Inaccurate performance data for BOB fighters in COD comparing to RL data

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by NZtyphoon

Time to answer this directly: I have read the relevant sections in "Australia in the War of 1939-45: Civil: War Economy 1939-42 by S J Butlin. (Petrol and Substitute Fuels 280-292)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...condition=used

Let me translate what it actually.

NZTyphoon found the Second World War Official Histories, legally and freely available to anyone at the Australian Goverment's website at http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/second_world_war/

Instead of giving the link where everyone could check what the source said, he magnamiously shared an amazon link, where people can buy, what he could read for free. Of course nobody will buy the books, so he can 'quote' them in any way he see it to his liking. At wikipedia he often resorted to this, 'backing' his own ideas that he wanted to be included to the enrichment of the wider public with references to the works of respected authors, even though those authors never said anything like it.

Let's see now some examples.

1) There was no "Australian Military Commission" or any such organisation in Britain during WW 2.

Says NZTyphoon - the 'ustralia in the War ' official histories of course make no such statement. But, as we are all aware, NZTyphoon have told us recently with equivalent certainty that British tanker losses were marginal, then it was shown that they've lost 600 000 GRT worth of tankers in the year under question according to the records.

2a) The Australian Government dealt directly with the oil companies when requesting stock of fuels of all types, including aviation fuels. "After the outbreak of war stocks continued to come from the oil companies and to be imported and distributed through their organisation...there were special features in the requirements of the forces: fuel oil for the navy; petrol for the army; and the special high grade aviation fuel for the air force. (p. 285): "Liaison with the oil companies had been maintained from before the war..."(p. 286):

Only the bottomline is missing from the quote - see below. Yes Australia contact various oil companies for supply. For various reasonons detailed below, the companies could not get the oil to Australia.

b) Lord Beaverbrook and the Ministry of Aircraft Production had nothing whatsoever with deciding what types of fuels were supplied to Australia, nor how much. The Australian War Cabinet made decisions on aviation fuel supply and storage

This is a classic strawmen arguement. Strawmen arguements are about deliberately misrepresenting the other's actual position, and then 'disproving' that distorted position, and therefore 'winning' the argument.

In reality however, nobody said or claimed that it was Lord Beaverbrook and/or the Ministry of Aircraft Production were deciding what types of fuels were supplied to Australia, nor how much.

The context in what Beaverbrook's name came up was that Pips found a paper, that says that British were worried about 100 octane fuel position for the future, and decided to halt further 100 octane conversions until the supplies could be secured.

The paper wan copied by the Australian Military Commission in England in February 1941, [b]by[b] Roll Royce [b]to[b] Lord Beaverbrook outlining past, current and proposed changes to the Merlin; and factors that affect it's performance, included as an addendum in a report titled Fuel Supplies to The British Empire And It's Commonwealth; Outlook, Ramifications and Projections For The Prosecution Of The War.

As you can see, Beaverbrooks name came up in a different context, and nobody said Beaverbook decided in the question.

"In August 1940 the War Cabinet was asked for a decision on aviation spirit stocks....The suggestion therefore was that the Department of Supply should purchase 3,000,000 gallons and that three 1,200,000-gallon storage tanks be built. The Cabinet approved the purchase...(p. 287)

And this is classic selective quoting. NZTyphoon wishes to create the impression that Australia was fully autonomous in fuel suppy, that they had no contract whatsoever with the British in that regard etc. He wants people to believe that the background of the papers has been fabricated, the Australian goverment was in such an excellent position with regard of fuel, that discussions with the British about fuel supplies is a surreal idea.

This has been not the case, however. The bits on pages 288-289 tell a whole lot more of the story, which is I believe why NZTyphoon was careful not to share his source in the first place. You can't cherry pick qoutes if anyone can find it out in a minute, now can you?

