German chromium and nickel supplies and use: statistics?

Discussions on the economic history of the nations taking part in WW2, from the recovery after the depression until the economy at war.
Post Reply
jmkorhonen
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 11:22

German chromium and nickel supplies and use: statistics?

#1

Post by jmkorhonen » 26 Mar 2013, 12:04

Greetings to all!

I'm a PhD student writing about history of technology and innovations, and I'm currently writing a paper where one of the examples used is the substitution of nickel and chromium in German jet engines. However, I realized that I'm lacking statistics on the chromium supplies and use. I managed to find a source for nickel - there's apparently a table "German nickel supplies, consumption, and stocks" on the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Volume 1, p. 264 - but I don't have access to the full Survey. I was wondering if anyone here could help me out with a bit of data and a reference as to where it came from - or point me to a (preferably English language) source?

Also, any examples of quantities of nickel and chromium used in actual equipment (e.g. aircraft, tanks, artillery, U-boats) would be very welcome!

PS. here's the nickel supplies, consumption and stocks, in metric tons, 1939-1944:

Year: 1939,1940,1941,1942,1943,1944
Supplies: 8500,13700,8800,5500,7600,10900
Consumption: 10100,11600,9200,8000,9400,9500
Stocks: 9200,11300,10900,10400,8600,7900

Mangrove
Member
Posts: 2027
Joined: 25 Dec 2004, 02:33

Re: German chromium and nickel supplies and use: statistics?

#2

Post by Mangrove » 26 Mar 2013, 15:38

jmkorhonen wrote:I was wondering if anyone here could help me out with a bit of data and a reference as to where it came from - or point me to a (preferably English language) source?
If you are living at or near Helsinki, I recommend visiting the National Archive and browsing through their collection of German microfilms. The Library of the National Defence University is another good place to visit for references.


jmkorhonen
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 11:22

Re: German chromium and nickel supplies and use: statistics?

#3

Post by jmkorhonen » 26 Mar 2013, 19:13

Unfortunately, just moved from Helsinki :(. May have to make the trip eventually, although the example is adequate with just the nickel statistics. Apparently these were the key to high-temperature jet engine alloys like Nimonic that the Germans didn't really have.

They did find a nice workaround by using air-cooled turbine blades, though. What my article draft is doing is an attempt to sharpen the theory circulating among some circles: that the raw material (in particular, nickel) shortage caused the Germans to develop innovative solutions to overcome the shortage. Considering the total nickel use of the entire jet engine program - about 40 tons by my calculation - fits within a rounding error of the nickel stocks in 1944, I'm arguing that one major reason the jet engine industry felt the constraint was precisely because they had demonstrated the ability to produce jet engines without much nickel at all. Starting from late 1930s, German engine manufacturers like BMW had built air-cooled superchargers; the Armaments Ministry knew this and allocated nickel accordingly, hence the "shortage."

Post Reply

Return to “Economy”