Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 219 Former Superior

On the other hand, oil companies like Shell have no interest in spending huge sums of money to build special refineries and prepare high-octane fuel for others in advance, because high-anti-knock gasoline does not provide any extra benefits for ordinary engines and actually reduces combustion efficiency.

So, in order to resolve this chicken-and-egg paradox, Doolittle took the initiative. After joining Shell Oil Company, he used his position to begin spending millions of US dollars to manufacture this high-grade fuel, which no one else had yet produced.

However, his vision was not widely recognized. Within Shell Oil Company, the project was ridiculed as Doolittle's million-meter blunder.

However, Doolittle did not give up. Instead, he used his military connections and spent considerable time lobbying the US Army to adopt the 100-octane fuel standard. Then, in 1938, Doolittle succeeded!
The U.S. Army finally adopted the 100-octane standard. However, Doolittle encountered a new problem: how to make the U.S. able to afford the manufacturing cost of 100-octane gasoline.

It's important to know that the initial experimental formula for 100-octane fuel requires a very expensive refining process, and the fuel price is as high as 25 US dollars per gallon.

In contrast, regular gasoline was only 20 cents per gallon at the time! Therefore, the early method of "cracking" crude oil to produce high-octane gasoline was wasteful and produced byproducts such as olefins that could clog engines.

However, Doolittle and his team later found someone who could provide a solution, but this person came from an unlikely place: Fag.

Hodley was an officer in the French tank forces during World War I and was awarded the Cross of Honour and the Knight of the Legion of Honour for his bravery in battle.

After the war, Hodley was deeply concerned about FA's reliance on imported petroleum. As a mechanical engineer, he pioneered the technology of synthesizing gasoline from lignite through experiments. Through his efforts, Eugene Hodley achieved the feat of producing sixty tons of gasoline per day from coal.

However, the cost of synthetic fuels remained significantly higher than that of imported gasoline, leading FA to deem the move unprofitable and withdraw its funding for Eugene Hodley. As a result, FA paid the price for its shortsightedness during World War II.

Disheartened, Hodley accepted an invitation from the US Vacuum Oil Company and moved there. The US company, leveraging his fuel synthesis technology, significantly reduced the production cost of high-octane gasoline, thus resolving Doolittle's predicament.

At the beginning of World War II, the United States could only produce 40,000 gallons of 100-octane gasoline per month. However, with the addition of more and more factories, monthly production had increased to 400,000 gallons by 1944. The earliest users of high-octane gasoline were the Royal Air Force of England.

England lacked the capacity to produce high-octane gasoline, but the "Grey Falcon" engine had long been designed with high-octane gasoline in mind. Therefore, when high-octane gasoline from the United States arrived in 1940, the Spitfire fighter was immediately ready to use it, and its combat capabilities improved at a visible rate.

Not only the Spitfire, but also the British Air Force's Hurricane, Sea Fury, and Tempest fighters, as well as the US Wildcat, Lightning, Corsair, Mustang, and Raiden fighters, were all equipped with engines that could use high-octane gasoline. As a result, US and British fighters had an inherent power advantage. In comparison, the US's 89-octane gasoline and the Japanese's 87-octane gasoline paled in comparison, directly leading to the Axis powers' fighters losing air superiority.

Later, although some false stories circulated among the Japanese, claiming that their fighter jets were tested with high-octane gasoline after the war and that their flight speed increased significantly, in an attempt to prove the superior design of their fighter jets, this was simply impossible.

The purpose of high-octane gasoline is to improve anti-knock performance, and it's only useful in engines with a specially designed compression ratio of 12:1. Therefore, fighter jet engines cannot achieve the power increase brought by a high compression ratio; using it would actually reduce performance due to decreased combustion efficiency. Otherwise, the "chicken and egg" problem that Doolittle painstakingly solved wouldn't have been a problem at all.

Therefore, the idea that a low-end car that uses 92-octane gasoline can improve its performance by using 98-octane gasoline is simply wishful thinking.

However, many people still believe in this, so the end result is that the performance is not improved much, but the fuel consumption is much higher.

However, this is still considered relatively mild. Some people, despite not having much money, bought high-performance cars with high-octane fuel on loans out of vanity, only to later find the price of that fuel too expensive. It's worth noting that the price difference between 98-octane and 92-octane gasoline can typically be as much as two yuan per liter.

Such a price difference made people think that it would be cheaper to use 92-octane gasoline, so they switched from 98-octane gasoline to 92-octane gasoline.

The result is knocking, which in severe cases can lead to engine cylinder failure, directly damaging and scrapping the entire engine.

Therefore, if Liu Zhi, Du Yuming, and others dared to use gasoline meant for ordinary gasoline cars to power those fighter jets, the only result would be that the cylinders of these engines would be directly damaged, causing almost irreparable damage.

Therefore, after Wang Gensheng destroyed the high-octane gasoline specifically for aircraft engines, all Lao Zi could do was wait, waiting for high-octane aviation gasoline to be imported from the United States.

Currently, only Miguo is capable of producing high-octane aviation gasoline.

Just after Wang Gensheng successfully destroyed the oil depot at Xuzhou Airport and withdrew, Du Yiman handed him a telegram and said:
"Si Ling, according to intelligence, Lao Jing's 12th Army Corps and Huang Wei's Army Corps are also about to arrive. The Second Field Army is now preparing to intercept them."

Upon hearing this, Wang Gensheng recalled that in the TV series "The Great Battle," Huang Wei was apparently intercepted by the Second Field Army.

Moreover, he was Wang Gensheng's old clerk, who personally acted as bait to lure Huang Wei's army into the encirclement.

Of course, the commander during the War of Resistance Against Japan is now the commander of the 4th Column of the Second Field Army.

In terms of affiliation, Wang Gensheng was actually a member of the Second Field Army, after all, he was previously a member of the 129th Lion and the 386th Independent Regiment.

The commander of the Second Field Army is now the leader of the 129th Lions, so it's not an exaggeration to say that Wang Gensheng belongs to the Second Field Army.

Of course, Li Yunlong, Ding Wei, and Kong Jie also belonged to the Second Field Army in a certain sense.

However, mixing different groups to avoid forming cliques is also beneficial, just like how recruiting soldiers involves randomizing and redistributing them to prevent the formation of regional soldiers.

After all, people have a sense of belonging. For example, people born in the same place are more likely to form cliques in the military.

Such behavior is extremely detrimental to the entire military and will affect the overall unity of the military.

(End of this chapter)