The case against Rubber

[Possum]

Hi Math Guy.
I should have been more specific. Tugsten is used in an alloy that is used for making the rolling mills for armour plate, and other high temperatiure steel extrusion processes. Not directly as a component in armour. Altough IIRC, some grades of steel alloy do have small amounts of Tungsten in them. (Notably "High Speed" Steel found in drill bits, etc..)
Oh and I made another mistake. On doing some reading to check if I rememberd my tungsten details correctly, I found that the biggest commercial use of Molybdeum is in the synthesis of Acrylonitrile plasics, So Molybdenum should count as a rubber resource, not a Steel resource.
(I was originally recalling only the use of Molybdenum Sulphide in steel casting, it is uses as a lubricant coating to the casting mold to prevent the cast steel from sticking to the mold while cooling, Its effect in making steel production easier, is if you have it, you waste less steel in making moldings.)

 

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Are Acrylonitrile plastics made within the time frame of the game? And how is molybdenum used? You can be fairly specific. I remember enough of my engineering chemistry (though vector mechanics were more my forte, I wasn't a bad chemist) to probably understand the answer.

This thread is all over the place, and all of it is good!

So, the molybdenum used to make the gun mounts in the the squeezebore AT guns was actually used in the casting for the gun mounts? Oh the verlicht principal resulted in muzzle velocities half-again that of standard AT guns. Though the specific impulse would be the same, due to lighter ammunition, the peak recoil force would be 2-3 times that of a normal gun, so the pressure between the barrel and it's mount might be high enough with the heat of repeated firing, to weld the barrel to it's mounts. Unless coated with Molybdenum Sulfide. I'd always wondered why, if short of Molybdenum, they didn't just make heavier castings to compensate for the weaker alloy.

Thanks Possum, for that piece of the puzzle.

 

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Metals

According to my handy CRC T1 tool steel is 18% Tungsten, 4% Chromium, 1% Vanadium, 0.7% carbon, and the balance iron. M2 tool steel is 6.5% Tungsten, 4% Chromium, 2% Vanadium, 2% Molybdenum, 0.85% carbon, and the balance iron.

Stainless steels typically have 16% to 19% chromium with 2% to 11% of nickel and various other trace elements.

By weight, I would have to think that aluminum was going into aircraft production and low grade wiring.

For copper, you have wires, pipes, boiler tubes, ammunition casings, and the brass and bronze in nautical fittings. I think it is related to steel more than rubber, but it is essential in a lot of plating applications, too.

 

[Possum]

Ok, Some more details about Acylonitrile.
1st used by Du pont to make an artifical fibre 1938 "Orlon"
Subsequenly used to make Nitrile Rubber, and the Polymer SAN sometime before/during WW2.
In 1951 was used to make the artifical elastomer ABS.
It was alo used in WW2 as a pesticide fumigant.

Molybednum's role in the production of acrylonitrile is as a catalyst in the manufacture of the monomer.

Oh, and one I left out earlier;
Titanium, in the 40's and 50's the biggest industrial use of titanium was in the manufacture of Paint pigments, followed by the manufacture of Polypropylene. (It's used as a catalyst in the condensation of polypropylene from propene.)

 

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Aha! figured it had to be as a catalyst

did you get the bit about sulfuric acid catalist for alkylation of gasoline for high octane fuels? Germany never seemed to get this process. I don't know why. Their chemists were good enough. Do you happen to know?

In the end, even though the German aircraft engines were easily as sophisticated as allied engines (no disrespect to Rolls Royce Merlin, but they were arguably better) the respective power to weight ratios were not even close.

 

[Possum]

hello Dog Cavalry
A bit more research done.
As to why the german did not develop 100 octane avgas I do not have an anwser, only educated guesses.
Here's my educated guess. Lack of Benzene.
In normal Suphuric acid alkylation of petrol to increase its octane rating, this is done by adding straight chain groups to benzene.
As you may be aware, most normally occuring oil has plentiful ammounts of benzene.
But synthetic fuel, made from normal (Bitiomus? and anthacite)coal, is pretty much 100% straight chain hydrocarbons. (Although one paper I read said that synthfuel made from coal was loaded with benzene, I'm inclinde to think they where talking about synthfuel made from brown coal (Lingite), althought the paper didn't say exactly what sort of coal they where refering too. A bad thing in a science paper, which makes me even more inclined to disregard what it says!)
So simply put, trying to alkylate synthfuel, only results in longer straight chain hydrocarbons; ie keroseine and diesel.)
Also with respect to Aeroengines designed to run on 100 octane avagas, they did not make an apperance untill late in the war.
The boost in performace was puerly from the change from 87 octane to 100 octane avgas. No mechanical changes needed! (Which, from having the oppertunity to run my car on a couple of occasions, on condemmed 100 octane avgas, can make a considerable difference in power output, even on a dinky 4 cylinder automobile engine!)
Admittidly, Aero engines designed from the outset to use 100 octane Avgas do even better, but as mentioned earlier, they took a while to come into service.
Probably because such an engine can only run on 100 octane Avgas, and presumably the Allies needed to ensure that they could keep up the supply of this more refined Avgas, before they commited themselves to it's exclusive use.

