German and axis fuel?

[Civettone]

Can someone tell me what type of fuel the Argus As 10 and other light engines used? I don't understand why the Germans got 97 or 99% of their aviation fuel from the synthetic oil industry.

And does anyone know where the Italians (before 1943), Vichy French and Romania got their aviation fuel from?

Kris

[timshatz]

I think most of it came from Plostei in Rumania. One of the reasons Hitler was nervous when the Soviets took parts of Rumania in 1940. They were close to his only good source of oil.

[Morai_Milo]

Do a google search for Fischer-Tropsch.

[Civettone]

Let's make clear that the Germans did NOT get their aviation fuel from Rumania! 97% came from the chemical industry either by the FT method either by the hydrogenation method, the latter being the preferred one.

The reason why I'm asking this is because I find it surprising that the Germans didn't use raffined natural oil for the purpose as it must have been possible to get octane 87 (B4) fuel from this source. Now I can imagine that the natural Romanian or Russian bought oil wasn't that good or that it was more economical to keep that oil for motor fuel and motor oil and use the synthetics for aviation. But even then, I wonder if light training aircraft - hence the As 10 question - couldn't run on for instance octane 80 fuel?

Kris

[mad_max]

I don't think any WWII aircraft engine would run on 80 Octane fuel. Even the least powerful.

I've read all I've found about German Fuels/synthetic processes and understand about 1/2 what I read.

Seemed to me one of the 2 ways to produce synthetic fuels (aviation fuels)was better than the other.

I'll swear I read Germany itself basically had no large oil fields. Hence required either capturing
large oil fields and/or producing from coal which they had in abundance. They also through
these processes produced more than fuels. They produced many by products that were
used to make many other useable products.

DOE - Fossil Energy: auto created

The leaders of World War II, on both sides, knew that an army's lifeblood was petroleum. Ironically, before the War, experts had scoffed at Adolph Hitler's idea that he could conquer the world largely because Germany had almost no indigenous supplies of petroleum. Hitler, however, had begun assembling a large industrial complex to manufacture synthetic petroleum from Germany's abundant coal supplies.

FWIW and it maybe not worth much.

[Dolpho]

In the Manual of the Argus AS 10 C is writen, min Oktanrating is 80 Oktan. The Hirth HM 504 and the Siemens (BRAMO) Sh 14 also need only 80 Oktan. The Hirth HM 60 R needs only 74 Oktan ( CFR-Methode ) 8Manual 1937 / Baureihe 3 )

[Civettone]

Danke Dolpho, I really appreciate this!




Now all I need to do is find out where the other axis countries got their aviation fuel from.
Kris

[Micdrow]

Now all I need to do is find out where the other axis countries got their aviation fuel from.



Try here,

United States Navy - Europe

REPORTS OF THE U.S. NAVAL TECHNICAL MISSION TO JAPAN

Micdrow

[syscom3]

Thanks Micdrow.

Excellent find.

[Civettone]

My mistake: axis countries also include Japan!

In those documents I don't immediately see anything relating to the European allies of Germans (Hungary, Italy, Rumania) and Vichy-France.

But will take another look!
Thanks!

Kris

[Civettone]

No luck with those documents. That Navy mission to Europe is basically a report of their tour through Germany and German occupied territory, explaining procedures, internal hierarchy, and other boring stuff. It contains very little explanations about the things they found, it's almost anecdotical.
But thanks anyway, was cool to see original reports like that!


Dolpho, I'm probably stretching my luck here but you wouldn't happen to know the Oktan rating for the Bramo 323 and BMW 132, would you????



Kris

[Civettone]

Morai, perhaps you meant this? Microfilm Reel B-1870

That turns out to be an excellent site which huuuuuuuuuuuuuge documents! Very interesting (although also time consuming )

At JPs Panzers I found this information (by PaK88 - thanks Robert)
At the beginnign of 1944, of the 2,050,000 metric tons of aviation fuel available in Germany, 1,900,000 metric tons was produced by the Bergius process of hydrogenation (mostly from the big plants at Leuna, Gelsenberg, and Politz); 50,000 tons were made from benzole; 100,000 metric tons came from Hungary and Rumania.

To get an appreciation for just how important synfuel was to Germany here are the stats for several other products:

Diesel oil: 2,075,000 metric tonnes available at the start of 1944......680,000 tonnes from hydrogenation; 670,000 tonnes from refining German & Austrain oil; 480,000 tonnes imported from Hungary & Rumania; 135,000 tonnes from the Fischer-Tropsch process; and 110,000 tonnes from coal-tar distillation.

Motor gas (for vehicles): 1,745,000 tonnes available at the start of 1944......600,000 tonnes from Hungary & Rumania; 350,000 tonnes from hydrogenation; 330,000 tonnes from benzole; 270,000 tonnes from the Fischer-Tropsch process; 160,000 tonnes from German & Austrian crude; and 35,000 tonnes from coal-tar distillation.

and

REFINING CAPACITIES (Nov 1943) (in thousands of metric tonnes)

Germany----------------------2505
Czechoslovakia----------------700
Austria--------------------------800
Hungary------------------------400
Italy---------------------------2100
Yugoslavia---------------------180
Rumania----------------------9280
Poland--------------------------800
Estonia-------------------------100
France-------------------------7915
Low Countries---------------1335

So that clearly shows that the 3% imported aviation fuel came from Rumania and Hungaria. Then the question still remains: is this hi-octane fuel or low-octane fuel?? If it's hi-octane, then it would mean that the Hungarian and Rumanian oil was also suited for aviation fuel for the German fighters. And then it would also mean that these countries provided for their own hi-octane avgas.

I suppose that last question would answer it all: did the Romanian and Hungarian combat aircraft (bombers, fighters) run on their own fuel or on imported German fuel???? That's the question!

Kris

[Dolpho]

Sorry i saw your question about the fuel for BMW und Bramo radials today. The manual about the the BMW A,T,Z says 87 OZ 8 (carburatordiameter 70 mm x 2), E-2 80 OZ (diameter 56mm x 2 ). The BMW 132 F,Y,K,M,N need 87 OZ, they have all direkt fuel injection. Into the zylinder, not in front of the inlet-valve like on modern engines.