French airforce from 1935 to 1940-41?

We agree on the fact that a) a 20 mm gun (except on a B-52 much later) is not a good defensive weapon
and b) it deprived French fighters from much needed guns.

Agree on a).
Disagree on b) - the French manufactured 20mm cannons to the tune of several thousand, a few times the number of fighters they made.

No information by me - but, have the French tested even the 20mm cannon against AFVs?
A 20 mm cannon was effective against most WW2 AFVs. The longer the barrel and the faster the muzzle velocity, the more likely it is to puncture armor plate.
Also remember that most AFVs have thick frontal armor, but progressively thinner armor on the sides, rear and roof.
Ergo, a dive bomber is far more likely to kill an AFV than a ground-mounted anti-tank gun firing the same 20 mm ammo.

We can recall that Polish and Danes made a number of kills by land-lubber 20mm cannons; Polish kills included the Pz-35(t)s.
A numerous force of fighters and 1-engined bombers armed with HS 404 with AP ammo can devastate a lot of AFVs Germans were using in 1940. There was no self-propelled Flak force around to protect them.
 
The manufacturing of the H.S. 404 was slow and costly. At the beginning of the war only 928 units had been delivered to l’Armée de l’Air and in March 1940 there were 2,319 units available.
- Breguets 690 needed 1*20 mm gun in the nose
- Bloch 152 / 155 series needed two of them (one per wing)
- motor-canon fighters from MS-406 to Arsenal VG-33 needed one in the nose
- and then the bombers needed it as defensive weapon

The AdA planned 9500 aircraft for spring 1941 or later.

Sooner or later, the four kind of aircraft described above, in need of HS-404, would have overtaken H.S slow and costly production.

Something would have to give, and my bet would be the bombers, as it made no sense as a defensive weapon...

Then again, LOGIC and COMMON SENSE were seemingly alien to late 1930's France, notably its politicans and military leaders...
 
Lützow, as an instructor at the fighter school at Schleißheim, cooperated with Wolfgang Falck and Hannes Trautloft on a fighter training manual which went by the title of "Der Jagdflieger in der Ausbildung" ('The Fighter Pilot in Training'), and was unofficially called "Der kleine Trautloft" ('The little Trautloft'). Lützow based on his Spanish Civil War experience considered a high muzzle velocity and highly destructive explosive rounds as superior to a larger number of rapid-fire (machine) guns, and the MG FF might indeed fall short of the "high muzzle velocity" criterion. Subsequently, Lützow was ordered to Berlin to formally evaluate the Spanish Civil War experience, and seems to have authored one or two more papers in 1938, so his thinking might indeed have influenced Luftwaffe decision in the way you described.

It is worth mentioning that the Luftwaffe were initially interested in a very high-velocity motor-cannon, the 2cm MG C/30L, which fired the same 20 x 138B ammunition as the Flak cannon. This was tested in a prototype He 112 in Spain, and found to be very effective in ground attack against vehicles but too slow-firing against aircraft (the rate of fire was 300-350 rpm). Ammunition supply was via a huge 100-round drum mounted under the gun. After that experience, the Luftwaffe chose a high rate of fire instead of high velocity (c. 1000 rpm for 2 x MG FF).

P.S. you can find details of the armament performance, as well as photos of the ammunition, here: https://www.quarryhs.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm
During the Spanish Civil War the He 112 V5 prototype (D-IIZO) was used in strafing missions achieving the destruction of three republican armoured vehicles piloted by the unteroffizier Max Schulze. I read stories about the He 112 V5 in which it is said that Schulze was prowling the Flak units of the Legion Condor asking for 20 mm ammunition for the cannon of the He 112 V5, which confirms that it is compatible with the Flak MG C/30L.
 
The AdA planned 9500 aircraft for spring 1941 or later.

Sooner or later, the four kind of aircraft described above, in need of HS-404, would have overtaken H.S slow and costly production.

Something would have to give, and my bet would be the bombers, as it made no sense as a defensive weapon...

Then again, LOGIC and COMMON SENSE were seemingly alien to late 1930's France, notably its politicans and military leaders...

AdA's plan for 9500 aircraft for spring of 1941 is/was devoid of common sense, too.
 
It would have been Kafka with wings.

Consider the fact that Allison V-1710 and Merlin variants of many existing types were considered (D-523, D-524, and the like) and same thing for radials, British Hercules and American Pratts (Breguet 695, Amiots 350, LeO-455, MB-176...)
Just because Hispano Suiza and G&R bosses were corrupt jerks unable to provide reliable engines and engines powerful enough - or both.

The Aviation ministry in France truly went in panic mode by 1938 and some definitively absurd decisions were made. "Aircraft, we need aircraft, lots of them !"

France literally raided US aircraft plants or even the USAAC reserves for anything that flew, trading aircraft against the country gold reserves.

Plans were made to build an Amiot 350 production plant in Louisiana, and Breguet 690s in Canada.

Not only P-36, but P-38, P-39, P-40 were also considered (the British got them instead).
Naval aircraft, dive bombers of every kind... and even very erly B-24 Liberators (LB-30s).

France ordered 50 Koolhoven FK-58 from Netherlands already unable to supply their own air force. Only 14 were delivered to the Armée de l'Air, which never wanted them in the first place. :oops:

I swear I saw somewhere Polikarpov I-16s were considered (but I wouldn't bet on that).

France ordered Caproni Ca-313 as tactical reconnaissance aircraft, 5 were delivered early June 1940... only days before Benny the moose declared war to France.
 
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The 'Panic Effect' caused by the Munich Agreement forced the French Government to carry out large massive purchases of foreign aircraft, initiating talks with the USSR for the acquisition of Polikarpov I-16 fighters, an operation that was cancelled after the German-Soviet non-aggression Pact. They placed orders for two-hundred Curtiss H.75A and hundred Curtiss H.81 (P-40) fighters to the USA and acquired forty Koolhoven FK.58 fighters to the Netherlands together with the license to manufacture them in Nevers-France. One Spitfire Mk.I was also purchased to Great Britain to study the compatibility of its engine with the D.520.

On March 1940 l’Armée de l’Air had 18 serviceable Koolhoven. During the Battle of France they were used to equip four Patrouilles de Défense piloted by Poles. On June 25 ten of them had survived the combats.