Pages 288-289 in full:

In August 1940 the War Cabinet was asked for a decision on aviation
spirit stocks . Before the war the plan had been for a reserve of 6,400,00 0
gallons (that is, the requirements of nineteen squadrons) and although
this had not been achieved (approximately 5,500,000 was the holding )
it did not matter so much because a force of nineteen squadrons had no t
been achieved either. When the Empire Air Training Scheme requirement s
could be calculated the companies had agreed to increase their holding s
progressively, but now plans were afoot to expand the force to thirty-tw o
squadrons, the present contract was to expire on 31st December, and i t
was "not considered reasonable that the present contractors should b e
requested to further increase their stocks without some assurance of continuance
of business for a reasonable period " . 2 The suggestion therefor e
was that the Department of Supply should purchase 3,000,000 gallon s
and that three 1,200,000-gallon storage tanks should be built .

The Cabinet approved the purchase and sent the storage problem to the Commonwealth
Oil Board. The board recommended six 200,000-gallon tanks—two each
in three centres, to be approved by the Air Staff . But by March 1941
the three centres were revised to twelve and the total capacity was no w
4,030,000 gallons .

There might be grounds for satisfaction with these attempts to provide
extra storage tanks ; there could be none over the provision of the petrol
they were intended to hold . After the reduction of the ration which came
into force on 1st April 1941, the Supply Minister in the middle of that
month placed before the full Cabinet comparative sales figures for six
months. 3 "The effect of rationing and of all other inducements to reduced
consumption," he submitted, "may therefore be estimated at a figur e
of 16 per cent (that is, consumption has been reduced by 16 per cent) . "
Diversion of tankers to meet the special needs of the United Kingdom, side
by side with the persistently high sales, had reduced stocks to 82,000,00 0
gallons, "with no immediate prospects of restoring stocks even to thei r
former level" .

[b]By the beginning of May he reported "the prospective stock position
has deteriorated so much and the prospects of tankers are so uncertain
that I feel bound to report the matter to Cabinet ". He complained about
inability to get information from the United Kingdom authorities despite
attempts by the Prime Minister and another visiting parliamentarian. The
Government had protested about "our insecurity" with reference to tankers
and had been promised a tanker programme which, if maintained, woul d
bring stocks at the end of June to about 65,000,000 gallons . 4

Meantime on 2nd May the minister sought and received permission to
reduce use of private cars and cycles to 2,000 miles a year and to make
varying percentage reductions in other classes to fulfil the one-third cu t
"recommended by the original rationing board about twelve months ago" .


BTW, did anyone notice that despite I and others have asked him many times to post the alleged text in its full context from Payton - Smith, he always evades that request?

3) What did need to be co-ordinated with the British was the shipment, allocation of tankers etc. "Diversion of tankers to meet the special needs of the United Kingdom...(p. 28

Again, the quoting is selective and out of context; reading the full text reveals that aviation fuel reserves could not be met, despite previous contacting with various companies. The reasons were two-fold: the British were buying up much what was available in the (American) market, which had finite amounts of 100 octane to offer. Indeed this is a returning subject in all British papers, can sufficient amount of American supply secured?

Secondly, Australia had no sea-going tanker capacity worth to mention - all oil had to be imported in British-owned tankers.

In short, the context of the Australian Military Commission's mission to Britain about getting 100 octane was that the Australians tried to build up large reserves, constructed tanks to hold it, but they couldn't buy enough on the market, and couldn't transfer it to Australia, because - despite NZTyphoons's claims that the British had no tanker capacity problems whatsoever, everything was green and nice - the Brits who controlled the whole Commonwealth tanker capacity suddenly decided to use the whole to their own purposes.

This left the Australians in an unenviable position, their reserves were dropping, and had to introduce severe rationing of fuel to the civilian sector to ensure sufficient reserves for the military.

The Page 288:

The army's figures were repeated in a submission by the Minister fo r
Supply to the full Cabinet on 11th June 1941, in which he reported tha t
the new ration scale to bring consumption to a figure of 20,000,000 gallon s
a month was now in force . But news of future tankers was poor. In an
endeavour to bring aviation spirit reserves up, only 7,000,000 gallons o f
motor spirit would come in in June ; quantities for July were uncertain .
The minister recounted at length the sorry story of the delay in rationing
and that "it resulted in only half the saving in consumption that had been
forecast by the motor trade whose advice had been accepted by the
Government in August". He reiterated the statement that no warning was
given by the United Kingdom of any alteration in the tanker position an d
only early in 1941 was it known that diversions, thought to be temporary ,
would become pronounced.

