Slitherine

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As a highly developed industrial state, Germany was dependent even in peacetime on external sources for an adequate supply of oil. Even though Germany’s 1938 oil consumption of little more than 44 million barrels was considerably less than Great Britain’s 76 million barrels, Russia’s 183 million barrels, and the one billion barrels used by the United States, in wartime Germany’s needs for an adequate supply of liquid fuel would be absolutely essential for successful military operations on the ground and, even more so, in the air.1 For Germany, it was precisely the outbreak of the war in 1939 and the concurrent termination of overseas imports that most endangered its ability to conduct mobile warfare.

German oil supplies came from three different sources: imports of crude and finished petroleum products from abroad, production by domestic oil fields, and syntheses of petroleum products from coal.

In 1938, of the total consumption of 44 million barrels, imports from overseas accounted for 28 million barrels or roughly 60 percent of the total supply. An additional 3.8 million barrels were imported overland from European sources (2.8 million barrels came from Romania alone), and another 3.8 million barrels were derived from domestic oil production. The remainder of the total, 9 million barrels, were produced synthetically. Although the total overseas imports were even higher in 1939 before the onset of the blockade in September (33 million barrels), this high proportion of overseas imports only indicated how precarious the fuel situation would become should Germany be cut off from them.2

At the outbreak of the war, Germany’s stockpiles of fuel consisted of a total of 15 million barrels. The campaigns in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France added another 5 million barrels in booty, and imports from the Soviet Union accounted for 4 million barrels in 1940 and 1.6 million barrels in the first half of 1941. Yet a High Command study in May of 1941 noted that with monthly military requirements for 7.25 million barrels and imports and home production of only 5.35 million barrels, German stocks would be exhausted by August 1941. The 26 percent shortfall could only be made up with petroleum from Russia. The need to provide the lacking 1.9 million barrels per month and the urgency to gain possession of the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus mountains, together with Ukrainian grain and Donets coal, were thus prime elements in the German decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941.3

The smallest of the Russian oil fields at Maikop was captured in August 1942, and it was expected that the two remaining fields and refineries in Grozny and Baku also would fall into German hands. Had the German forces been able to capture these fields and hold them, Germany’s petroleum worries would have been over. Prior to the Russian campaign, Maikop produced 19 million barrels annually, Grozny 32 million barrels, and Baku 170 million barrels.4

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ORIGINAL: juret

changing the question

Could soviets have supplied their forces with oil if they had lost those 3 fields in the south???

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The Axis never even got close to Baku. They may as well have been trying to conquer the moon. Therefore, this entire discussion is moot.

The whole go for the oil strategy was just plain chuckleheaded.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton

Taking it in wite would be very easy in most cases, but not worth the cost. Because the effects are zero as with most things in this game. Hvy/resoures have no effect on the game because of design and the same goes for oil.

Its window dressing

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ORIGINAL: Pelton
Most Russian were happy the germans invaded.

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Farfarer
Historical speculation and reality aside, would the game be more fun if seizing Baku and connecting it gave the Axis a big bump in oil, fuel, or VP? I've always wanted to be able to use captured factories etc. somehow.

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ORIGINAL: Encircled
Can't find any figures about Oil, but according to Erickson, there are some pretty interesting figures for coal.

"In 940, the Donbas produced 94.3 million tonnes of coal, the Urals 12 million and the Karaganda fields 6.3 million "

Now that is a lot of your industrial fuel to lose

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ORIGINAL: vlcz




you have data about Oil in the same link

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The big question is why did the production of Baku decrease by nearly 50% by 1945 since it was never bombed by the Germans. Is this a result of a failure to repair or replace essential equipment in the oil fields as well as a failure to drill new wells when existing ones ran dry? Or perhaps something as simple as a labor shortage?

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21.1. THE PRODUCTION SYSTEM
Production is conducted by various factories located in town, city and urban hexes. The
exception is Lend Lease supplies and vehicles, which are automatically added to the applicable
pool during the logistics phase. Some factories, including all Lend Lease factories, are located
off-map. Each factory point will produce a certain amount of an item each turn if the town, city
or urban hex it is located in is connected to the supply grid (20.1) and sufficient basic items
are stored at the factory location for local use. There are three basic items required to allow
the production system to run; resources, oil and manpower. Resources are required by Heavy
Industry factories to produce supplies and by synthetic fuel factories to produce synthetic fuel.
Supplies are required by armament, aircraft, AFV and combat vehicle factories to build the
equipment for air group units and ground elements. Oil is required by fuel factories to produce
fuel to allow motorized units to move and generic vehicles to operate. Manpower factories
provide the men that are matched with equipment during the replacement phase to build
complete ground elements that flow to the units. There are two types of production rates used
for factories. Some factories (Heavy Industry, Fuel, Synthetic Fuel, Vehicle and Armaments)
have a static multiplier for each year (1941-45) that is used to determine the amount of production for each factory point. The ratio of basic items required to produce the end product
remains the same. For example, if a notional amount of 1000 resources is required to produce
1000 supplies, a one to one ratio of resources to supplies will be required no matter what the
multiplier may be. Each other factory type has a fixed production rate that will not change.
However, for aircraft, AFV, and combat vehicle factories the number of factory points of each
type of factory in each town, city or urban hex will increase over time based on its expansion
rate until its build limit is reached.

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ORIGINAL: paullus99

Hmmmm....Pelton is talking about how easy it would be to convert about a thousand miles of rail (or more), find enough tanker cars that could be spared from pulling oil from Romania, sending them all the way into the Caucasus, over multiple large rivers, some of which didn't have adequate bridges for heavy freight, plus continue to send supplies to the front....yep, sounds easy to me.

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ORIGINAL: wulfgar

Most bulk oil traffic from Romania most likely used barges on the Danube river.

Similarly most bulk oil from Baku would have used the Volga. The difficult bit would be transferring loads to the Don the 50 km via Stalingrad, but after that it is plain sailing.

The Soviets built a connecting canal post-war that could take 5,000 ton ships.