I read about how Otto Skorzeny had a plan to send German soldiers behind American lines to spread confusion and fear, and the plan largely succeeded when a group of soldiers in a Jeep went to an American fueling station and said, “Petrol, please.” They were caught and confessed to the plot, and this succeeded in causing a fear of German infiltrators during the Battle of the Bulge. But I wondered what a refueling station (temporary we assume) looked like during that time. A truck and some cans of gasoline, or what?
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Good question! Close to the front I’d expect it to be rows of 5-gallon jerricans, with maybe empties piled nearby. A truck would be involved, but as soon as it unloaded it would be on the road to collect another load, so is unlikely to still be on scene. There would be simple signage indicating the fuel dump and maybe the “owning” unit ID, nailed to posts and trees to guide customers to it. There should be somebody in charge of it, either in a simple shelter or if lucky in a jeep or truck.
Further back you might have dumps of 55-gallon drums. These are heavy and difficult to manhandle, needing a hand-truck, so are more likely to be on some solid ground, perhaps in a courtyard of a farm or factory.
Even further back you would get fuel tanker-trucks and trailers.
My guess is your story fits the first type, so all you need is a bunch of cans and an unlucky NCO freezing his proverbials off (it was bitter cold that winter) while logging all the fuel use and ordering refills. The fun part is you could give him a jeep with correct markings, and give the spies a jeep with badly ficticious markings as seen on other Bulge cuckoos!
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Here’s an interesting link about fueling I just happened upon, FWIW.
Fuel logistics
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Reading that makes me itch to build a fuel truck and trailer! I have a CCKW and the MiniArt trailer, but where am I to find the vast number of cans? Could be a fun challenge…
This is a subject that rarely gets talked about and isn’t modeled that much. That article is an interesting read to say the least . The amount of fuel needed to sustain one armored division in combat alone is staggering!
There are so many great diorama ideas one can get from this as well.
Gecko makes a set of US 5 gallon cans in bulk, half the set is water cans, but if you stack them and put the water cans in the back you can hide the caps. A couple of them you should have enough.
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