 

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I've read a number of sources claiming that British fighters were on 100 octane gas during battle of Britain, but only 87 during battle of France. Fighter by Len Deighton, and Combat Development in WW2: Fighter by Alfred Price, most recently.

I was wondering if it was deficient feedstocks with the Germans. That would certainly explain it.

The divergent design paths followed by the allies vs Germans in engine tech clearly shows different fuels available. Germans went in for optimizing boost level of superchargers with a barometric cell, fuel injection, nitro injection, water injection. All very complex, heavy and expensive. Still didn't get to the power to weight ratios of the merlins, which had comparatively simple integral superchargers, and none of the other goodies. Well, eventually fuel injection IIRC.

Like doing your career as a track and field athlete, wearing oxfords.

 

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alkylation process

The increasing of the octane number by the alkylation process; I believe the developers of the catalyst were either two americans or an american and a brit. Either way, two allied scientists. Furthrmore, I believe it was discovered in '39 right about at the outbreak of war, making it classified information.

On German synthfuel, their main coal source was lignite. They also used synthfuel as a toluene supply I believe, so that implies plenty of aromatics. They simply missed out on the catalyst.

 

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Have you followed Mithel and my economy stress-testing. Numbers are recorded in the Thread called Oil Test, or something like that.

It demonstrates that however you choose to think of the various components of an economy, it is only possible to prevent an economic crash, while limiting oil, by adding rubber to the country in question.

The problem is that countries won't convert oil for their armies unless
-they have a coal surplus, or
-they have to make oil, for rubber anyway (the classic meltdown situation)

The game engine wouldn't starve an economy to provide oil for fuel, but once oil is made as part of the coal to rubber process, the oil produced is used to make fuel first. Unless the amounts of coal are extravagent, no rubber will be produced. Hence meltdown.

I believe Mithel has made his case.

 

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What happens to a nation with sufficient oil but no rubber? Say a nation has 40 oil and units that require 20 fuel. At the same time it has no surplus coal and no rubber. It requires 40 oil to supply rubber. Will the game engine starve the economy or starve the units of oil?

 

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GDP and IC

The following is part of a discussion Mithel and I had and we think it's time for some public debate on this issue.

This discussion was started regarding the GDP growths of nations during wwII and resource limitations. Mithel discovered that most large nations had growing GDP figures, with quite steady GDP growths until hit by resource limitations. Peak country was the US which more than doubled its GDP at the end of the war.

My proposal is to model this GDP growth through techs. Already in HOI currently, but nowhere near the level the US finally achieved. So my proposal is to remove/rework current industry modifying techs so 5 techs are created at different levels, with an end result of achieving about 200% IC compared to the '36 situation. Effects of those techs could be:
5 * 15%:
1 step 15%: IC = 115 %
2 steps, 15%: IC = 132.25 %
3 steps, 15%: IC = 152.0875 %
4 steps, 15%: IC = 174.9 %
5 steps, 15%: IC = 201.14 %

Or a more gradual increase could be steps of 10% first (first 3), then 2 of 20% (100-110-121-133.1-159.72-191.66 %) or 1 of 10%, 3 of 15% and 1 of 20% (100-110-126.5-145.475-167.296-200.756 %), depending which stepwise increase fits most economies best. Make sure step 4 and 5 are hard to reach so only US, possibly Germany (assuming GER was steel limited) and SU can reach it.

These techs simulate the efficiency gains achieved of existing production during wwII, for example by: using the overcapacity left after the depression, increasing working hours, adding extra shifts in continuous processes, producing 24 hours a day instead of 8, 10, 12 or 14, better lubricants to remove cast products from malls also increases production time. Or for chemical processes, using better seals increases the time to overhaul, thus reducing downtime, thus increasing production. Or more wear resistant tooling and more precise tooling allow higher speed production. Etc...