The Curtiss H.81 did not arrive in time to prevent the fall of France and they were transferred to the RAF, but the H.75A performed well, fighting on equal terms with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 D during the Phoney War and eluding the attacks of the Bf 109 E during the Battle of France, thanks to its greater manoeuvrability, but its armament of four machine guns proved to be insufficient to destroy German bombers.



During the period between both World Wars, the size and weight of the fighters was progressively augmented in parallel with the increasing power of the available engines. Against that general trend, there was a minority of aeronautical designers defending the small sized fighters, known as 'Jockey Fighters' at that time. This type of airplanes, if well designed, could generally compete in performance with the conventional fighters, using a less powerful engine, with an important save in fuel, manpower and strategic materials. They were also easier to maintain and store and their reduced size and weight helped to increase agility in combat, making more difficult to be seen by the rear gunners in the bombers, or by the pilots in the escort fighters, and their destruction required a higher consumption of ammunition.

At the beginning of World War II, the conventional fighters used to have 10 to 12 m of wingspan, operational weight of 2,500 to 3,500 kg and a maximum speed of 450 to 500 km/h. The light fighters of the time could be divided in two categories:

‘Jockey Fighters’, with less than 10 m. wingspan, maximum weight of 1,800 to 2,500 kg and the same speed than the conventional fighters.

‘Midget Fighters’, with less than 10 m wingspan, maximum weight of 600 to 1,800 kg and maximum speed of 350 to 400 km/h.



Potez 230​

The Potez 230 inherited the most advanced elliptical wing of the time, built with an integral torque box, from its ancestor, Les Mureaux 190 light fighter, developed during the 30s. The philosophy of design of the Potez 230 was based on the specification Chasseur Monoplace C1 (June 3, 1937), calling for one high-performance small airplane that could use some technical elements left aside by first line fighters.

Thus, the surplus of Hispano-Suiza H.S.12 Xcrs engines, H.S.9 cannons and MAC 34A machine guns coming from the obsolete Dewoitine D.510 fighters could go back to combat without overloading the French war production of H.S.12 Y-45, H.S.404 and MAC 34 M39, intended for the Dewoitine D.520. Would the new equipment be available in enough quantity, it would also had been used by the Potez 230 as it was compatible to both of them.

A prototype was built in the Potez C.A.M.S. factory of Sartrouville in 1939. During a series of tests performed in the Villacoublay test centre in March 1940, it reached the speed of 560 km/h being equipped with an H.S.12 Xcrs of just 680 hp (the Dewoitine D.520 reached 525 km/h and the Bf 109 E-1, 575 km/h with much more powerful engines). It was expected that the Potez 230 could fly at 622 km/h after the installation of one of the new H.S.12 Y-45 of 910 hp but it was captured by German forces in June and translated to a technical research centre of the Luftwaffe to study the wing construction system.

Technical data

Engine: one 680 hp Hispano-Suiza H.S.12 Xcrs twelve-cylinder ‘Vee’ liquid-cooled, driving a three-bladed Ratier airscrew with pneumatic variable-pitch. Armament: one 20 mm engine-mounted H.S.9 cannon and four 7.5 mm. MAC 34A machine guns mounted under the wings. Wingspan: 8.74 m, length: 7.57 m, height: 2.18 m, wing area: 10.97 sq.m, maximum weight: 1,800 kg, maximum speed: 560 kph.



Roussel R.30​

The Roussel R.30 was conceived as a private venture ‘Jockey Fighter’ in answer to the Programme technique A.23 (12 January 1937) that required a light fighter able to fly at 520 km/h. Construction of the prototype began at Courbevoie, flying for the first time equipped with a 690 hp Gnôme-Rhône 14 M7 engine in April 1939.

In August 1939 it was transferred to the Centre d’Essais du Matériel Aérien (C.E.M.A.) for official trials, as a result of which it was recommended to install a more powerful engine to better use its excellent flying performances. During the Battle of France, the airplane was armed with two 20 mm Oerlikon FFS cannons mounted in the wings and some tests were performed for the installation of a bomb rack under the fuselage.

In combat, the R.30 could have destroyed any Luftwaffe bomber thanks to its high fire power of 2 Kg/sec, 2.8 times that of the Bf 109 E-1. In ground attack mode it would have had more possibilities to survive the Flak than the unfortunate Breguet 693 of the GBA 54 due to its high speed and small size. The only prototype was destroyed in Bordeaux-Mérignac airbase during a He111 bomb raid.

Technical data

Engine: one 690 hp Gnôme-Rhône 14 M7 of fourteen-cylinder, air-cooled radial driving a Ratier 1527 airscrew with electrically adjusted pitch. Armament: two 20 mm Oerlikon FFS cannons and one 250 kg G.P. bomb. Wingspan: 7.75 m, length: 6.15 m, height: 2.10 m, wing surface: 10 sq.m, maximum weight: 1,766 kg, maximum speed: 520 kph at 6,000 m.

Bloch M.B.700​

The Bloch M.B.700 was also designed as an answer to the Programme technique A.23. This small interceptor differentiated from the Roussel in that it was built from wood. This fact made its mass production easier as it did not require strategic materials that could be used for the Dewoitine D.520 conventional fighter. Outwardly, it looked like an 83% scaled down version of the conventional fighter Bloch M.B.152. The main advantage of the M.B.700 reduced size was that while equipped with an engine with 75% the power of an M.B.152, it flew 80 kph faster, still carrying the same armament, and was a more difficult target in dog-fight.

In 1939 a prototype was built in the Blériot-Aéronautique of Suresnes, flying for the first time by mid-April 1940. During the flight tests made on 13 May, it reached a maximum speed of just 380 kph, instead of the expected 580 km/h. As a consequence, the Mercier engine cowling and clear canopy were modified, and external plates were installed in the main undercarriage.

The airplane was destroyed shortly afterwards by the German troops in Buc airfield. There was a plan for a shipboard variant named M.B. 720 with tail hook and the armament reduced to four MAC 1934 M 39 machine guns.