He concluded :
It is open to question whether severe rationing of the order I am now bound t o
suggest should be conducted by the civil authorities on their own account or unde r
the authority of the army . The army in association with my Controller of Liqui d
Fuels has evolved a mobilisation petrol scheme which would be operated by my
department. I gather that the army would prefer the rationing to be conducte d
entirely under the authority of my department .
In view of the opinion expressed by the Oil Board, strongly supported as it is
by the Department of the Army, I have no option but to recommend that I be
authorised to reduce the monthly consumption of motor spirit for civil purposes
to a level of 12,000,000 per month as soon as that may be practicable . If necessary
the use of private cars other than for business purposes could be stopped as from
the beginning of next month and certain other classes could be reduced at the sam e
time . The full scheme could not be introduced, unless the Army Mobilisation System
were brought in, until August . ?

Such proposals were drastic ; but the Cabinet deferred only long enough
to ask the Minister for Supply to present two schedules, one with, an d
one without, private cars (that is, class 2 in the rationing schedule) ,
designed to bring consumption to the required 12,000,000 gallons . 8 The
decision was to keep private cars on the road, but to allow them 1,00 0
miles a year only . The following evening, 17th June, the Prime Ministe r
announced the reductions which would begin with the August issue o f
ration tickets .

The shoe was beginning to pinch . If further restrictions were needed—
and no one could say that they would not be—some thought would have
to be given to other ways of economising : rationalising delivery services ,
zoning, transport pools . In effect, for the future, the petrol problem was
not just one of simple restriction. Like so many other problems it could
no longer be dealt with in isolation, and indicative of the Government ' s
realisation of the need to relate problems one with another, the Prime
Minister included in his reorganised....

The book should be available through libraries, second hand bookshops etc so anyone can check.

Or at the Australian Goverments website, where you have found it yourself while researching the Australian online archives, should you bothered to give a link to it.

http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/second_world_war/

The pages I have provided the full quote can be found here: http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/rec...l-vol3-ch8.pdf

[Kurfürst]

@Glider about post 401.

I am afraid I cannot answer you in detail now due to the lack of time and won't be in the position to do so in the next two weeks.

On the other hand, I do not see any appearance new evidence or even argument in your post, as it only repeats the ones you have been telling us in the last 40 pages of discussion, and probably no undue haste should be spent in addressing these points again.

FYI I have looked over about 1500 pages of 'War Cabinet' and related files at Kew.
I could not find any decision about the alleged full conversion of Fighter Command to 100 octane in the War Cabinet Minutes.

Which tells me that the reason you can't find any reference to 100 octane 'conversion freeze' in the War Cabinet Minutes either is because it was discussed and decided at lower levels, in one of the apprx. 200 War Cabinet commitees - which still are the part of the War Cabinet.

For the number of Committees, please refer to the relevant page of the National Archives website which provides general information about the War Cabinet on the apropos providing 'open access' to the public via digital copies.

[Talisman]

Originally Posted by Bounder!

Simply put, as I understand it from reading the various threads on this forum plus the threads on ww2aircraft.net linked by Klem on page 9 of the Spit MK I/II thread, RAF fighter command's Spitfires and Hurricanes flew combat sorties using 100 Octane fuel during the Battle of Britain - there is ample and overwhelming evidence for this backed up by references linked; there has been no evidence provided backed up by a reference for the use of 87 Octane fuel by Spitfires or Hurricanes during BoB. So simply put, in a combat flight sim of BoB, Spitfire and Hurricanes should be modeled using 100 Octane fuel.

Well said Bounder. Is there anyone out there that would disagree with Bounder?

Bounder, I respectfully suggest that you could be accused of applying intelligent, reasonable logic; however, such thinking is not acceptable to a 100 Octane denier.

The burden of proof in a UK criminal court is “beyond all reasonable doubt”. Given the evidence, I believe that RAF Fighter Command would be found guilty of premeditated and wide spread use of 100 Octane fuel by a jury of 12 good citizens of sound mind. LOL. Moreover, in a civil court, with the burden of proof being “on the balance of probability” the RAF would have been locked up long ago!

Happy landings,

Talisman

[Blackdog_kt]

I can understand a passionate discussion guys, but keep the emotions in check if it starts to get too personal.

