Military D2 Question

As i understand, the military order was for gas rigs, so cat used the 22 gas engine in the d2 and labeled it the R2. Doesn't mean that they didn't use d2's just that maybe look for R2's also.

It's hard to imagine how much all land operations depended on gasoline during WWII. I guess I knew it, but it never sunk in that the Panzers were diesel and the Allied tanks were all gasoline. I expect the situation with trucks was similar. Add in the lack of jet aircraft (no diesel or kerosene) until late in the war and it gets to where diesel probably was a hard to get/special thing for the larger CATs. Probably easier to come by in amphibious operations because of the ship and boat diesels and all their fuel requirement.

I'm not sure where you got your info but it aint right. Somebody should take some history lessons and do a little research. During the war every crawler made by Cat,AC&IH were painted ODgreen and built to Milt.specs, I have never heard of wartime D2 with dozer they were used for pulling supplies and artilary around or in a frieght yard moving railcars and supplies and made with a higher speed trans group that why they all have SP after ser. no. Also all wartime machines had tin ser.no. tags not brass or alum. and steel feul caps
As for the fuels used, Before the WW2 the Milt. had lots of prewar gas tractors. Duing wartime thousands of IH TD9s,TD18s,AC HD5s, HD7s, Caterpillar D8s,D7s,D6s,D4s&D2s and in 1943 they made no D2s at all putting more production into the bigger machines. The D6 were limited also because they were useing the new 6cly. engine for graders,air compresors,cranes & gensets.
There were only couple hundred R2s made during the war and they used the gas version (3400G) of the D2 engine D3400 did not remotlly reseble a 22 engine and around 3000 wartime R4s made compared to around 50,000 D7s & 20,000 D4s alone not counting the probably 100,000 TD9s&18s made. Kinda make your fuel story look like a fairytail, it had nothing to do with what fuel they wanted to use it was all about what and who could make the stuff the fastest. Out of all those few went to farmers that had pull with the gov. and could get a cert to get one.
Caterpillar and other companies made diesel round engines (radial) for Sherman tanks. Not all tanks were gas.
Berglund Tractor in Napa, Santa Rosa and Willits covererd from SFBay to Ore. border from Sac Valley to the Pacific, were only alowed to sell 2- D4s during the war both were tailseats and I have them both today and am second owner of both.along with my uncles ODgreen Model M tailseat he got during the war. Another perc was if you had a gas tractor and converted it to butane you could get all the tires you needed instead of being rationed.

I'm not sure where you got your info but it aint right. Somebody should take some history lessons and do a little research. During the war every crawler made by Cat,AC&IH were painted ODgreen and built to Milt.specs, I have never heard of wartime D2 with dozer they were used for pulling supplies and artilary around or in a frieght yard moving railcars and supplies and made with a higher speed trans group that why they all have SP after ser. no. Also all wartime machines had tin ser.no. tags not brass or alum. and steel feul caps
As for the fuels used, Before the WW2 the Milt. had lots of prewar gas tractors. Duing wartime thousands of IH TD9s,TD18s,AC HD5s, HD7s, Caterpillar D8s,D7s,D6s,D4s&D2s and in 1943 they made no D2s at all putting more production into the bigger machines. The D6 were limited also because they were useing the new 6cly. engine for graders,air compresors,cranes & gensets.
There were only couple hundred R2s made during the war and they used the gas version (3400G) of the D2 engine D3400 did not remotlly reseble a 22 engine and around 3000 wartime R4s made compared to around 50,000 D7s & 20,000 D4s alone not counting the probably 100,000 TD9s&18s made. Kinda make your fuel story look like a fairytail, it had nothing to do with what fuel they wanted to use it was all about what and who could make the stuff the fastest. Out of all those few went to farmers that had pull with the gov. and could get a cert to get one.
Caterpillar and other companies made diesel round engines (radial) for Sherman tanks. Not all tanks were gas.
Berglund Tractor in Napa, Santa Rosa and Willits covererd from SFBay to Ore. border from Sac Valley to the Pacific, were only alowed to sell 2- D4s during the war both were tailseats and I have them both today and am second owner of both.along with my uncles ODgreen Model M tailseat he got during the war. Another perc was if you had a gas tractor and converted it to butane you could get all the tires you needed instead of being rationed.

Martin, I apologize for hijacking your thread, I don't have any pictures and would like to see some. I have a 1944 D2.

Willie,
I thought I read that even though CAT made a conversion to diesel engines for the Allied heavy tanks, and tested them, they were not ordered in large numbers because it seemed to be late in the war and unnecessary.

We know the vast majority of military tractors were diesel, cause we've still got 'em today. If there had been a lot of gas tractors, we would be restoring them instead of the diesels we have.

I never heard that about the tractor propane conversions and the tire rationing. I know there were a lot of them done around here. Wonder if that would have applied to cars and trucks?

I wanted to find the numbers for gasoline and diesel use during land operations in WWII, but so far I have only found specs on gasoline use during the period of the breakout from Normandy in 1944-1945.

No mention of diesel, only gasoline.

The jeeps were gas,
The tanks were gas,
The airplanes were gas,
Even the "Jimmy" Deuce and a half trucks were gas,
http://www.transchool.eustis.army.mil/museum/RebBallIntro.htm

Sounds like an engineering outfit with CATs would have to carry their own diesel with them.

The US Navy had alot of diesel D2's. Most I have seen had been tow tractors. Someday I'll find a photo of one that I took years ago.
drujinin

Hi I own a D2 in the UK, and a feature has just been written about it in Classic Military Vehicle magazine, it was delivered to our farm in England in the lend lease program to the farm manager in 1942, in olive drab with a star on the bonnet, its been on the same farm ever since and i have restored it back to how it was delivered - any pictures of D2's in military service would be great to see, thanks, James

nice D2👍