Which country designed the best engines for WWII? (3 Viewers)

[GrauGeist]

I dont know ! (if/when I find documentation I will post here)

Thank you!

I would imagine that there wouldn't be that much of a difference, dollar/pound wise.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Thank you!

I would imagine that there wouldn't be that much of a difference, dollar/pound wise.

I`m uncertain how to correct for labour rates/material prices and so on, so even if I do find prices they will need some "work" to correct I imagine.

 

[MiTasol]

I have a vague memory of such numbers in a book many years ago and that had Merlins built by one of the UK car companies as far the cheapest or most reliable. Cannot remember which company and which metric.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

I have a vague memory of such numbers in a book many years ago and that had Merlins built by one of the UK car companies as far the cheapest or most reliable. Cannot remember which company and which metric.

Sadly British powerplant engineers suddenly become demotivated in peacetime (excluding motor-racing, which is just war under slighly more restrictive rules) and so all our car firms are long bankrupt/bought out. So this may be very difficult to research.

We also have to factor in things which might be unanswerable. For example RR derby had to be able to make many Merlin variants in parallel, whereas Packard were allowed to continue making out of date Merlins in order to maximise "production run" volumes on the understanding that RR would upgrade these engines to latest mod-spec upon arrival to the UK in Prestwick. So its really not at all a simple thing to compare the price of an engine made by a certain organization.

We also do not know what "danger monies" were paid to firms who didnt really much want to do the job and over-quoted, but were accepted on grounds of desperation by the UK Govt. This is an area I dont want to profess any certainty in at all.

 

[buffnut453]

I`m uncertain how to correct for labour rates/material prices and so on, so even if I do find prices they will need some "work" to correct I imagine.

Plus there's the issue of whether costs are just for the engine or for the RR "Universal Power Plant." I suspect it will be tough to find directly comparable prices.

 

[GrauGeist]

Since it was wartime, would the unit cost of shipping to th UK be deferred?

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Since it was wartime, would the unit cost of shipping to th UK be deferred?

Questions like this make me realise how little I know. I do not have any idea about this at all.

 

[buffnut453]

Questions like this make me realise how little I know. I do not have any idea about this at all.

Agreed. It rather depends on how "delivery" was defined in the contract and whether any shipping costs were included (e.g. from a RR factory in the UK to a MU) or was shipping handled separately? Making cost comparisons would require incredibly detailed cost breakdowns for each and every contract...and you still have other financial incongruities (e.g. exchange rate fluctuations, different costs of raw materials in different countries etc etc).

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Sadly British powerplant engineers suddenly become demotivated in peacetime (excluding motor-racing, which is just war under slighly more restrictive rules) and so all our car firms are long bankrupt/bought out. So this may be very difficult to research.

We also have to factor in things which might be unanswerable. For example RR derby had to be able to make many Merlin variants in parallel, whereas Packard were allowed to continue making out of date Merlins in order to maximise "production run" volumes on the understanding that RR would upgrade these engines to latest mod-spec upon arrival to the UK in Prestwick. So its really not at all a simple thing to compare the price of an engine made by a certain organization.

We also do not know what "danger monies" were paid to firms who didnt really much want to do the job and over-quoted, but were accepted on grounds of desperation by the UK Govt. This is an area I dont want to profess any certainty in at all.

Ford of England continued to make the older style one piece block well after the Rolls Royce factories had switched to the two piece block. The Merlin 22A was a late production Merlin 20 modified with new blocks. I think Ford was making Merlin 20s into 1944.

 

[Shortround6]

Unless you can look at several contracts you may not know what is covered or what is not (like a certain percentage of spare parts which making dividing the number of engines into the total price not very accurate).

I would be very much surprised if the different British factories got the same price per engine at the same time period let alone trying to compare prices to Packard.

Unless the factories were laid out identically and used the same machinery and the same fixtures and used the same flow pattern of parts movement and assembly things get wonky real quick. I don't believe the British factories all had the same pay scales at the same time ( or at least didn't have them at all times).
Glasgow factory may have required more power for heat and light?

Obviously a two stage engine cost more than a single stage engine. But a Merlin 46 may have cost a bit more than Merlin 45M (or not?). Which supercharger impeller needs more machining? Can you make a Merlin 46 impeller from a Merlin 45 impeller forging or do you need a slightly larger forging to begin with? Were "cut" down impellers (after prototypes) really cut from original forgings or did they order smaller forgings to begin with once they knew they were going to build hundreds?

The factory at Derby (?) did most (all?) of the small batch stuff and experimental work. Trafford Park and Glasgow built large batches of identical or nearly identical engines, which should have been cheaper per engine.

If you are not using the exact same machinery and jigs/fixtures then all bets are off. Changes in speeds and feeds of the cutting tools will change the machining time. A number of parts required a high degree of polish. Changes in machine tool cutters can make a difference (did the US have more Tungsten carbide cutters?). What was the cutter grind department like?
Ability to cut complex shapes (even just a special radius) on tool tips can speed machining on some parts. Ability to swiftly regrind tool edges to keep machined operating at optimum speeds and feeds can make a difference.