Technical data

Engine: one 700 hp Gnôme-Rhône 14 M6 fourteen-cylinder, air-cooled radial engine driving a Gnôme Rhône variable-pitch airscrew. Armament: two 20 mm Hispano-Suiza H.S. 404 cannons and two 7.5 mm MAC 1934 M39 belt-feed machine guns mounted in the wings. Wingspan: 8.9 m, length: 7.34 m, height: 3.4 m, wing surface: 12.4 sq.m, maximum weight: 2,000 kg, maximum speed: 550 kph.



Caudron C.R. 714​

On 12 July 1934 the Service Technique de l’Aéronautique laid down the Programme Technique de Chasseur Léger C.1, a specification for a light weight interceptor with a maximum speed of 400 kph and armed with four machine guns. The original specification was amended in August 22 dividing it in two categories: one for aircraft powered by 800-1,000 hp engines, armed with a cannon and two machine guns, and another for 450-500 hp engines and two cannons. On 17 December 1934 the maximum speed rose to 450 kph and on 16 November 1935 to 500 kph. The winner of the first category was the Morane-Saulnier M.S.405, winning the production of the 860 hp Hispano-Suiza H.S.12 Y engines.

In the second category were competing small manufacturers and designers of racer airplanes experienced in obtaining the maximum speed with minimum power, often using self-made engines. The success achieved by the Caudron racers, encourage designer Marcel Riffard to build the C.710 and C.713 prototypes, two wooden, cannon-armed, light fighters capable of flying to 455-470 kph powered by a 450 hp Renault 12 R.01 engine. On December 1937 l’Armée de l’Air dismissed its serial construction in favor of the Arsenal VG 30, much faster and with better climb rate.

On November 1938, to meet the requirements of Plan V, l’Armée de l’Air ordered the production of 200 units of the C.R. 714 model, an aerodynamically improved version, with a 450 hp Renault 12 R.03, twelve-cylinder, air-cooled, inverted-Vee engine and four MAC 1934 M39 machine guns. The order was later reduced to only 20 aircraft when all the spruce stocks were assigned to the massive construction program of the Arsenal VG 33.

On January 1940 the C.R. 714 were handed over to l’Armée de l’Air who used them as advanced trainers at l’École de Chasse et d’Instruction Polonaise. The G.C. I/145 was formed during the Battle of France with M.S. 406 and C.R. 714 fighters piloted by Poles who claimed the destruction of four Bf 109 and four Do 17. The formula was perfectioned with the C.R. 760 and C.R. 770 prototypes, powered by 730-800 hp engines and armed with six MAC, but both were destroyed to prevent their capture by the Germans.

C.A.P.R.A. R.300​

The midget fighters usually are a good defensive solution when a country feels threatened and needs to quickly increase its production of combat airplanes. The C.A.P.R.A. R.R.20 was a small racer airplane designed by Roger Robert in 1938 to compete in the Coupe Deutsch 1939 race. After the declaration of war the project was modified to be used as a fighter-trainer under the name R.30 or as the R.300 Midget Fighter.

Entirely built in metal, the R.30 would be powered by a 360 hp Bèarn 6C-1, six-cylinder in-line air-cooled engine, with which it was expected to reach 539 kph maximum speed and 9,500 m service ceiling. The wings, spanning 7.5 m with sq.m surface, would serve as housing for the hyper- sustentation system, the Messier landing gear and the armament, possibly two MAC 34A machine guns for the R.300 version. Not a single unit was built.
 

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Some tidbits I found recently: apparently the French Président du Conseil Aristide Briand rejected the proposal of the creation of an independent AdA in 1929.

Second, apparently the average age of French machine tooling was 20 years in 1932 against 7 years in Germany. Germany had at the time 70k qualified workers in the machine tooling industry against 10k French.
 
Well, most of the Potez 63s built were the Potez 63.11, the reconnaissance version with the raised cockpit and the glazed nose. This was slower that the fighter/attack versions and essentially unarmed. Theoretically it could take four 50 kg bombs, but only if you dismounted the cameras first, which was time consuming and had to be done by specialists. Ironically the 637, derived from the 631, but with a ventral observer's position, was faster than the 63.11, but seen as an interim model. They really wanted the 63.11.
This for me is the main single thing you could do to improve the capability of the AdA: build something else than the 63.11, an attack version of the 631, for instance, or even Br 693s of Vultee Vengeances if you must.
Also, according to my data, the main difference between the 630 and the 631 is the engine; HS for the 630 and GR for the 631.

With 730 Potez 63.11 build, any armed variant instead can only help.

For the sake of comparison, its former rival Breguet 690 produced
- 78 Br.691
- 128 Br.693
206 aircraft, of which 78 were unusable.

128 Breguet 693 is six times less than the Potez 63.11 alone, and eight times less than the total number of Potez 63 built.

Makes one think...
Well, maybe Potez had more production capacity than Breguet at the time, and due to the Breguet not getting its engines as early as the Potez it was substantially delayed to production. The Breguet was a slightly better airframe aerodynamically, but as it first flew later than the Potez due to a lack of test engines it was not chosen as the primary aircraft of the type.
Yes. The Bréguet 690 was a private initiative of Breguet from 1935 (therefore outside the 1934 program which saw the choice of the Potez 63). But as Breguet had refused the nationalization of his company, Minister Pierre Cot retained its engines, which arrived 11 months late .. The Br. 690 then showing excellent performance ..
 
Maybe if the Bloch-Potez megacorp of 1934 (with numerous smaller companies bought by them, including Lorraine) actually worked and endured as a powerful corporation and retooled itself rather than being a loose conglomerate of small companies that don't cooperate and synergise with each other... A revitalized Lorraine competing with HS and GR in the powerful aircraft engine market under the auspices of Potez and Bloch...
 
the Bloch-Potez megacorp of 1934

I never heard about this, but it seems to have big ATL potential.

Potez and Bloch were born the same year or so (1892) and they had the same banker: Abel François Chirac (yes, CHIRAC, as in JACQUES CHIRAC. Guess why ? it was his father.)

I suppose the "megacorp" you mention was eviscerated in 1936 - since Potez-Méaulte become SNCA-Nord, and Bloch in Talence (near Bordeaux) part of SNCASO ?

About these nationalizations, Potez, Bloch, and Chirac Sr. went into weird business with the government, with all kind of bizarre deals.

