Soviet aviation fuel: More bang for the buck or the ruble?

[Tango Echo Dog]

Can any members help with a query on Russian aviation fuel?
I understand there were five kinds based upon octane ratings; B-100, B-95, B-89, B-78, B-70. I suspect that little B-100 or B-95 reached fighter units and most used B-89. I assume B-78 was used by bombers and twin-engined transports while B-70 was used by trainers and the U-2/Po-2 but if anyone has more detailed information I would welcome clarification.
I have been informed this octane rating, and that of the German B4, C4 and what-ever fuel was used for trainers, was based upon the Motor Octane Number (MON) while the Allies used a higher rating based upon the Research Octane Number (RON).
Can anyone confirm this and provide the RON for Russian and German fuels?

[RSwank]

A few links you might find interesting (you may have already found these):

(A Link was from removed here, see alternate links in post 4 below).

Regarding Soviet Aviation Gas, supposedly they received a lot of their fuel via lend-lease.
http://www.oilru.com/or/47/1006/

I have seen a source say that 59% of their aviation gas was via lend-lease.

There may be another factor at play here, as discussed in a few other threads:

http://www.broquet.co.uk/history.htm

http://www.carburetters.co.uk/Fuelcat.php

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/...oviet-service/

[kurlannaiskos]

I urge caution be used if you click on the first link posted by RSwank above.
my Norton anti-virus blocked an attack by a fake web-page when I clicked on it.

[RSwank]

Kurlannaiskos, this seems to be the same article as the first link only this is in Google Books. See if you get an error on it. Section starts with the heading:

"WWII and octane ratings."

https://books.google.com/books?id=Bn...alf%2C&f=false


The same article is pasted into this thread about half way down the page. Starts with the Sentence "During World War II Germany imported much of is oil from Rumania"

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forum...postcount=1425

[Paul Thompson]

Gentlemen,

I think that Ted has asked a very important pair of questions and I hope that forum members can bring their collective knowledge to bear to answer them directly.

There are two main points to clarify:

1. What aviation gasoline grades were used by the VVS and the Luftwaffe, respectively?

2. What were the MON and RON ratings of these gasoline grades?

I can contribute the following information:

1. I believe the main aviation gasoline type for Soviet combat aircraft during the mid and late-war period was 4B-78. The '4B' refers to the number of cubic centimetres (cm3) of an additive, usually 'R-9', per 1 kilogram (kg) of basic B-78 gasoline. The 'R-9' additive was an ethyl fluid which consisted of 55% Tetraethyl lead (TEL) and 35% ethylene dibromide, as well as 10% monochloro-naphthalene (MCN). In view of the large quantity of ethyl fluid used, 4B-78 was a highly leaded gasoline. This led to several problems, prominent among which was spark-plug fouling. The advantage of using the additive was that the effective octane number rose to 95, so the fuel could be used in higher performance engines with a higher compression ratio.

I believe that the majority of the 'R-9' ethyl fluid, or at least the majority of the Tetraethyl lead that was the main component of this fluid, was delivered to the USSR via Lend-Lease. Therefore, Lend-Lease was essential to all Soviet stocks of high-octane gasoline, not just the Allied gasoline grades that were imported in bulk.

2. Soviet industry used Motor Octane Number (MON) ratings, a method which produced lower octane ratings for the same fuel than the Research Octane Number (RON) would have done. Thus, the B-78 gasoline mentioned above had a MON rating of 78 but a higher RON rating. With the 'R-9' additive, as 4B-78, the gasoline should have had a rating of 95. This could vary significantly in practice as the fluid was often mixed with the basic gasoline in the field, where accurate measuring equipment was absent.

Regards,

Paul

[Juha]

My contribution, in fact "Altea"'s

- Aviation (http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/)
- - Question on M.S.406 (http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/question-m-s-406-a-16642.html)

…
Altea

10-23-2009 10:39 AM

…Soviets had no 100 octane fuel until late in war,except from Lend Lease deliveries. With standard 94 one (in fact real octane number 91-92)…Some pilots remember 100 octanes (blue) LL use in their front-line Yaks, with a 20 km/h speed gain and some overheating. But nothing official issued from soviet industry… the 3Б-78 (and 4Б-78 used on M-82) soviet fuels always had 93-95 (and 95-96) o. number from 1939, with some quality fall to 91-92 in some midwar deliveries…
...
Altea

10-30-2009 06:23 AM

… The soviet 95 octanes fuel had exactly the behavior of a 95% iso-octane and 5% heptane mixture fuel on soviet CFR.

It (the 4B-78 ) was obtained by adding 4 cm cub of TEL to a natural 78 octanes kg raffinated from Bakou fuel. You can try owerdays, it’s still making 95 octanes by the same method.

Yaks were not using it, only M-82F/FN. The 2B-78 to 3B-78 mixtures for Klimovs 103A, 105, 106. And some 3.5B-78 for the M-107…
Germans were not using Eugène Houdry’s cracking methods, AFAIK. But soviets with american help, did. In 1943 they were building 6 such a reffineries under licence. So late in the war they had 95 (soviet number) basis fuels that could provide from 96 (1B-95) to 115 (4B-95) octane number fuels.

In 1942-1943 soviet fuel qulity had failed, because of , grozny , majkop production 78 basis reduction. Spits and Airacobras were simply using LL fuel supplys, if they were not derated.