I've had reported posts about namecalling and personal attacks in this thread, so i urge everyone to go back 3-4 pages and see if they have any in their posts and then edit them out before the moderating team has to step in and issue infractions.

On the matter at hand, the best way to solve this debate is to model both versions. It's not like they are useless to have: in a dynamic campaign (either offline or online) there will be cases where 100 octane supplies will be low due to enemy action.

For people that want an exact day-to-day recreation of BoB then yes, the most widespread version is the only one they will need.

However, there's a large amount of users who are interested in a dynamic campaign. That definitely needs both versions, because otherwise there's no real incentive to go after the opponent's fuel supply, essentially cutting off a pretty vital part of strategic bombing objectives and throwing it out of the picture.

Better yet, each one can use what they want offline or fly on the servers that use what they prefer when going online, instead of trying to convince each other in the hopes their favorite ride will be better.

I really don't get why we should restrict everyone to a single way of doing things, especially when both fuel types actually existed in the first place.

Like i said, many people want things in the sim to be exactly like they were in the 40s. Many however want the conditions to be the same, but they also want the ability to change the outcomes somewhat. Bomb the enemy's supplies of 100 octane to make their fighters intercept you with more difficulty, so you can then move on to bombing other targets with reduced casualties and so on. It's a whole extra layer of interesting tactical considerations that would be a must for any dynamic mission environment.

Having only 87 oct or 100 oct is not conducive to that. So why should these players be limited in their enjoyment of the product when the first group has nothing to lose by the inclusion of both versions (they can simply choose which version to fly)?

[Kurfürst]

Pretty much agree on all your points.

Anyway I've always said that both 87 and 100 octane versions would be nice to be implented in the sim. As you noted, having two versions is better for all. It allows for dynamic campaigns, it does not restrict the hands of mission designers or server hosts to decide what versions of planes they want to have in. It allows OPTIONs.

The only loosers are the small group who wants to set their version of history to all in stone, and having only the bestest planes to fly for one side. And its a miniscule group compared to the entire group.

[41Sqn_Banks]

Petrol rationing in Australia during the Second World War

[TomcatViP]

Well at least, what we hve shown lately with our research in th Au archives is that :

- there was 100 oct fuel ordered and delivered
- This fuel was used ONLY to be blended with old stock of 74 octane fuel to create adequate 87, 90 or 95 octane fuel
- The stoichiometry of the blend is defined in the archive
- To be blended adequately, some specified additives where requested and delivered by the oil companies
- There was no plane in Australian air force that needed a single drop of pure 100 octane fuel as of feb 1941

What we also learned is that the cost of 100oct fuel was stated after some negotiations at 18 cents a gallon

my 1/9th gallon (of 100octane of course)

[Osprey]

@Kurfurst. I believe you could learn from the "Russells Teapot" argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

I'm not interested in the flaky Australian argument anymore since it appears far too unconvincing and more importantly, irrelevant. It matters not even if, as you suggest, that the UK wouldn't give the Australians any 100 octane because they were short. That is not evidence that the RAF didn't have enough to use themselves.

We can use simple logic to decide the truth here. I ask you, do you deny any of these 4 points listed?

1. That the RAF used fuel.
2. Every flight recorded a combat report (provided the pilot returned).
3. That the fuel type or boost to indicate the type was frequently mentioned in combat reports throughout the BoB.
4. That 87 is never ever mentioned and 100 was in every case.

Therefore the entire RAF MUST have used 100 in in combat and no other type. It really is that straightforward. What I do not find straightforward are your reasons for objection. Please, what are they?

[NZtyphoon]

From KF in another post: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...rst#post378110

Now, despite being perfectly aware that he needs to contact this Australian guy, Glider kept b!tching to me about producing the paper, of which I have only seen a summary on a board. I kept telling him to contact Pips and ask him.

"...I have only seen a summary on a board..." Kf has not actually seen the original, but it is guaranteed to be 100 percent accurate.

'Nuff said.

[Kurfürst]

Credibility can add tons to the weight of a man's words.

I have no reason not to trust Pips account. He had no take or special interest in the matter, just shared his research's result.

On a different note, may I ask why you keep changing your login handles?