Potez, notably, created a "new private Potez" company in 1937; he put Chirac Sr. as manager... and then got himself re-hired by the SNCA-Nord, now in shambles after a botched nationalization.

So by 1938 there were kind of TWO potez companies, one private, one public !

The government gave money to Potez and Bloch as compensations for seizing their companies. Banker Chirac helped them to re-create private aviation companies with the said money.

strange days !
 
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the Bloch-Potez megacorp of 1934

I never heard about this, but it seems to have big ATL potential.

Potez and Bloch were born the same year or so (1892) and they had the same banker: Abed François Chirac (yes, CHIRAC, as in JACQUES CHIRAC. Guess why ? it was his father.)

I suppose the "megacorp" you mention was eviscerated in 1936 - since Potez-Méaulte become SNCA-Nord, and Bloch in Talence (near Bordeaux) part of SNCASO ?

About these nationalizations, Potez, Bloch, and Chirac Sr. went into weird business with the government, with all kind of bizarre deals.

Potez, notably, created a "new private Potez" company in 1937; he put Chirac Sr. as manager... and then got himself re-hired by the SNCA-Nord, now in shambles after a botched nationalization.

So by 1938 there were kind of TWO potez companies, one private, one public !

The government gave money to Potez and Bloch as compensations for seizing their companies. Banker Chirac helped them to re-create private aviation companies with the said money.

strange days !
This was formed between 1932 and 1934 as part of the centralisation policy encouraged by the Air Ministry. Potez and Bloch made deals to buy out numerous small manufacturers, among which CAMS, ANF Les Mureaux, SAB (Société Aérienne Bordelaise), Motobloc and Lorraine (engine and automobile part at least).
Unfortunately, Potez and Bloch mostly exploited that policy to increase their factory surface and thus get more aircraft orders, but production wasn't rationally distributed, the design bureaus weren't really working together and tooling wasn't really modernised that much in most places. The group would need to be disciplined by a politician who is also willing to cooperate with the industry and provide the financial means to retool.

IMO, Paul Reynaud might be the man for the job if he becomes War or Finance Minister as he was in favor of rearmament and industrial revitalization, was well-versed in defence matters and wanted the state to help the corporations and orient their efforts without actual nationalisations. He might also see through the shenanigans of Potez and Bloch.
Ideal option might be Doumergue following Reynaud's and André Tardieu's advice on the state reform and retiring after the resulting snap elections in 1934, with Tardieu becoming Président du Conseil, Reynaud at Finance or War Ministry (Pétain at war if Reynaud picks Finance, maybe) and other industrialist politicians like Amaury de La Grange being involved. That should avoid the Front Populaire-style govt and ensures proper funding with "bellicists"* in power.

*bellicists in the sense that they were in favor of rearmament and a hard line against the Germans to save peace, as opposed to the pacifism of Flandin on the right or most of the French left.


In any case, a proper use of the companies against the Bloch-Potez megacorp would provide great synergies. Potez "teaching" Bloch about mass producible aircrafts and better aerodynamics, Lorraine improving on the Petrel and Sterna engines for the aircrafts developped by the corp, ANF being experienced with smaller aircrafts...​
 
The impact of the First World War runs through this thread. In France even more than in Britain this war had been an apocalypse which effected every family.
Only 20 years separated Munich from Versailles.
The impact in both France and Britain of a pathological desire to avoid war was great.
Unlike World War 2 which was seen as a clearly necessary struggle against German aggression, the Great War as it was known was seen as a tragic mistake by muddle-headed politicians.
Rearmament from 1934 took place against widespread public horror that money needed for social improvements was being squandered on "armaments".
"Deterrence" of war was used to justify the expenditure, especially by Chamberlain. But Hitler could not be detered.
Sorry to mention politics but it is important to understand the influences at work on the politicians, military and industrialists. Wishful thinking seems short-sighted to us but for them it was all they could imagine to stop the nightmare of war.
 
The impact of the First World War runs through this thread. In France even more than in Britain this war had been an apocalypse which effected every family.
Only 20 years separated Munich from Versailles.
The impact in both France and Britain of a pathological desire to avoid war was great.
Unlike World War 2 which was seen as a clearly necessary struggle against German aggression, the Great War as it was known was seen as a tragic mistake by muddle-headed politicians.
Rearmament from 1934 took place against widespread public horror that money needed for social improvements was being squandered on "armaments".
"Deterrence" of war was used to justify the expenditure, especially by Chamberlain. But Hitler could not be detered.
Sorry to mention politics but it is important to understand the influences at work on the politicians, military and industrialists. Wishful thinking seems short-sighted to us but for them it was all they could imagine to stop the nightmare of war.
Pacifism was prevalent everywhere, but that alone doesn't explain why the armed forces had to be weak. At the military level at least there was always intense debate on what should be done. On the political level, the partisans of proper deterrence were less prevalent but still had their chance to win.

Many, if not most high-ranking officers were in favor of transforming the army with new weapons (vehicles, aircrafts) ever since 1919, and wanted an army capable of maneuvering to defend the country. By the late 1920s-early 30s when the smaller conscription classes were soon expected, motorization/mechanization was deemed even more important as it could allow reduction in required troop numbers while maintaining capability.
In the debate about fortifications, what became the Maginot Line was also not well-liked. In fact most of the officers in the commission on fortifications wanted only to fortify very specific areas of the border to facilitate French troop movements, and they were opposed to the concept of "inviolability of the territory". They felt that a more ambitious defensive line would force the Army into a defensive doctrine and reduce funding for motorization, preventing any movement into enemy territory. The prevalent idea among many officers was to rush to the Rhine as it was a natural defensive line.

However, for the socialist and radical-socialist-leaning governments of the late 1920s and early 30s, a large defensive army with a low conscription time (1 year) and large fortifications was preferred. New weapons were mostly dismissed by them for the entire 1920s, leading to a relative lack of experiments compared to other countries during that period and poor experience with mass production.
 