International finance is whole different subject.
Germany and France had both manipulated they currency in the late 30s and did not allow their currency to "float" vs the dollar or pound (made exports cheaper but imports more expensive) but such things make nonsense out of trying to figure the "real" cost of WW II item/goods between many countries.

I have no idea what the British and the US were doing.

 

[pbehn]

Agreed. It rather depends on how "delivery" was defined in the contract and whether any shipping costs were included (e.g. from a RR factory in the UK to a MU) or was shipping handled separately? Making cost comparisons would require incredibly detailed cost breakdowns for each and every contract...and you still have other financial incongruities (e.g. exchange rate fluctuations, different costs of raw materials in different countries etc etc).

I would be surprised if there was a single cost for a Merlin type from even factories in UK. The RR plant in Derby was owned by RR with RR employees. The shadow factories were all slightly different. In Glasgow, the government built the factory and manned it with everything done "in-house" (almost no sub contracting), even having to build housing for workers. Also the unit price depends on the size of the order, Packard demanded an order of 5,000 to get involved, 5,000 is way more than the initial orders for Merlins.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Not really more than a scrap of info on US/UK cost of production, but its something.

I believe that the exchange rate in 1940 was around 4 USD to 1 Pound Sterling.

This letter dated 3rd Nov 1939.

It might be more useful if it could be given as something like a percentage of average earnings ?

I would humby suggest that in broad terms, there appears to be not a GREAT deal of difference. (Assuming
no hidden subsidies exist, I "assume" that probably these prices must reflect roughly equal batch sizes or there
would have been little point quoting them like this in the original letter, although this is not explicitly stated).

 

[Elvis]

Sad that Spain received no votes, considering the Hispano-Suiza 12 series powered so many aircraft during the war.
You could almost call it the archetype of the WWII era V12 aircraft engine (although R-R development pretty much paralleled it).

 

[wuzak]

Sad that Spain received no votes, considering the Hispano-Suiza 12 series powered so many aircraft during the war.
You could almost call it the archetype of the WWII era V12 aircraft engine (although R-R development pretty much paralleled it).

Except, if I am not mistaken, the Hispano Suiza V-12s originated in France.

 

[Elvis]

Except, if I am not mistaken, the Hispano Suiza V-12s originated in France.

You could also say it was adopted by the Russians. Regardless, the company's still headquartered in Barcelona, Spain.

 

[GrauGeist]

Except, if I am not mistaken, the Hispano Suiza V-12s originated in France.

The company was fouded in Paris during the late 1890's, under the name "La Cuadra", but shortly afterwards, La Cuadra hired a Swiss engineer and the company moved to Spain and changed the company's name to "Hispano-Suiza" (Spanish-Swiss).

 

[Shortround6]

The title is "best engines for WWII"

Not "Most Widely used has-been engine of WWII"

 

[wuzak]

The company was fouded in Paris during the late 1890's, under the name "La Cuadra", but shortly afterwards, La Cuadra hired a Swiss engineer and the company moved to Spain and changed the company's name to "Hispano-Suiza" (Spanish-Swiss).

And there was a a luxury car subsidiary in France which, from the mid 1920s, operated largely independently.

It was that company that made the V-12s of the 1930s.

It was also from them that the British acquired the licence to build the 20mm HS440 cannon.

 

[Shortround6]

The Hispano company was into all sorts of things, and that may have been part of the problem.

There were subsidiaries in both Spain and France and other places. Marc Birkigt liked to keep at least a piece of some of the companies that got spun off or got licenses.

There were not only the motor cars but trucks and buses and few gasoline engine powered rail cars. Hispano in Spain also built airplanes. They often did not duplicate what was going in Spain and what was going on in France but they often over lapped.

Birkigt had also designed a lot of the machinery that was used to manufacture the aircraft engines, at least in the Spanish and French Factories. There were about 50,000 of the V-8 WW I engines built in total by a number of different companies (including Wright in the US).

There is no doubt the man was a genius, but he may have been a little too controlling and did not surround himself with enough good men. Not saying he didn't pick good men. Just that many things were getting more complicated with each passing year getting more power and more reliability was getting harder. You needed more good men just to keep up. With the H-S company going in so many different directions things may have been hard. With the world wide depression followed by the Spain civil war and some relocations staying in business at all was more than some companies managed.

 

[Elvis]

The company was fouded in Paris during the late 1890's, under the name "La Cuadra", but shortly afterwards, La Cuadra hired a Swiss engineer and the company moved to Spain and changed the company's name to "Hispano-Suiza" (Spanish-Swiss).

La Cuadra never built aircraft engines.
Hispano-Suiza is based in Barcelona.