Fuel

[A Canadian Cat]

9 hours ago, sburke said:

the look on his face was priceless as he realized he'd never asked.  To his credit he let it go at that.  He never offered his car again.

Oh man that is hilarious.  Note to self: always ask my son where he is going when he borrows the car.  On the other hand he is actually pretty good about filling up the tank himself.

[Placebo]

Just reading "tank warfare on the eastern front 41-42" and the soviets and germans had major fuel shortages early on. 

It was interesting to note that they would not even consider moving or going into battle before a reserve fuel supply was made available.  Which makes me think a tank would never be commited to battle when it was so low on fuel, and if on the defence it would always have plenty of fuel for the battle but would maybe be scuttled by the crew during a retreat if it run out of gas.

[Anthony P.]

Yeah, that's how loads of German tanks were lost, no more gas during a retreat, so pack it with dynamite and hitch a ride on a tank that still had gas left. With e.g. Tigers and Panthers being additionally plagued by considerable risks of breaking down long before they had to worry about fuel consumption, when subjected to the long, hurried road marches of a retreat.

[John Kettler]

The father of my oldest friend served in Patton's Army as a medic. He said things went very well after the breakout as far as casualties, but once the lack of fuel stopped the advance, casualties soared. He was quite bitter about it even in the early 1970s.

Anthony P.,

Decades ago when I played MicroArmour™ on a sand table, I conceived of a truly diabolical scenario in which a small but potent German defending force (weak Panther platoon and a weak 234/1 AC platoon) covering a key objective had to deal with an American armored spearhead. The catch? The Americans were under tight time constraints, while the Germans were severely limited  in both fuel and ammo. I let the German player determine how to divvy up the meager resources in a series of agonizing decisions. One tank with a fair amount of movement and a decent ammo load or several barely able to move and with a handful of rounds per tank? Through genius in game balance, complete luck, both or other factors, the game went right down to the wire, ending in a last minute German victory caused by an unexpectedly lethal 20 mm AC downhill hit on a Sherman's turret top after all the Panthers went up in flames!

Regards,

John Kettler

[IronCat60]

Ah, resupply. The Achilles heel of every army.

In Desert Storm the M1 tankers got to fuel up first then the Bradley's and last the wheeled vehicles. Used to piss me off that the Army had accepted such a fuel hungry beast as the M1 tank. Sure we had more fuel left over from the last refuel but you never knew if they were going to push you farther than planned and knowing the refuel tankers were already pushing their limits didn't help either. I know that the tankers would be mighty nervous if the Bradley's ran out of fuel and the infantry, "portable tank safety system", was not there to screen the enemy defensive lines.

I am looking forward to the Army's proposal to refit the M1 which includes a new more efficient power plant. Yes the lessons of A-stan and Iraq are finally sinking in. Fuel Convoys are vulnerable targets.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

21 hours ago, mech.gato said:

Ah, resupply. The Achilles heel of every army.

In Desert Storm the M1 tankers got to fuel up first then the Bradley's and last the wheeled vehicles. Used to piss me off that the Army had accepted such a fuel hungry beast as the M1 tank. Sure we had more fuel left over from the last refuel but you never knew if they were going to push you farther than planned and knowing the refuel tankers were already pushing their limits didn't help either. I know that the tankers would be mighty nervous if the Bradley's ran out of fuel and the infantry, "portable tank safety system", was not there to screen the enemy defensive lines.

I am looking forward to the Army's proposal to refit the M1 which includes a new more efficient power plant. Yes the lessons of A-stan and Iraq are finally sinking in. Fuel Convoys are vulnerable targets.

SILENCE YOUR HERETICAL INFANTRY WORD MAKING.

Oh uh, yeah okay.

Things are a little different now.  The way they task organize fueler operations means there's more push than pull, like conceptually we as a company team had our own fueler element (plus like a .5 UBL, and whatever class IX the mechanics had for sustainment) that would follow with the company trains, in addition to whatever ROMs or other logistics hookups occurred along the way.  Conceptually they'd cycle out with whatever logistics push came our way, which the turnaround would depend on op tempo and other such wonderfulness.

The only occasion I'd heard of fueling being a major issue was when one of my NCOs was recounting being assigned to one of the 82nd's BCTs while deployed, and showing up to discover the "all the fuel you guys need" turned out to be like 3-5 jerry cans of gas per tank.  Things got sorted out pretty quick, but light dudes are still the worst for not understanding sustainment (of course, on the other end it's always funny hearing armor work with infantry, as armor is always confused why it's taking so long for dismounted infantry to go up a mountainside/travel five miles).  