The impact of the First World War runs through this thread. In France even more than in Britain this war had been an apocalypse which effected every family.
Only 20 years separated Munich from Versailles.
The impact in both France and Britain of a pathological desire to avoid war was great.
Unlike World War 2 which was seen as a clearly necessary struggle against German aggression, the Great War as it was known was seen as a tragic mistake by muddle-headed politicians.
Rearmament from 1934 took place against widespread public horror that money needed for social improvements was being squandered on "armaments".
"Deterrence" of war was used to justify the expenditure, especially by Chamberlain. But Hitler could not be detered.
Sorry to mention politics but it is important to understand the influences at work on the politicians, military and industrialists. Wishful thinking seems short-sighted to us but for them it was all they could imagine to stop the nightmare of war.

Imagine leaving through these times

July 31, 1934: WWI beginning + 20 years
November 11, 1938: Armistice + 20 years
More amusingly: July 14, 1939: French revolution, Bastille day +150 years !

The two dates are very striking and somewhat ironic, considering what happened in May 1940. They are also quite revealing...

November 11, 1938 "Geez, 20 years ago 1.4 million men died, and for what ? back to square one..."

July 14, 1939 Bastille day + 150 years. That day was a huge military parade of a seemingly all powerful French Army and Air Force... (sigh) Weygand famously said "Ah, sure, what a parade... French Army never has been so strong !"

He must have felt weird only 10 months later, May 19, 1940... when Gamelin crétin was fired and he was called back in emergency to replace him.
To his credit, he did an honest job in early June (June 5 to June 9, say). Only to became a traitor as much as Pétain and Huntziger... he knew he wouldn't do any miracle with 64 divisions left against 145 German ones, and as such the idea of an Armistice was in his mind right from May 22 - and exactly a month later, it drove him to Vichy.

Sic transit gloria mundi...

These two dates are revealing how skizophrenic France had become.
 
The manufacturing of the H.S. 404 was slow and costly. At the beginning of the war only 928 units had been delivered to l’Armée de l’Air and in March 1940 there were 2,319 units available.
- Breguets 690 needed 1*20 mm gun in the nose
- Bloch 152 / 155 series needed two of them (one per wing)
- motor-canon fighters from MS-406 to Arsenal VG-33 needed one in the nose
- and then the bombers needed it as defensive weapon

The AdA planned 9500 aircraft for spring 1941 or later.

Sooner or later, the four kind of aircraft described above, in need of HS-404, would have overtaken H.S slow and costly production.

Something would have to give, and my bet would be the bombers, as it made no sense as a defensive weapon...

Then again, LOGIC and COMMON SENSE were seemingly alien to late 1930's France, notably its politicans and military leaders...
Yes, but it was not just guns that gave or not entirely at least. Propellers, gun sights, exhaust manifolds, and instruments were all in short supply. The reason was not so much demand as failure of the distribution system. The necessities were often available, but not where they were needed and with no way of transporting them.
 
It would have been Kafka with wings.

Consider the fact that Allison V-1710 and Merlin variants of many existing types were considered (D-523, D-524, and the like) and same thing for radials, British Hercules and American Pratts (Breguet 695, Amiots 350, LeO-455, MB-176...)
Just because Hispano Suiza and G&R bosses were corrupt jerks unable to provide reliable engines and engines powerful enough - or both.

The Aviation ministry in France truly went in panic mode by 1938 and some definitively absurd decisions were made. "Aircraft, we need aircraft, lots of them !"

France literally raided US aircraft plants or even the USAAC reserves for anything that flew, trading aircraft against the country gold reserves.

Plans were made to build an Amiot 350 production plant in Louisiana, and Breguet 690s in Canada.

Not only P-36, but P-38, P-39, P-40 were also considered (the British got them instead).
Naval aircraft, dive bombers of every kind... and even very erly B-24 Liberators (LB-30s).

France ordered 50 Koolhoven FK-58 from Netherlands already unable to supply their own air force. Only 14 were delivered to the Armée de l'Air, which never wanted them in the first place. :oops:

I swear I saw somewhere Polikarpov I-16s were considered (but I wouldn't bet on that).

France ordered Caproni Ca-313 as tactical reconnaissance aircraft, 5 were delivered early June 1940... only days before Benny the moose declared war to France.
The Caproni order was probably diplomatic, at least in part--aneffort to keep the Duce from signing up with Germany by emphasizing the old alliance and future economic ties between the countries. I believe that the RAF considered ordering the Re.2000 as well. The Caproni firm had a lot of influence.
 

Picking up on this thread from late last year, I have been reading up on and speculating about French aviation before and during WWII. The well-known Caudron C.714 in which the Polish pilots demonstrated their skill and bravery around Lyon in 1940 despite an inferior mount was a retractable gear, wood and fabric, 500 hp light fighter with four rifle-caliber machine guns that managed a maximum speed of 465 kph at 1400/1750 kg empty/gross weight.

The C.714 (1938) was derived from the earlier retractable gear C.713 (1937), which was itself a retractable gear version of the fixed gear C.710 (1936). Both earlier designs were armed with 2 x 20mm cannon instead of the 4 x 7.5mm machine guns of the C.714 and look at the speeds. The C.713 was the fastest of the three, achieving 470 kph at 1300/1665 kg empty/gross weight. But the original fixed gear C.710 (1936) could already do 455 kph at 1243/1645 kg empty gross weight.

Since the C.714 was the only one to become operational, it’s logical that it became the heaviest with additional military equipment, but the 57 kg jump in empty weight from the C.710 to the C.713 seems entirely due to the retractable gear. Was it really worth it in the end for such a small speed gain, just 15 kph or about 9 mph?

What if the French had just adopted and fielded the C.710 in 1937, refining the design based on operations and expanding the woodworking shops so that there would have been hundreds available to face the Nazi invasion? A special racing version of the Renault 12R engine made 730 hp, which was certainly not sustainable, but tweaking the engine for just 50 or 100 hp more would have made a big difference.

As it was, the C.710 was fast enough and certainly well enough armed to hunt the Stuka and Henschel dive bombers and even the Do-17 bombers while more capable Dewoitine, Morane-Saulnier, and Bloch fighters dealt with the Bf-109s, Bf-110s, and fast He-111 bombers. Swarms of small Caudron fixed-gear light fighters with twin 20mm cannon would have been a nightmare for Luftwaffe attack aircraft and light bombers.

