More German Aviation Gasoline

[Soren]

Further German tanks lost due to fuel exhaustion, this just in August September 1944 in Normandy:

12th SS Pz.Dv.Hitler Jugend:
3 Tigers blown up by their own crew, 2 due to fuel exhaustion and 1 due to mechanical failure caused by lack of motor oil between the 20th 21st of August 1944.

SS Pz.Abt.102:
6 Tiger's blown up by their own crew due to fuel exhaustion between the 25th of August 1st of September 1944.

In all 9 Tigers in Normandy alone lost due to fuel exhaustion or mechanical failure caused by lack of motor oil between the 20th of August 1st of September.

A similar thing happend in the period between June 24th to July 4th in 1944 on the eastern front, with S.Pz.Abt. 501 losing 8-10 Tiger's due to fuel exhaustion or mechanical failure caused by lack of motor oil. Another 10 were lost in accidents and combat related incidents.

And the list goes on and on... it was far from just the heavy tank battalions who lost lots of material due to fuel oil exhaustion, not to mention the lack of spare parts which couldn't be brought up because the supply chain had run out of fuel as-well.

Also interesting to note is that not even 1/6th of the Me-262's produced during the war ever made it to enter combat due to lack of fuel and pilots to fly them. The LW could hardly afford to train pilots in the new aircraft because of the fuel shortages which had already ensured that the majority of the jets were delegated to just sitting on the ground.

 

[Soren]

Juha,

Schwere Panzer Abteilung 504 lost abit over 90 Tigers in all during the war, of that more than 46 Tigers either due to fuel exhaustion or mechanical failures caused by lack of oil or spare parts. That's roughly half.

 

[olbrat]

quote: "208 million marks per plant sounds like a lot of money. But consider some naval expenditures that contributed nothing at all to the WWII German war effort"

How many allied spys, aircraft, ships, personnel, equipment, money etc. were tied up in locating and destroying the Bismark and Tirpitz alone? The Bismark wreaked havoc with all ships it engaged. Under a number of conditions the Allied ships may have failed to locate or trap the Bismark. What if the Germans managed to get close enough to land to get air cover? Under any number of conditions the British torpedo bombers might have failed. With Bismark, Tirpitz and other commerce raiders on the high seas, combined with submarines, the war would be completely different story.

 

[Juha]

Hello Soren
on spare parts, main reasons for losses because of lack of spare parts were the deliberate choice by Germans to boost the production of complete vehicles by reducing the number of spare parts produced and harassment of German supply nets by Allied and Soviet AFs. And of course also the fact that Tiger was so heavy and because of that difficult to recover had impact.

On Me 262, yes the fuel shortage hampered pilot training but IIRC one of the plusses for Me 262 was that jet fuel situation was better than that of high grade aviation petrol. And Allied bombing destroyed lot of Me 262s before they were handed over to LW and at least part of those losses would have happened in any case. IIRC it was c. 1/5th of the Me-262s produced during the war that saw combat And the main reason for that was the general chaos and the destruction of Germany's surface transportation system but fuel shortage played its part also.

Juha

 

[davebender]

Sinking a WWI era RN battlecruiser makes a nice newspaper headline but does nothing to help Germany win the war.

 

[Juha]

Hello Soren
Quote:" Juha,

Schwere Panzer Abteilung 504 lost abit over 90 Tigers in all during the war, of that more than 46 Tigers either due to fuel exhaustion or mechanical failures caused by lack of oil or spare parts. That's roughly half."

According to Schneider's Tigers in Combat I, sPzAbt 504 lost 109 Tigers during the war, and very very few because of fuel starvation, most of the non-combat losses were because of Allies forced Tigers to withdraw along windy mountain roads which were too much to Tigers' powertrains, they got stuck in bomb craters, in both cases a contributional factor was scarcity of recovery assets, or because of bridges were destroyed.

And of course the 16 lost by 2./504 in Sicily were lost because of failure of infantry of HG div and because of higher HQs were incapable to provide the coy with reasonable maintenance assets.

Juha

 

[Juha]

Hello Soren
Quote: " 12th SS Pz.Dv.Hitler Jugend:
3 Tigers blown up by their own crew, 2 due to fuel exhaustion and 1 due to mechanical failure caused by lack of motor oil between the 20th 21st of August 1944."

Did HJ have Tigers in Normandy? What is Your source?

Quote: " SS Pz.Abt.102:
6 Tiger's blown up by their own crew due to fuel exhaustion between the 25th of August 1st of September 1944."

According to Schneider's Tigers in Combat II one of the last Tigers, 001, comes off the ferry and sunk into Seine, another was lost while trying to deep-wade across, most of the remaining were blown up at Seine, the last one made it to Genval, where it run out of fuel and was abandoned by its crew, which disabled the main gun. But the book is somewhat unclear, because there are some discrepancies between the text and the loss table in case of this battalion. So according to the text only one was lost because of fuel exhaustion but there were some losses on 30 Aug 44 in the table without reason, so 6 is a possibility, but if the tanks were at the left back of Seine that didn't mean anything because there was no way to get across at that time, but if on right bank then the reason might have been the general scarcity of fuel or simply the chaos of general withdrawal with enemy in hot pursuit. What is your source?

ADDITION: Did some checking and as I suspected the Tigers serving under HJ seemed to be from sPzAbt 102 as was logical and probably were counted as tanks of 102 in loss table but were not counted among tanks under sPzAbt 102 control in the text, that would solve the discrepancies between the text and the loss table.

Juha