On topic:

Fueling as a tanker is right above personal hygiene and a little below coffee.  Are you at 85% fuel?  Doesn't matter get gas.  Parking the tank for the weekend?  Better fuel her up, just in case.  Only turned the motor over and adjusted the parking a bit?  Go get fuel noob.  This sort of practice is because as Mech Gato pointed out, you might not know when the next fuel is showing up all the time, and it's better to be taking a tactical pause for the fuelers to show up with enough in the tank to still fight an engagement and then some, instead of grinding to a halt because you're at 10% fuel.  

Not many military forces would commit a tank with virtually exhausted fuel supplies to a fight, and even then odds are they might choose to take all the gas from the company to fuel one platoon of tanks, as a few fully mission capable tanks are better than quite a few more that are going to become pillboxes more or less at random.  A big part of what lets a tank fight and survive on the battlefield is mobility, and committing armor without the ability to be mobile is criminal.  

In an operational game fuel exhaustion certainly has a place, but the outcome would be as in history less tanks shuddering to a halt mid-fight, and more tanks being abandoned as the unit on a whole bugs out, or in more positive settings is simply unable to conduct any operations until resupplied.  

[womble]

19 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

SILENCE YOUR HERETICAL INFANTRY WORD MAKING.

 

ROFL. LMAO.

[kevinkin]

Only the 40 year old virgin never ran out of gas 

[Ales Dvorak]

Pfffft... fuel grogs...

[Michael Emrys]

14 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Only the 40 year old virgin never ran out of gas 

That's because he always started his day with a big plate of beans.

Michael

[user1000]

On 7/4/2016 at 0:38 AM, Raptorx7 said:

Modding fuel in would be pretty much impossible.

no it wouldn't..

[AttorneyAtWar]

1 minute ago, user1000 said:

no it wouldn't..

Would you like to tell the class how you can mod CM's code to include fuel?

[womble]

"Modding" (as BFC understands it) in a fuel constraint would, indeed, be impossible.

Modding (as other outfits understand it) it in would also be impossible, because the handles and hooks simply aren't there to do it.

Hacking the code to put one in would be less impossible. Anything can be hacked. If you manage it, and your install isn't utterly farked, please don't tell anyone here how you did it, just get in touch with BFC to find out how to submit your audition to be Programmer # 3 on the staff.

[MikeyD]

I wonder how often individuals 'ran out of gas' (just stopping in a field like in the film 'Patton') during an action as opposed to entire units unable to go forward due to the non-arrival of their gas supplies. Less a tactical mistake than a logistical problem. I mean from the US side. German running themselves out of gas at war's end is another topic entirely. Which reminds me of the demo scenario    ....*spoiler alert*....    Something - I won't say what - is just sitting there by the roadside. Ran itself out of fuel?

Edited July 9, 2016 by MikeyD

[Sgt Joch]

As far as I can see units that were low of fuel just did not go into combat. SOP in German units, if they were low of fuel, seems to have been to make sure some sub-unit was fully fueled to continue the advance while the main body waited. The easiest way to simulate fuel shortages in CM is to limit the number of vehicles that actually show up.

Re-reading on the Battle in Cole, despite an increasingly difficult situation, the Germans had more than enough fuel. On Dec. 16, OB West had reserves of 4,680,000  gallons, although most was in dumps close to the Rhine. Each armored division had enough fuel to power all its vehicles an estimated 90-100 miles, although the rough terrain/bad weather cut that to 45-50 miles in reality. Estimated fuel consumption for the Ardennes force was 260,000 gallons per day. although it reached a high of 500,000 gallons (2,000 cubic meters) on Dec. 18. The Germans also captured fuel on the way, Peiper alone captured 100,000 gallons.

The problem was not an absolute lack of fuel, but getting it to the forward units over the poor road net in bad weather and after the weather cleared up, Allied Tac Air made daylight travel very hazardous.