On top of that, the Renault 12R was quite heavy for its power, 429 kg dry weight for 500 hp. Something like the excellent and relatively small Gnome-Rhône 14M radial was putting out 635 hp at this time and 700 or 750 hp by the war. It's not hard to imagine a switch to the radial for an improved model that was not much if any faster but could climb faster and carry more weight of weapons, even some armor for the pilot, fuel, and engine. Just for fun, here is a tight 1.0 m cowling around a 0.95 m diameter Gnome-Rhône 14M to scale with the C.710. It would have required a wider fuselage and longer landing gear for propeller clearance but it could have worked.

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There are certainly countless designs that could have done wonders. Unfortunately the entire life cycle of French combat aircraft was broken. There was severe rot, at every level.

At FFO (France Fights On) one smart fellow has picked an OTL unfortunate rival of the MS-406, the Loire-Nieuport 160 series. And spun an interesting TL out of it, complete with solid numbers.

On the fighter front are many options.

- Dewoitine in 1936-37 doesn't screw the D-513 - missing link between the 500-510 and 520, and a failure that pushed the 520 to 10/1938
- Bloch pulls out a Mirage with the MB-150 (before the MB-157 and 1942 would be nice !)
- Loire Nieuport 160 beats MS-406 into submission
- Arsenal saves the day with the VG-30 series
- a dark horse like the Caudron 710 LWF saves the day
- American types are bought earlier, the H-75 did wonders
- then how about the XP-37, first atempt at an in-line P-36 ?
 
... here is a tight 1.0 m cowling around a 0.95 m diameter Gnome-Rhône 14M to scale with the C.710. It would have required a wider fuselage and longer landing gear for propeller clearance but it could have worked.​

Yes, the Bloch MB 700 C1 prototype shows just how much longer the undercarriage legs on your GR 14M-powered Caudron would need to be. With that in mind, Caudron might also have considered moving those fixed legs inboard to the stub wing.

Since we're talking about alternative timelines here, what if Blériot-SPAD had survived 1936 in some more intact form and André Herbemont began the design of what became the MB 700 earlier? After all, the MB 700 was both GR 14M-powered and optionally armed with twin Hispano 404s.

I'm imagining development of the S 710 biplane being abandoned. That would speed up design work on the MB 700 C1 ... perhaps as the 'Blériot-SPAD S 700 C1'?
 

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Some tidbits I found recently: apparently the French Président du Conseil Aristide Briand rejected the proposal of the creation of an independent AdA in 1929.

Second, apparently the average age of French machine tooling was 20 years in 1932 against 7 years in Germany. Germany had at the time 70k qualified workers in the machine tooling industry against 10k French.

That does not surprise me. France aircraft industry boomed until 1919, then within barely two years it was eviscerated and burned to the ground. To such extend, it took until 1952 to truly start recovering. Atempts made in 1928, 1934 and 1946-48 failed miserably.
 
1- Armée de l'air has a need, writes a RFP (fiche programme)
2- RFP send to 15 or even 20 aircraft makers as of 1935
3- Aviation company digest the RFP, goes to the drawing board, send a technical file to the Armée de l'Air
4- AdA selects 3 best files, asks for three prototypes
5- Prototypes are build and flown and tested. One is declared a winner, other is kept as backup
6- Winner starts industrialization, building airframes
7- Airframes need: propeller, engine, undercarriage, weapons, sights, radios... accessories, by large.
8- Complete aircraft rolls out of production lines, weapons included
9- They are ferried to combat units by old pilots or women or whatever non combattant can fly them
10- They are taken into service by mechanics
11- And by well trained pilots:
12 -To combat, with the correct tactics

Ok ? that's 12 basic steps in the birth, life and eventual death of a combat aircraft.

Well, I SWEAR that, in 1939 France, every single of this 12 steps, was deeply flawed.

Every.single.of.them
.

From craddle to combat to grave, the life cycle of a 1939 french combat aircraft was an agony.
 
1. The French British Purchasing Commission had carte blanche to buy needed weapons etc. in 1938-39. Start that sooner. More DB7s would have reached combat if they'd been ordered earlier.

2. Regarding the ideas to build French-weaponry-specific factories in Louisiana or Quebec...where French-speaking workers were available, simplifying documentation and management...or in Savannah: good ideas, but movement on the French side was far too slow. What was the holdup? If the authority existed to buy weapons, why not get going on a capability to make what you'd otherwise have someone else make?

2a. Sometimes factories must be justified by more than one weapon category or type. One sometimes-discussed focus for the Savannah complex was to be the next generation of tanks--perhaps the G tank, following on the S and B generations. While Savannah had plenty of hard-worker availability and good enough infrastructure, that part of Georgia had no experience with such mechanical manufacturing. History shows that the best place for WWII US automotive manufacturing was the Midwest, where the largest concentration of worker experience, subject-knowledgeable engineers and managers, and specialized suppliers existed. Access to those resources would have outweighed any transient significance of language issues.

2b. Packard was able to arrange a license to build Merlin engines in USA, for use in British and US aircraft. Perhaps a license to build Merlin engines in a US or French factory for use in French aircraft could have been arranged.

3. One of Europe's best weapon manufacturers, Fabrique Nationale in Herstal, Belgium, was underutilized by France. Enter into an agreement with FN that they will receive substantial contracts if they build a second factory in France, far from potential invasion areas, and produce equivalent value to the French orders there. France keeps the jobs, and gets more weapons manufacturing capability.

3a. Late-1930s French aircraft often were armed with either rifle caliber MGs with low destructive power, or autocannon that were physically very large. FN's versions of the classic Browning heavy machinegun were 13.2mm rather than the 12.7mm of the original Browning design, but offered the same external dimensions as US made guns, and in general provided a very favorable balance of lethality and mounting considerations. In particular, in 1939 FN developed a unique 13.2mm x 99 HEI/HEIT shell for their family of HMGs that was very efficient in testing against metal aircraft skins and internals. HEI/HEIT was a capability that no one had been able to develop for 12.7mm Browning HMGs...the necessary fuze being just too difficult to make reliable at that slightly smaller size. FN 13,2mm aircraft HMGs had a slightly slower ROF than US 12.7mm guns, but because their projectiles were somewhat heavier, their throw weight per unit time was almost exactly equal. Even though the French military already distributed 13.2mm x 99 HMG ammo for its ground Hotchkiss HMGs, FN was unable to gain designed-in status for its 13.2mm HMG family in any French aircraft, even though France was buying US aircraft engineered and built for Browning HMGs, and gaining the destructive-capability increase of FN's 13.2mm guns would have been a bolt-in swap. That was an unforced error.

