[August]

Originally Posted by USS Sea Tiger

The pumping of the Arizona is not so simple as you might think, Her fuel is Bunker C, a thick tarry type fule that must be heated to about 120 degreesf to luquify enough to pump. If you were to heat up her tanks to that temp, the expansion would rupture her hull, and also, she is near collapse, heating her would casue the metal to expand and crack, thus possibly causing further pollution.

The DKM Adm Sheer still exists

In a strange coincidence the book I just started reading "Clash of the Carriers" has a short chapter describing Bunker C fuel. I ran across it today at lunch and said "wow i just read about this on Subsim!"

From the book page 12:

Most WW2 ships ran on bunker fuel, so called because it was stored in large tanks called bunkers. The standard fuel, known as "Bunker C" was a sludgy, malodorous substance almost the texture of molasses ("too thin to walk on and too thick to swim in"). Unlike gasoline, it was easily obtained and in some cases could be used almost raw.

Bunker C was what the petroleum industry calls a "heavy distillate: fuel oil number six". A light distillate is gasoline, while middle distillates include diesel and kerosene. Bunker fuel begins as crude oil, but in refining the lighter fractions such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel are removed by distillation. That leaves the residuals, heavier materials not distilled because their boiling points are too high. Therefore, they do survive the refining process, as do contaminates such as salts and sediment, not unlike seawater when it evaporates.

Because bunker fuel had to be preheated before burning, most Navy ships were built with fuel oil heaters in the fire rooms and steam heating coils in the tanks to facilitate pumping Bunker C. At fifty degrees Fahrenheit it emitted an unpleasant odor similar to asphalt paving material.

The war could not be fought without it.