- Aviation (http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/)
- - The use of 100 Octane Fuel in the RAF pt 2 (orum/aviation/use-100-octane-fuel-raf-pt-2-a-20108.html)

…
Altea

11-05-2009 12:25 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Nikademus (Post 568278) "Soviet fighter pilots found the British Hurricane to be outdated and cumbersome. Furthermore, the standard Soviet aviation fuel in 1941-42 was the B-70 formulation, with an octane rating between only 70 and 75. Since the Hurricane's Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was designed for a considerably higher octane rating the Soviet fuel wore them down rapidly, decreasing preformance and frequently causing flight accidents." Source: Black Cross/Red Star Vol II. (p.32)

Frankly, if being rigorous as an historian i won't prise Christer Bergstorm for his technical level, rather low...Soviet used natural refined fuels with B-59 to B-78 octanes marks, with some 1 to 4 cm cub TEL additives, that makes octane numbers quoted here:

TEL 1 2 3 4
Б-59 73 78 81 82
Б-70 80 85 87 88
Б-74 85 88 90 92
Б-78 87 92 93 95

So 3B-70 makes 87 octane numbers, so for 1.5B-74 or 1B-78.

Your Pe-2's Klimovs 105 worked on 91-95 octanes fuel that ranges (the highest being the best for safe margin) from 3.5 - 4 B-74 to 1.5 - 3.5 B-78.

The mark 75 never existed in soviet standards. (X) B-59 was mainly used in cars or old planes as R-5, Po-2, R-Zet...

Of course, LL deliveries were also massively* used, and some local made B-95 that could gave 96-115 octane numbers at the war's end, using Houdry's cracking methods (Shell patent).

* some sources quote 2 620 thousand tons!

_________________________________

I recall reading years ago, that one of the USSR's main offensive in 1944 was delayed a few days/a week on Stalin's order in order to get LL 100 oct fuel for a P-39 fighter division, which Stalin thought would make an important contribution to the air part of the offensive.

Juha

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Juha

My contribution, in fact "Altea"'s
_________________________________

I recall reading years ago, that one of the USSR's main offensive in 1944 was delayed a few days/a week on Stalin's order in order to get LL 100 oct fuel for a P-39 fighter division, which Stalin thought would make an important contribution to the air part of the offensive.

Juha

Hello Juha,

Thank you for your help!

To summarise what Altea wrote, the following appears to have been the case:

1. The 2B-78 and 3B-78 gasoline grades were used for the M-105 series engines and the 4B-78 for the M-82 series. Why did the M-82 use a higher quality fuel?

It is interesting that the M-107, a development of the M-105, used 3.5B-78, yet another variation!

2. The German C3 grade had an octane rating of 94, according to Soviet TsAGI (Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute) data. It is not stated whether this was a MON or RON rating, but I suspect they used the Cooperative Fuel Research (CFR) engine to measure MON ratings. This would not conflict with the German 100 octane rating of C3, since that should be a RON rating, which is always higher than the MON figure.

Altea quotes some Soviet source as saying that the Soviet 93 octane rating corresponded to the German 96 octane, because of different measurment procedures, which would reinforce the point above.

Soviet octane ratings for mixtures of basic gasoline and 'R-9' ethyl fluid are given in Alrea's very useful table. On the basis of this table, it would appear that there was no B-89 grade, contrary to Tango Echo Dog's initial post. 4B-70 and 3B-74 seem to be the most likely candidates for an 89 octane equivalent fuel.

Having written the above, I have to say that much remains unclear. The key questions that remain are as follows:

1. What fuel grades did the Soviets use for which aircraft? Was 4B-78 or 3B-78 the most common fuel used, or did this change over the course of the war?

2. What were the MON and RON ratings of German fuel and can these be directly compared to Soviet ratings?

3. As mentioned by Juha, how much Lend-Lease gasoline did the Soviets have and when?

I hope that some forum members might have statistics from the US side, on the quantity of aviation gasoline delivered to the USSR and the octane grades of this gasoline.

Regards,

Paul

[Bruce Dennis]

Just an aside, but some accounts of the 617 Squadron raid on Tirpitz in September 1944 from Yagodnik near Archangel include statements that there was no high octane fuel available when the Lancasters first arrived. It had to be 'sourced' and brought to the airfield, which gave more time for the RAF aircrew toservice and prepare their aircraft. The weather was poor and would have prevented the raid taking place in the first few days anyway but had it been good weather there would have been a delay for lack of correct fuel.

[Kutscha]

Paul,
http://www.oilru.com/or/47/1006/

"The amount of high-octane aviation gasoline, converted into the metric system, was 1,197,587 tons, including 558,428 tons with octane numbers above 99."

Also, for those interested,
Aviation Gasoline Technology Transfer during the Second
World War: Japan, Germany and the U.S.A.

http://www.worldbhc.org/files/full%2...gyTransfer.pdf

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dennis

Just an aside, but some accounts of the 617 Squadron raid on Tirpitz in September 1944 from Yagodnik near Archangel include statements that there was no high octane fuel available when the Lancasters first arrived...

Hello Bruce,

Thank you for mentioning this incident. A search through Leo McKinstry's book using the term "octane" suggests that the Russians provided their highly leaded gasoline for 617's flight back to Britain. This was 4B-78, in all likelihood, since this had both a high octane number and a high lead content. See link - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eDHF9gwqUF0C .

Soviet sources report that the Allison engines of Airacobras had very serious trouble with 4B-78, to the extent that this fuel could only be used for training missions at low boost. Given that there were quite a few P-39s and other Lend-Lease aircraft in the North in 1944, I am surprised that their Lend-Lease fuel stocks could not be spared for the Lancasters. This is perhaps a reflection of the poor state of Anglo-Soviet cooperation by this stage of the war.

Regards,

Paul