The cost of these techs should be chosen in such a way as to discourage economies with IC levels below X to research these techs, but to encourage large economies to research these techs instead of building extra IC's. Example: tech increasing IC's by 10% costs 180 days at 20 ICs = 3600 ICs. If you have an economy of 100 IC's, the cost of the tech is equal to the cost of building 10 new IC's. So economies smaller than 100 IC's should not invest in this tech, but build new IC's, while economies with more than 100 IC's should invest in this tech, but not in new IC's. The 100 IC boundary is chosen at random, the boundary could also be set at 50, 80 or 150 IC.

The challenge here is to find the right stepwise increase that follows the GDP gain of most large nations properly. Maybe we will need 6 techs, or 7. What will the costs be beside research? Manpower, rubber, oil, other resources? What will the prerequisites be, what will the descriptions be (minor point)?

 

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I have a small question.Does anybody know if an IC that is built after an IC modifier has taken effect (minister or tech) will also have that modifier applied? So say your IC level is modified by 20%, will a newly built IC count as 1 IC or as 1.2 IC?

 

[valisk]

I think that your on the right track by and large, but GDP isn't everything, as it all depends, for our purposes at least, on what proportion of GDP is represented by industrial production.

If you take the USA as an example, it's industrial production actually increased by about 150% from 1939 to 1944 the majority of that was increase in manufacturies, with mineral extraction increasing by 40% or more in the same period.

The main increases came in the production of artificial silks, rubber, in the huge expansion of oil refining, the massive expansion of the chemical industries, steel production doubled, and vehicle production, from Naval to aircraft to motor vehicles had a 600% jump at the expense of many civilian sectors, such as building which saw an 80% decline in the same period.

Other sectors such as slaughter and packing of meat also increased but not by as much, so Manufacturing Industry at the end of the war formed a greater part of GDP than pre war.

The same being true for all major belligerents.

We can see a huge disparity between different sectors, and as they do now to a limited extent, the technological advances for Industry should favour certain types of production in hand with increasing general IC.

So I guess the question we need to find consensus on this issues is does IC represent GDP generally or is it simply an indicator of Industrial power?

 

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Re Wineman's Limited Oil Question

I suggest you run exactly that test, and post the detailed results in Conversion Test. Use Luxemburg. With only one province, it's easy to set all resources to exactly what you want. Maybe one tank, with fuel set to 20.

However, based on Mithel and my testing, I believe what will happen is as before: the army gets the oil first, or 20 a day in your hypothetical situation, and the economy must make do with the dregs. This will leave 20 a day, so the economy will be limited to 50% of capacity, until your country can change the situation, either by cutting fuel used, or oil needed for conversion, or just taking someone else's.

Oops, actually this economy might run a little better than that. When running at 50%, only half of coal will be used. there will be a surplus the following day, which will be converted. That day the economy will run at some higher rate, thus leaving less surplus coal for the day following. That surplus coal will be converted, so onthat day the economy will run at some rate between 50% and the day before.

Yes, Wineman, I suggest you run the test for a few weeks, and record what the actual % the economy runs at each day will be. This would be very informative and valuable. I am wondering if the value will show any tendancy to converge on some value. And if not, will the arithmetic mean production and actual production over that time be the same.

 

[Mithel]

As DC described, my understanding will be that for a country with excess oil (but no "extra" coal and no rubber) the units will be fully fueled and you'll see a lack of resources for the economy as left over oil is converted to rubber. As DC stated this reduced economy will mean a temporary surplus of coal and hence you'll see a bizarre bouncing of the economy as it kicks in and out of converting coal to oil (to rubber).

Wineman, from my observation a base IC is a base IC any modifiers (ministers) will be applied to those base values. Hence if you build an IC it will produce more with a minister boost but will immediately drop back to being a base IC point when the minister is removed from office.

Valisk makes an excellent point. Paradox (and myself) appear to essentially use ICs as representing the entire economy of a nation (agriculture included). But in reality an economy that is 80% agrarian isn't capable of waging modern war as well as one that is only 40% agrarian.

I think of ICs as "economic potential". But if your economy is truly agrarian and living essentially at subsistance (i.e. no major exports) that economy does not have the capability to manufacture armaments nor have the trade (funding) to purchase them. I live with this and accept it because I doubt we have the time and resources to model the WWII economies better (with the limited HoI system).

Valisk is also more accurate by describing it as the industrialization of a nation. Since purely mining is not really of any more value than agriculture in waging war.