3b. A relationship with FN would be most productive if it encompassed other French needs beyond those related to aircraft and for whatever reason, not adequately met by existing suppliers. France also needed more and better SMGs for the infantry. Again, FN could have helped.

3c. French ability to project force via aircraft depends to a considerable extent on French ground forces' understanding of the value of air power. In that regard, French ground forces often made impossible demands for protection from German air attack by insufficient French air resources that would have been better allocated toward other air missions. That occurred partly because France had far too little light AA capability. Hotchkiss offered several 13.2mm HMG weapons...a man- or animal-drawn cart single gun mount, and various vehicle single- or multiple-gun mounts...but all were rejected because the bullets eventually would fall back to earth and were thought to be a hazard to friendly personnel. The hazard of unopposed German ground attack aircraft apparently was thought of lesser importance. In particular, Hotchkiss HMGs firing FN's 13,2mm x 99 HEI/HEIT might have been relatively effective against low altitude aircraft.

4. France also had far too little medium AA capability, even though they had all of the pieces in production for export. In particular, Hotchkiss's naval-mount single and dual gun versions of their 25mm autocannon, in the CAMle1940 increased-ROF version, readily could have been mounted to all-terrain, high-mobility platforms like the Laffly S25TL truck chassis. That gun family, in a 2/3-ROF earlier-design licensed version, proved inadequate for the Japanese against 1943-44 US aircraft. In 1940 French service, though, it would have been far better than nothing at all.

5. Part of France's problems with understanding air power and using it sensibly evolved from insufficient French ability to hold back ground assaults that too rapidly overran forward French air facilities, resulting in loss of air assets on the ground. France's Edgar Brandt company was the 1940 world leader in practical HEAT ordnance, and a world leader in tungsten-carbide-core ordnance. Some histories say that the French Army had ordered and received 75,000 or 150,000 rounds of Brandt's 50mm HEAT rifle grenade along with associated rifle adapters, but this already-received ordnance was not provided to front line troops because training materials had not yet been developed for it and there was a concern that it would be used inefficiently.

5a. Similarly, Brandt had developed a tungsten-carbide-core round for France's ubiquitous Mle1897-based 75mm artillery pieces, which provided a better-than-doubled armor penetration capability at much longer range. A few rounds were fielded, but not enough to make a difference...even though France unlike Germany had plenty of tungsten availability.

5b. And, Brandt had developed a 75mm HEAT round that would have allowed low-velocity artillery pieces, including infantry support guns, to have good defensive lethality against attacking 1940-era AFVs. A significant stockpile of such guns, removed from WWI infantry support tanks, was sitting unused in warehouses. That round wasn't bought by the Army at all.
 
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Loved every single word of the above post.

1. The French British Purchasing Commission had carte blanche to buy needed weapons etc. in 1938-39. Start that sooner. More DB7s would have reached combat if they'd been ordered earlier.

It all started in March 1938 with the Anschluss crisis, not sure France could accelerate the move. The US aircraft industry was a colossus, but a very sleepy one - before roaring in anger by 1942.

What could be done would be to cut into the (hopeless) French designs funding, and "transfer" the money to US purchases. But that would be seen as a huge betrayal by both French Right and French Left, altogether - nationalistic proudness versus employement of empoverished french workers, no way in both cases.
 
About Brandt: I can tell you that in the FFO / FTL, your Brandt 5 & 5a & 5b ideas are brought to fruition after June 13, 1940. With stellar results, even if it is too late to stop the WM juggernault.

The WM ends with 67000 casualties and the fight only stops at the Spanish border, near Banyuls - on August 7, 1940.

It was considered OTL. Dewoitine 522 or 523 or 524 (can't remember) were V-1710 and Merlin variants of Dewoitine's fighter.

FN Herstal I suppose ? Belgium powerful MG manufacturer. Sigh. Belgium was yet another big missed opportunity for France (another one to add on top of a big pile). All the way from February 1934 (that king who broke his neck on a mountain and disliked neutrality) to May 11 1940 - the Belgians tried to help and fought like lions, somewhat putting the far larger French armies to shame.

Note that Gamelin was secretely but directly chatting with the Belgian King who (unlike Gamelin) carefully red his intelligence reports. Early May Leopold warned Gamelin that 7 panzer divisions were moving toward the south of Germany and the south of Belgium - toward the Ardennes.
Gamelin just sat on the intel and did nothing.
 
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. . . In particular, in 1939 FN developed a unique 13.2mm x 99 HEI/HEIT shell for their family of HMGs that was very efficient in testing against metal aircraft skins and internals. HEI/HEIT was a capability that no one had been able to develop for 12.7mm Browning HMGs...the necessary fuze being just too difficult to make reliable at that slightly smaller size.
Very interesting post, a few things there I didn't know about including this ammunition.

One quibble: it wasn't unique. The Italians were quite enamored of their own 12.7mm HE (good diagram here) and the Japanese also used a 12.7mm HE (IIRC this came from the Italians).
 
. . . In particular, in 1939 FN developed a unique 13.2mm x 99 HEI/HEIT shell for their family of HMGs that was very efficient in testing against metal aircraft skins and internals. HEI/HEIT was a capability that no one had been able to develop for 12.7mm Browning HMGs...the necessary fuze being just too difficult to make reliable at that slightly smaller size.
Very interesting post, a few things there I didn't know about including this ammunition.

One quibble: it wasn't unique. The Italians were quite enamored of their own 12.7mm HE (good diagram here) and the Japanese also used a 12.7mm HE (IIRC this came from the Italians).

It was an interesting post! And good point about the Italian HE (and HEI-T) which wasn't available on the original Vickers rounds.

On the 13.2 mm: The Hotchkiss HMG chambered for the 13.2x99mm Hotchkiss Long did better on the export market. The French thought that the round resulted in excessive barrel wear so the cartridge was redesigned as the 13.2x96 mm Hotchkiss Short (thereby losing the advantage of using the 'known' Browning casing). Of course, there's nothing distinctly French about fussing with a successful existing system until all advantage has been designed out!

