VITAL METALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 December 1943, Page 4

VITAL METALS

NAZI GERMANY’S NEEDS. ALLIES CUT OFF SUPPLIES. The desperate resistance offered* by the Germans to the Russian advance in the Dnieper bend is explained by the dire necessity of retaining the city of Nikopol, the centre of the manga-nese-producing area in the Ukraine. Without supplies of this material from that district the German war machine would suffer a grave setback, as manganese is vital to the production of steel and for use as an alloy with other non-ferrous metals for the manufacture of aircraft parts. It is estimated that the loss of Nikopol would" cut supplies for Germany by 53 per cent, and she would then be faced with the alternative of reducing either the quantity or the quality of her steel output. Before the war Germany needed 220,000 tons of manganese annually, and of this total she imported 150,000 tons from overseas. a source which was cut off by the blockade of the British Navy. RUSSIANS WRECK MINES. To fill this gap Germany increased her home output by 25 per cent, used other European sources accessible to her, and* under the Russo-German trade agreement in August, 1939, secured' 107,000 tons annually from Russia until June, 1941, when she attacked Russia. When the Russians evacuated Nikopol in the autumn of that year they destroyed the mines, which were producing 600,000 tons a year before the war. This made production impossible for 12 months, but the Germans eventually restored it to an output of over 30 per cent, and of the 375,000 tons required yearly for their steel output they have been drawing 200,000 tons from Nikopol. Due also to the British blockade, Germany is without hope of substituting nickel for manganese for war production. It is estimated that nickel supplies available for the Germans from European and occupied territory in the 1943-44 year will be about 3000 tons short of her requirements. Nickel might be freed for substitution of manganese, however, if two possible substitutes, molybdenum and tungsten, were available. The British Navy cut off 35 per cent of German supplies of molybdenum, leaving her a bare minimum of about 3000 tons of ore, of which 82 per cent was derived from Norway. The Royal Air'Force raid in March, 1943, on the Knaben mines in Norway robbed Germany of three months’ supplies from that source and left her 1943 total 20 per cent short of requirements. The British naval blockade cut off 75 per cent of tungsten overseas supplies for Germany, leaving her at ~present, after exploiting othei European sources, about 33 per cent short of actual needs. DEMAND FOR CHROME. Germany’s last hope is to replace manganese with chrome. Without chromium steel,” wrote the German expert Walter Pahl in 1939, there would not be a modern arms industry. Chromium alloys are indispensable foi armour-plating, projectiles and fixcarriages. Without chromium there would not be high-grade tubes for ailcraft” Chromium is used for hard steel in ball-bearings up to 2 per cent for tubes from 7 to 8 per cent, for acidresisting steels from 14 to 25 per cent. It is alloyed for making high-speed cutting tools, and has other important uses, Germany needed 80,000 tons of chromic oxide a year before the wai, and the 46,650 tons imported from overseas were lost to her when the blockade was applied in Septembei, 1939. She budgeted for 90,000 tons for 1943 from sources in Yugoslavia. Greece and Turkey. Sabotage by patriots of mines in Greece, and Germany’s inability to deliver promised arms, rolling stock and machinery to Turkey in exchange for chromic oxide, have reduced supplies, and it is estimated they will be more than 30 per cent below her needs this year. With her steel output, already reduced some 25 per cent owing to the British economic attack, Germany fac<ps yet a further decline. Such, thanks to the joint Anglo-Russian blows in the west and east, is the outlook for Germany in her attempt to postpone final defeat.