► Photothread: Wehrmacht fuel tankers

[protze]

Hello,

There is a lot known of the airfieldtankers (bowsers) of the Luftwaffe, but you cannot find nearly nothing about the transport of fuel by Wehrmacht tankers to the troops. Perhaps there is a lot of information about these tankers under the Axis-forummembers.

[Christoph Awender]

The largest percentage of fuel was not transported in tankers but in normal trucks with canisters.

\Christoph

[protze]

But if transported in road tankers, does the WH uses the same types as the WL uses?
(For example the Opel Blitz 3,6-36 S Kfz. 385, the MB LG3000 Kfz. 384 or the Ford V8 51 and the belonging trailers)

[Bill Murray]

Hi Protze:
I have not seen any vehicle designation for a "tanker" for the wehrmacht although such a thing may exist.
Of the thousands of photos I have seen here and elsewhere, any ordinary cargo truck was used to carry jerry/cans or whatever other method they used as needed.

Because of their larger numbers being built, the most common you will see are the Opels and Fords. I have also seen, by the way, Luftwaffe dedicated bowsers used to fuel their trucks or so it looked. Strange, because aviation gasoline was quite better than that used for vehicles and hard to obtain.
Bill

[Laurence Strong]

I was watching a documentary on Ploesti, and it showed them loadings trucks with barrels of fuel. No bowsers to be seen.

[protze]

Here you see a Luftwaffe bowser probably filling up cars.

[Bill Murray]

Yes, Protze, that is exactly the type of situation I was talking about, an LW bowser seeming refueling a car. That particular one may be a confiscated civilian tanker, a ca. 1935 Ford.
Bill

[protze]

The bowser is, I think, a Ford V8-51. The body is not a civilian one, but is the same as on the Opel Blitz 3,6-36 S Kfz. 385 without the nice side bodysheets.

[Bill Murray]

Agreed, Protze on both issues.
Do you happen to know if the LW published a catalog type book similar to the D600-1 which portrayed almost all of the wheeled and tracked vehicles in use in 1940?
I am not sure which German agency published D600-1 but it did leave out a lot of the earlier 1930s vehicles which we see on these forums almost every day and which were in fact militarized commercials cars and trucks.
Bill

[Bill 13]

Day
Only photo I can remember of re-fueling mit der bowser is one of RW/Early War time frame. Two armoured cars.
Bill
:roll:

[protze]

Hi Bill and Bill 13

Bill: I don't know the existence of these publications. In 1938 Generalmajor Adolf von Schell standardized the vehicles of the Wehrmacht and rationalized the production of the trucks in 4 basictypes (formerly civilian types). The production of all the very expensive special mades for the Wehrmacht, was stopped. On the 25 of june 1942 Schell made another rationalisation of the truckproduction. For example: the only 3,5 metrictons truck of the Wehrmacht who was made on the productionlines of Opel, Borgward and Daimler Benz was from the summer of 1943 the Opel 3,5-36 S and the Opel 3,6-6700 A.

Bill 13: Very nice picture. Do you know the type of that truck? A MB LG3000?

In the attachment behind the tank an image of, I suppose, an Opel 3,5-36 S tanker with a softtop cabine

[Franzl Rider]

Here a train load of Opel Blitz fuel trucks. I cannot make out whether these are Luftwaffe or Army. From ebay.

Franzl

[Franzl Rider]

Is this an Army fuel truck? Picture was taken in France june 1940. From ebay

[Laurence Strong]

I like the way the first truck is straddling the train cars.

[protze]

Hi Franzl

First picture (Opel bowsers on railroadcars): The soldier on the front wears a Luftwaffe uniform with the rank of Gefreiter.

Second picture: The bowsers has on its back the sign of the headquarter from a batallion of a motorized artillery regiment. So this bowser belongs to the WH.