1,3 million ton for the LW .
That means that there was a surplus [...]

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Does this take into account nonmilitary usage? And where are these numbers from?

Hey ljadw,

re "A possible reason is that the engines of the new LW aircraft demanded synthetic oil and were unfit for high octane fuel ."

No. Physics/Chemistry/Engineering/History say no.

ljadw said:

Why was it not the opposite ?= LW using crude and synthetic oil and the army and KM only synthetic oil ?
A possible reason is that the engines of the new LW aircraft demanded synthetic oil and were unfit for high octane fuel .

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I've got to hand it to you, you certainly have an active imagination, even if seriously deficient in factual knowledge. As has already been stated here repeatedly, the LW aircraft required high octane fuel, which is hard to make from low quality crude, and they didn't have access to anywhere near enough of the good crude, so they had to resort to synthetic (at great cost). Today's synthetic lubricating oils, which can significantly extend the life of an engine, are a far cry from the marginal stuff the Germans cranked out in the war. They needed volume at the expense of quality. Never enough of the stuff.
You've got a lot of studying to do.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Does this take into account nonmilitary usage? And where are these numbers from?

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Total production/import in 1941 was 8,485 million ton .
Total consumption was 7,305 million .
Military consumption was 4,567 million .
Consumption of avgas was 1,274 million .
Source for total production and import and for avgas consumption is : ww2-weapons.com/military-expenditures-strategic-raw-materials-oil-production.
I lost the source for the part of the military consumption of total consumption, but it was in
1940 51 %
1941 62,5 %
1942 and 1943 68 %
Also from ww2 weapons :
production /consumption of avgas
1940 : production : 966000/ consumption : 863000
1941 : production : 910000 /consumption : 1274000
1942 : 1472000 and 1426000
1943 : 1977000 and 1826000
1944 : 1105000 and 1403000

XBe02Drvr said:

I've got to hand it to you, you certainly have an active imagination, even if seriously deficient in factual knowledge. As has already been stated here repeatedly, the LW aircraft required high octane fuel, which is hard to make from low quality crude, and they didn't have access to anywhere near enough of the good crude, so they had to resort to synthetic (at great cost). Today's synthetic lubricating oils, which can significantly extend the life of an engine, are a far cry from the marginal stuff the Germans cranked out in the war. They needed volume at the expense of quality. Never enough of the stuff.
You've got a lot of studying to do.

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And before the war, the same LW aircraft that, following you required high octane fuel,used almost no synthetic fuel (the production of synthetic was very low before the war ) but only low quality crude .
And the question remains unanswered : WHY did the LW replace during the oil crude by synthetic ?
If before the war they could do with crude, why did they abandon crude during the war ?

ljadw said:

If before the war they could do with crude, why did they abandon crude during the war ?

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Cause they had none after '43?

Graeme said:

View attachment 630138

Cause they had none after '43?

View attachment 630139

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I would be carefull with that table.

ljadw said:

Army and KM used crude and synthetic oil.
LW used for its aircraft almost exclusively synthetic oil.
Why was it not the opposite ?= LW using crude and synthetic oil and the army and KM only synthetic oil ?
A possible reason is that the engines of the new LW aircraft demanded synthetic oil and were unfit for high octane fuel .
In 1941 Germany produced/imported 8,5 million ton of oil of which 4,1 million ton synthetic oil .
The military consumed only 4,6 million ton ,of which 1,3 million ton for the LW .
That means that there was a surplus, also for the LW ;they made the choice of not to use high octane fuel, because they did not need it and because the engines of their aircraft could not handle the high octane fuel .

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I can only echo what I and others have said in that you need to research before making replies that only emphasise what an imagination you have.

Aviation need to have fuel that is consistent in quality and a higher octane than most. If you have to go down the synthetic route then you you have one process that supplies your needs.

Re A possible reason is that the engines of the new LW aircraft demanded synthetic oil and were unfit for high octane fuel. I am not going to do your research for you, and will let you do it yourself. However you seem to need a clue so I suggest you look up the fuel requirements of the later versions of the 109 and 190 and see what fuel is needed, then let us know what you find out.

Re The military consumed only 4,6 million ton ,of which 1,3 million ton for the LW . That means that there was a surplus. Ask yourself what was needed to run the German economy, do some research and let us know what the surplus is.

