NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 93, 16 October 1940, Page 10

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

OIL AND CONFLICT

THE WORLD SUPPLY

iWHAT AIRCRAFT USE

An article in the English aviation journal "Flight" answers, with the reservations that must be made where so much is hidden under war consorship, questions that everyone is asking: How much "oil have Germany and Italy? How long can they last? How much oil do aircraft burn? It is in answering the last question that'the writer makes his most striking point: it is that even when heavy raids are made the quantity of. oil used in the air is after all only a small fraction of the oil used every day in land haulage, for though 400 planes may make the attack, hundreds of thousands of motor vehicles travel the roads. Nevertheless, Germany, Italy, and Japan are hard put to find oil for war and essential civil uses—they are fighting their wars on other nations' oil. "Oil" is used in the sense of petroleum products, i.e., aviation fuels, motor spirits, fuel oils, lubricating oils and crude oil, whether from wells or from hydrogenation plants. Production Before the War. Where is the oil of the world produced? Before the war production figures were of the order of magnitude of the following table:— i (Millions of tons per year of petroleum products) Production Consumption VRJi , 162.0 138.0 3&xico ......." 5.5 South America 37.0 Iran and Irak 14.5 Bumania 6.5 i.» KS? .•.:••.:•/.::::: f|? ™ Dutch East Indies .. 7.5 X Islef.^.:::r::: Xt B Branca .. • •*• ••••••• „ _q Germany ....»»»• ™\ Jj SSL •::::::;::::... 0.2 3.9 All the figures have some doubt about them, but they still give a background for the wartime oil picture. U S production and consumption tower above all others. Russia and South America are also important, as is the Iran and Irak total. Rumania produced much and consumed about a quarter of it, leaving 4 6 million tons available for export. Germany for her peacetime needs had to import about 6 million tons, so Rumania would be unable to supply such needs alone. The German figure of 2 million tons is made up of 0.5 natural oil and 1.5 petrol from coal, but the figures on this latter quantity are admittedly vague. The capitulation of France has improved the German oil situation by giving her coal for the hydrogenation Plants. Such coal has to be transported there, and the R.A.F. may be able to seriously hamper that. Heavy Raiding1. Germany's peactime consumption of 7 9 million tons per year is equivalent to 21,600 tons per day. What is wartime consumption? the article continues. That difficult question cannot he answered with one figure, for this tfar is not steady. Lull periods are interspersed with periods of intense activity. Consider only the petrol used by aircraft on a day- of raiding when a total of something like 400 enemy aero-. planes appear round our coasts. Broad J generalisations must be made to arrive j at a rough figure of total consumption. | About half would be single-engined j ar-d half twin-engined, and each; engine would be betweerj 1000 and 1200 horse-power. On the trip across petrol would be conserved by flying slowly, probably not more than half-power. During the inevitable battle, full'power would be used frequently, so that one might generalise at 75 per cent, power. This gives 55 and 110 gallons per, hour for the two types. Allowing three hours irj the air during the day, this gives 100,000 gallons used for 400 aircraft on the raid. This weighs 360 tons, a very small fraction of the 21 600 tons of petroleum products used per day in peacetime. Of course, much more flying must go on in addition to that required for the raiding. There must be training, reconnaissance, cornmurication, and transport flying all going constantly. And the civil consumption of petroleum must also continue, although no doubt on a reduced scale. Blitzkrieg Figures. If an air attack as a prelude to an invasion attempt were to be made on Britain the corjsumption would be of a totally different order. Not 400 aeroplanes, but probably 4000, would be in use. This estimate envisages something like 3000 raiders in the air at once, with 1000 on enemy territory doing "behind the lines" work carrying up ammunition, fuel, ar.d personnel to the advanced aerodromes from which the take-off would be made and to which aircraft would return for refuelling and re-arming. The time in the air would be longer than three hours and might easily be five hours per day. The consumption per day therj becomes 6000 tons. When it is remembered that all this is highoctane fuel (87 and 100), the daily consumption becomes impressive and undoubtedly could not be kept up for very long. How long Germany may be able to carry on, the writer believes, will depend upon the amount stored before the war, the rate of output from coal, and stored petrol obtained by the conquests of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France, countered by the destruction wrought by the Royal Air Force in bombing. And, as a final reservation, he adds, none of these is known. A Note on Italian Lying. As a footnote to the Admiralty's calm deflation of the Italian claims about the work of their destroyers in the Mediterranean an American Associated Press dispatch is interesting. This was written by Larry Allen, the A.P. correspondent with the British Fleet in the Mediterranean on September 5, the day after the Navy attacked the Italian island stronghold of Scarpanto in the Dodecanese Islands. Mr. Allen was the first American correspondent permitted on board one of the British destroyer leaders and from the bridge of his ship (which the Italians claimed to have sunk, he said) he watched the terrific bombardment of the island. The action began, he wrote, after the Fleet had been "on the go for a whole week, seeking battle with the Italian fleet without success," and following "one of the mightiest diiplays of British fighting power plainly withint sight of the Italian coast." Italians Not Drawn. However, Mussolini's ships were not to be drawn into combat, and on September 4. after the-Fleet Air Arm bombed Bhode^ the sliitts j&He&jßea&J