However that having been said, a huge part of maintaining an army in the field is feeding that army (agriculture). And I think this ties in with Mathguy's greatly increased supply costs and my attempts to model agriculture as a major part of most economies.

You'll notice that in my Province.csv most of the agrarian economies have lower IC values than Paradox's Province.csv. I reflect WWII GDP figures more accurately, while I feel Paradox inflated the ICs for many minors to make them more "playable" (yet actually left them less playable because of the raw material meltdown problems).

- Mithel

 

[valisk]

Valisk makes an excellent point. Paradox (and myself) appear to essentially use ICs as representing the entire economy of a nation (agriculture included). But in reality an economy that is 80% agrarian isn't capable of waging modern war as well as one that is only 40% agrarian.

I have thought that might be the case for quite some time, and it is a problem derived from the lack of an agricultural economic model, and as you point out is not something we can expect to be fixed, in this version of HoI at least.

But if your economy is truly agrarian and living essentially at subsistance (i.e. no major exports) that economy does not have the capability to manufacture armaments nor have the trade (funding) to purchase them. I live with this and accept it because I doubt we have the time and resources to model the WWII economies better (with the limited HoI system).

Yes, I can see myself coming into agreement with that, though I must admit it does to some extent spoil the neat and ordered way I like to look at things.

You'll notice that in my Province.csv most of the agrarian economies have lower IC values than Paradox's Province.csv. I reflect WWII GDP figures more accurately, while I feel Paradox inflated the ICs for many minors to make them more "playable" (yet actually left them less playable because of the raw material meltdown problems).

The biggest Issue for me is allowing Non-Industrialised nations to punch well above their weight, which we could fix by setting them to have to use 80% of their IC to produce consumer goods but leaves a worse problem, the potential capture and use of this Agricultural IC by Industrial powerhouses like Germany or a rampantly expanding Japan and gain a disproportionate boost to their own Industrial might.
I do think your province.csv makes good steps in that direction and hopefully combined with Math Guys additions it will allow a much more realistic game.

I am presently tabulating worldwide Industrial commodity data from 1936 into a spreadsheet, which I then intend to replicate for the years 37 through 44, once I've got it finalised we should hopefully be able to make a number of alterations to the resources section of province.csv to better reflect reality.

 

[Mithel]

I think many of us struggle with the difficulty of accepting that we can't tune HoI as exactly as we'd like. We want nice ordered perfection but we must deal with a lot of simplifications (like the fact that seemingly basic materials like oil, coal, steel and rubber are in fact abstractions to create an interesting yet extremely simple economic model).

It seems like many of us are working on the same things. I'm hoping we can manage to generate some decent documention of the economic situation in WWII. I find myself constantly going back and forth from detailed documentation (where I try to identify and verify my source) vs rough approximation to get a mod actually working during my lifetime {laugh}.

I'll gladly accept all documentation any of you can provide if you can reference how you came up with the data and I'll attempt to integrate it into my website as a resource for everyone.

I've got two new raw databases that I'm attempting to integrate into my Province.csv editing program to give a better report of historic economic information when you edit a country.

- Mithel

 

[valisk]

Absolutely, once I've got it all into the spreadsheet I'll hand it over to you.
It's drawn from the League of Nation's Statistical Yearbooks 1926-44 for raw statistics of production and consumption and the United States Geological Study data for suplimentary prices.
You can check it with the .pdfs of the originals which I grabbed from Northwestern University Library unlike the UN data, which requires a heftly license fee to look at and simply replicates the LoN data, this lot is public domain and so can be reproduced or stored and displayed wherever we wish.

 

[Mithel]

Valisk, Excellent! That appears to be a fine source of a lot of information! It's too bad it's all scanned documents and not text. I look forward to your typing that up in a spreadsheet!

- Mithel

 

[valisk]

Absolutely, but we can't ask for everything, i should have 1936 fully finished inthe next day or so then I'll get on to doing the next years.

It took me quite some time to track down this information, and incidentally I tracked down some more, when reading a huge number of books on the industry during the war, I've consistently come across references to Paul Bairoch's 'International Industrialisation Levels from 1750-1980' Which seems to be the last word on this subject.
It's not published in full anywhere on the net and in fact is only available in Volume 11 issue 2 of the Journal of European Economic History published in 1982, which I hope to find at the central Library in Manchester in the next week or so.
However, Howe's Empire to Europe has the Japanese figures for 38 from this cite quoted as 5.2% of total world production, so looks like I underestimated them.