Re They made the choice of not to use high octane fuel, because they did not need it and because the engines of their aircraft could not handle the high octane fuel. This is a classic example of you having been given the information form more than one person. Totally either ignoring and/or not taking it on board and making a comment that does you no favours. In this case ask yourself the following question.
Question - If the engines of their aircraft couldn't handle the high octane fuel How did the Luftwaffe use the captured RAF stocks of 100 octane fuel in their Me109 and Me110 fighters.

I and no doubt a lot of other people, await your answers to the points raised above with some interest.

ljadw said:

A possible reason is that the engines of the new LW aircraft demanded synthetic oil and were unfit for high octane fuel .

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We may be having a translation problem here.

You can almost always use higher octane fuel than an engine requires. With leaded fuel that can lead to lead fouling of the spark plugs but for short range fighters that means 5-10 flights before the plugs even need to be pulled for inspection.

There was no special property that synthetic feed stock (the stuff you start turning into finished product) has over natural feed stock (crude oil).

You seem to fishing for reasons.

Allied and German fuel varied enormously in the amount of aromatic compounds.
The Americans started with 2% or under for 100 octane fuel.
The British started with not less than 20% for 100 octane.
The Germans at times used up to 40% for 96 octane.

ALL aviation fuel was blends of different compounds and additives. There were hundreds of possible combinations that could get to the pretty much the same end result.
The Germans tended to use high cylinder compression for better economy in the V-12s while the allies used higher boost.
The Germans tended not run their engines as rich as the allies did at max power. This affects both economy and cooling. P-47s were famous for leaving black smoke trails on take off they were running so rich as they were using some of the excess fuel as coolant.

This is a complicated subject that has few good commonly available sources.

The Germans would have loved to use higher octane fuel, the problem was making it with resources they had available. As an example toluene is a good additive to gasoline to raise the octane rating. You can get toluene from natural crude, you can also synthesize it. Unfortunately it is also a prime ingredient in TNT. Germans invented TNT (?) so they new about it and how to make it. Question is can they make enough or do they need to use something else in the Av gas or do they use us a little toluene and then something else?

The whole supply thing is very complicated and cannot be reduced to a few sentences and/or paragraphs.

ljadw said:

And before the war, the same LW aircraft that, following you required high octane fuel,used almost no synthetic fuel (the production of synthetic was very low before the war ) but only low quality crude .
And the question remains unanswered : WHY did the LW replace during the oil crude by synthetic ?
If before the war they could do with crude, why did they abandon crude during the war ?

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Simple answer; before the war began Germany was not subject to blockade and could buy higher quality foreign oil. Also, the aircraft in use in 1939 didn't require as high an octane fuel as they did in 1943-44. As all the warring nations continued to try to wring more horsepower out of their engines, their octane requirements continued to rise.
Meanwhile, Germany's access to high quality crude declined, necessitating more (expensive) synthetic production.

I stand by my earlier comment that it was the Battle of the Atlantic. Supplies from the Americas were critical to Britain, which was not self-sufficient in food, fuel, or raw materials, and very important to the USSR, which relied heavily on US-built aircraft and trucks.

If the Battle of the Atlantic were to be lost, Britain falls. The USSR may have managed, but I suspect it would be forced to a negotiated peace, one even worse than Brest-Litovsk (which made Versailles seem kind and generous in comparison).

swampyankee said:

I stand by my earlier comment that it was the Battle of the Atlantic. Supplies from the Americas were critical to Britain, which was not self-sufficient in food, fuel, or raw materials, and very important to the USSR, which relied heavily on US-built aircraft and trucks.

If the Battle of the Atlantic were to be lost, Britain falls. The USSR may have managed, but I suspect it would be forced to a negotiated peace, one even worse than Brest-Litovsk (which made Versailles seem kind and generous in comparison).

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I'm not sure I agree with your statement that Britain would fall if the Battle of the Atlantic was lost. Certainly, the extent of war operations would be somewhat curtailed....but I'm not convinced that it would knock Britain out of the war. For example, it would be interesting to know how much food was coming from the US vs other parts of the British Empire. For example, Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa all provided considerable agricultural produce to Britain during WW2...and, while it did transit the Atlantic for a portion of the journey, it was generally closer to Allied territory and hence could be better protected than ships on the US-UK route.