Is Saudi crude more or less the same as Libyan crude?Saudis are nearly 100% oil-fired power plants still.
Is Saudi crude more or less the same as Libyan crude?Saudis are nearly 100% oil-fired power plants still.
Is Saudi crude more or less the same as Libyan crude?
That is a lot more tires and fuel required. Even the US only managed to field about 100 divisions with heavy motorization/mechanization.About 2 years ago Dr. Leo Niehorster sent me some of his source documents on the German Army in 1939.
I used them to work out the combined personnel, animal, vehicle and weapons strengths of the 90 infantry divisions that existed in September 1939.
The 86 non-motorised infantry divisions had a combined total of 437,369 horses of all types (riding, light draught and heavy draught).
The 4 motorised and 86 non-motorised infantry divisions had 132,313 motor vehicles of all types (personnel carriers, load carriers & prime movers, armoured vehicles, solo motorcycles and motorcycles with side cars).
Fully motorising the entire force of 90 divisions would have increased the establishment by 230,207 motor vehicles to 362,520 of all types.
I have a spreadsheet ready to post if Dr. Niehorster gives me permission to do so.
Not to mention all the mechanical parts, engines, etc that would have to be produced and in turn means finding more labour from somewhere.That is a lot more tires and fuel required. Even the US only managed to field about 100 divisions with heavy motorization/mechanization.
If Austria and Germany produced oil in the 1930s ITTL in the quantities that they did in the 1960s IOTL it makes greater motorisation of the German Army feasible because it provides the fuel required.That is a lot more tires and fuel required.
That's a yes an no thing.Even the US only managed to field about 100 divisions with heavy motorization/mechanization.
What I didn't put in Post 103 is that mechanising all the infantry divisions saves 40,000 men or 39.394 to be exact.Not to mention all the mechanical parts, engines, etc that would have to be produced and in turn means finding more labour from somewhere.
Also IIRC Germany made synthetic rubber from its synthetic oil IOTL. Can anyone confirm or deny that?
Studebaker by themselves made just under 200,000 2 1/2 ton 6X6 Trucks with most being Lend LeasedYes, they only sent about 100 fully motorised divisions overseas, but they also supplied large quantities of motor transport to their allies, which must have been dozens of divisions worth.
Here it is.About 2 years ago Dr. Leo Niehorster sent me some of his source documents on the German Army in 1939.
I used them to work out the combined personnel, animal, vehicle and weapons strengths of the 90 infantry divisions that existed in September 1939.
The 86 non-motorised infantry divisions had a combined total of 437,369 horses of all types (riding, light draught and heavy draught).
The 4 motorised and 86 non-motorised infantry divisions had 132,313 motor vehicles of all types (personnel carriers, load carriers & prime movers, armoured vehicles, solo motorcycles and motorcycles with side cars).
Fully motorising the entire force of 90 divisions would have increased the establishment by 230,207 motor vehicles to 362,520 of all types.
I have a spreadsheet ready to post if Dr. Niehorster gives me permission to do so.
The High Cost of Synthetics
Gasoline produced from coal by either the Bergius hydrogenation or the Fischer-Tropsch process costs from four to five times as much as gasoline obtained from natural petroleum. From 8 to 10 tons of brown coal, or 4 to 5 tons of bituminous coal, are needed to make a single ton of gasoline. Fifteen times as much steel is required for synthetic oil plants as for crude oil refineries, and the comparative amount of labor necessary is almost equally staggering.
The Germans continued, nevertheless, to extend their plans for synthetic production. The four-year plan gave way in July, 1938, to the Karin Hall plan, which placed more emphasis on preparations for war. Existing plants and refineries produced about 3,700,000 tons of oil products in 1938; the new plan called for production of 11,000,000 tons annually by the beginning of 1944, and estimated that this would take 4,500,000 tons of steel, or 0.62 ton of steel per additional ton of annual capacity. This estimate, moreover, probably did not cover steel needed to mine the coal from which the oil was to be produced.
Diversion of steel and labor to the production of tanks, submarines, and other materiel curtailed and delayed the oil program, but actual deliveries of steel for the oil projects, between 1 July 1937 and 1 April 1944, were about 4,380,000 tons. This amount of steel would have sufficed to build a battle fleet four times as big as the U. S. Navy was in January, 1940.
Dear @NOMISYRRUC , as always your soreadsheats are a - at least by me - much appreciated enrichment on this site.Here it is.
View attachment 443014
Although there were 4 "waves" of non-motorised infantry division there actually 16 different types of establishment because there were actually 10 types of 1st Wave division, 2 types of 2nd Wave division and 3 different types of 3rd Wave division.
I put the quote in because I wanted to show the amount of coal it took to produce a ton of synthetic oil.the amount of steel allocated to synthetic oil production is not product but raw resources involved in construction and the quality of steel involved is inferior to naval steel to say nothing of armored steel or worse still, naval gun tonnage.
The Lag in Construction
Germany's economy was strained increasingly by the demands for labor and steel to supply the war machine with liquid fuels. Men and material were needed simultaneously for many other projects. The oil industry's requirements, more over, were especially burdensome on the steel industry because alloy steels and special forgings constituted a substantial part of the tonnage needed. Making the large high-pressure vessels required for the hydrogenation plants was a job comparable to manufacturing naval guns. Steel deliveries began to lag as early as 1938 and were 130,000 tons short of allocations when the war began. Allocations from then on had to be cut drastically and frequently.
The oil industry, moreover, could not obtain enough construction workers to put in the steel actually delivered. It was allocated 275,000 tons of steel in the third quarter of 1941 and got 180,000 tons; its allocation for the next quarter was 290,000 tons and it received 170,000 tons. To make effective use of the steel that was delivered, the industry needed at least 90,000 of the 135,000 construction workers it had been promised for each quarter, but it actually had only 71,000 workers in the third quarter of 1941 and only 65,000 in the last quarter.
Even before Germany went to war, the expansion program was far behind schedule. Several plants (Wanne Eickel, Schwarzheide, Welheim, and the Scholven extension) were completed as planned in 1938, but others (including Luetzkendorf Fischer, Hoesch, and Essener Verein) missed the deadline by from three to six months.
By the next year, every project except the Gelsenberg plant and the iso-octane plant at Oppau had been delayed from one to nine months. The Luetzkendorf hydrogenation plant was thirteen months behind. Boehlen III and Zeitz I and II, scheduled for completion in December, 1939, and May, 1940, respectively, lagged from 11 to 16 months.
I put the quote in because I wanted to show the amount of coal it took to produce a ton of synthetic oil.
I also wanted to show that more steel is required for synthetic oil plants than crude oil refineries and that more labour was required to operate them too.
However, on the subject of the quality of steel required, this is another quote from the same document.