To compare, U.S. Army figures on Dec. 16 were: Third Army 14,351 tons (3,922,174 gallons), First Army 14,220 tons (3,896,280 gallons), Ninth Army 15,574 tons (4,239, 876 gallons). This includes amounts held by the units as well as in reserve. However, U.S. units used a lot more fuel and this amount was only enough for about 8-12 days of combat operations, i.e. Third Army: 8.8 days, First Army: 7 days, Ninth Army: 12.8 days. In the rear as Army reserves was also an additional amount of 46, 391 tons (12,711,134 gallons) and another amount of 68,771 tons (18,842,254 gallons) as Theater reserves for a grand total of 43,611,718 gallons.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Sgt Joch

[kevinkin]

I don't think I ever saw an account of how fuel for ground combat was distributed from the point of production to the vehicle. What is called the supply chain today. I bet the US Army green books have something. But what about the east front? You would think the location of distribution centers were very important. Or perhaps the system was decentralized to avoid being obvious targets.  Here is a quick search that has a few interesting pictures:

 http://www.wood.army.mil/engrmag/PDFs for Oct-Dec 07/Petty.pdf

[Sgt Joch]

In the west front, fueling in the field was done with 5 gallon "Jerrycans". The Germans invented it, the British and American copied it. Trucks would deliver the cans to the combat units. The three armies used the same method in 44-45, although the Germans also used horse drawn wagons for delivery. 

In terms of the fuel delivery system, in France, tankers would ship the gas to ports. It would then be shipped by pipeline/train cars and/or tanker trucks to U.S. Army depots. In December 44, the main ones were at Liège for First Army and Verdun for Third Army. The gasoline would be stored in fuel storage tanks. The Jerrycans would be filled at the depots and delivered to the combat units.

more info here at pp. 193-209:

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/007/7-3-1/index.html

No idea on what the Russians were doing, but I presume it was the same.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Sgt Joch

[Placebo]

On 11/07/2016 at 6:23 PM, Sgt Joch said:

 The easiest way to simulate fuel shortages in CM is to limit the number of vehicles that actually show up.

 

A bit off topic but that is one game mechanic i miss from CM1, on the setup screen you set a level of force attrition eg, 30% and when you when to the map only 70% of your force sellection would be available (by points spent not headcount). 

I though this was a really nice variable in the game, so in effect if your Tiger was missing from the battlefield it had been straffed or ran out of fuel on the way.

[Anthony P.]

Doesn't sound any different from the manpower drop down menu?

[Placebo]

6 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

Doesn't sound any different from the manpower drop down menu?

What is that?

[Anthony P.]

One of the factors you can set for a unit. IIRC it goes from Full all the way down to 50%.

[Michael Emrys]

3 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

One of the factors you can set for a unit. IIRC it goes from Full all the way down to 50%.

That is in the Scenario Editor. It isn't available in the QB purchase screen.

Michael

[kevinkin]

Thanks Joch, that saved me some time. Interesting bit of history. I wonder how well those storage tanks and pipe line were protecting from an enemy raiding strategy? Very juicy. Looked like potential targets for V1 V2 strikes if they could be located by "spys". I read in the past that around 50% of all US tonnage shipped by water was either gasoline or oil. Looking for the reference. 

Maybe on the east front as part of a campaign (huge) fuel reserves might be cool to model. Otherwise probably not. 

Kevin

 

Edited July 13, 2016 by kevinkin

[Sgt Joch]

Actually the Germans did try to disrupt fuel flow by air attacks, discussed on pp. 208-209 of the book I linked previously and pp. 667-668 of Cole's book on the Ardennes, i.e.air attacks on the pipeline terminal at Coubert, Third Army fuel decanting point at Mancieulles, V-1 attack on the fuel reserve depot in Liège. 900,000 gallons were  lost to fires started by German air attacks on two succesive nights, 400,000 gallons were lost as a result of the V-1 attacks on the Liège depot on Dec. 17 (note: not clear if that is separate or should be included in the 900,000?).

Apparently, Peiper's supply officer had a map of all U.S. POL installations, although it is not mentioned if the Germans had this info before the offensive or if it was captured by Peiper during the offensive.

There is a wealth of useful info in the U.S. official histories. I am still digging my way through them.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Sgt Joch

[Sublime]

On 7/4/2016 at 2:34 AM, Front_Mg42 said:

Hello guys,

I like the new game close combat final blitzkrieg and I play the demo at the moment (I would like biz in a couple of days  )

A lot of ideas works very well and the realism is very great. But this game has a big disappointed, where is the fuel?

I drive with the tank squad and I see a lot of stats but the fuel is missing.

You guys implementation the fuel in future or we can mod it?

 

Thank you

 

 

Its COMBAT MISSION final blitzkrieg. Not to nitpick CC is just an entirely diff line of games.