One question: Did the Armée de Terre and Armée de l'Air share ammunition supply streams? If not, it probably would have been simpler - especially for foreign-buit fighters like the Hawk 75As - to stick with 12.7x99mm. That way, if supplies of Browning machine guns from FN Herstal were disrupted, they could have been source directly from the US (albeit, at a premium).

BTW, an argument could also be made for French flexible 12.7s as well. The AdA had relied upon the high ROF of their 7.5 mm guns. But it was soon realized that a single 7.5 mm MAC 1934T provided inadequate defensive firepower. In OLT, this resulted in SAMM being overloaded by demands for multi-gun mounts (as well as desperate 'wobble-mount' installations). How much simpler it would have been to switch to a single 12.7 mm flexible gun mount.
 
One question: Did the Armée de Terre and Armée de l'Air share ammunition supply streams? If not, it probably would have been simpler - especially for foreign-buit fighters like the Hawk 75As - to stick with 12.7x99mm.

My understanding is that even the Army Infantry and the Army Cavalry didn't share supply streams...or weapon/vehicle choices, or purchasing processes. The Third Republic's military was very good (i.e. bad) at bureaucracy

A side note: the US design of the P36 originally was armed with one Colt-Browning .30 caliber MG and one Colt-Browning .50 caliber MG. My understanding though is that the delivered French 75s were armed per French specifications with six FN-Herstal 7.5mm MGs. Likewise, the delivered Martin 167s were armed with FN Herstal 7.5mm MGs, and the DB7s with either FN Herstal 7.5mms or similar French-built guns. So, while the point you made would be valid for later arriving aircraft that were engineered around multiple Browning HMGs and would have been more difficult to convert to 7.5mm caliber, such as the P40, it didn't apply to those OTL-pre-Armistice-received US-built aircraft.
 
One question: Did the Armée de Terre and Armée de l'Air share ammunition supply streams? If not, it probably would have been simpler - especially for foreign-buit fighters like the Hawk 75As - to stick with 12.7x99mm.

My understanding is that even the Army Infantry and the Army Cavalry didn't share supply streams...or weapon/vehicle choices, or purchasing processes. The Third Republic's military was very good (i.e. bad) at bureaucracy
In 1936, there was a note from an Infantry officer who suggested unifying the cavalry and infantry light tank programs (cavalry one is AMC 34/35 program, not the program for SOMUA), since requirements were quite close. G1 started out with nearly identical reqs to SOMUA S35 (or uparmored version), and it would have made sense to adopt that in the interim for the Infantry since the spirit of G1 originally was to supply required numbers of battle tanks to meet the program for 1934-38/40 while being cheaper and more mass producible than B1, and more mobile than both B1 and D2 (the latter being kind of a failure).

Unfortunately the program was hijacked to make a "better B1" which might have been fine on its own (kinda B1 Ter but earlier and more practical), and then a super tank, but both those routes
- didn't meet the timeline to actually equip pre-40 forces
- would be expensive
- killed the cheap 20t mobile tank program until it was revived in 1940 as the successor to the light tanks, far too late
Loved every single word of the above post.

1. The French British Purchasing Commission had carte blanche to buy needed weapons etc. in 1938-39. Start that sooner. More DB7s would have reached combat if they'd been ordered earlier.

It all started in March 1938 with the Anschluss crisis, not sure France could accelerate the move. The US aircraft industry was a colossus, but a very sleepy one - before roaring in anger by 1942.

What could be done would be to cut into the (hopeless) French designs funding, and "transfer" the money to US purchases. But that would be seen as a huge betrayal by both French Right and French Left, altogether - nationalistic proudness versus employement of empoverished french workers, no way in both cases.
The bigger problem is that US products were VERY expensive, and propping up the US while neglecting your own industry may end up being worse in the long term for the money invested. For all its faults, the French aeronautic industry was getting there by 1940 and it didn't succeed only because France lost that year anyway. But the weak AdA wasn't the biggest factor behind the defeat.

In any case, if you want to spend a lot of dollars and are already willing to make the prideful French industry mad, you might as well spend them hiring help from US engineers/companies/managers to fix it and the aircrafts. The still kinda inexperienced Bloch got US help to revamp MB 150 into the 152, making it much easier to mass produce and actually decent to fly. Imagine if the same was done to MB 130 series, Leo 451 and some of the more inefficient French designs that were selected for production.
 
Yes, a huge management cleanup would be necessary - at so many levels, where to start ?
 
In any case, if you want to spend a lot of dollars and are already willing to make the prideful French industry mad, you might as well spend them hiring help from US engineers/companies/managers to fix it and the aircrafts.

My understanding has been that part of the problem was a simply insufficient total aircraft manufacturing capacity within France.

Another part of the problem, and the basis for floating of ideas to build French aircraft factories in Louisiana or Quebec and to allocate part of the proposed Savannah manufacturing complex to aircraft, or at least aircraft engines, might have been right-leaning managements' dismay at the left-alignment and blasé attitude toward production disruption of French aircraft workers' unions. Aircraft company Boards of Directors perhaps hoped that North American labor would more highly value the jobs, and would strive to be cooperative because they saw themselves as competing with French labor for continued job opportunities.

The French industry likely would have had sufficient capacity if the labor and other issues could have been fixed. But, those issues were societal and cultural, and it was generally agreed there was no practical solution in the short term.

In any case, the way to move from a fractious, inefficient, tradition-bound manufacturing system in France...or anywhere...toward what some observers saw as more efficient and effective North American approaches to mass complex-machine manufacturing would not have been to import a few consultants. Consultants can identify problems, but they can't magically fix most of the issues they identify, which might have included labor attitudes, inefficient facilities, all the same issues at suppliers and subcontractors, local and regional infrastructure, and government interactions. The most assured way to successfully fix all of those issues at once would have been to build a new factory in a more optimal location, far enough away that the prior problems do not follow you. Established manufacturing companies in many industries and nations, seeking to rapidly evolve from a higher-cost, ineffective historical status so as to have a competitive future, have taken this approach.
 
You are mentionning the unions, but the bosses had their own political issues, and so had the political right. 1930's France was as deeply polarized as today's America, if not worse. When I saw the January 6, 2021 riot and tentative storming of the Capitol, I was instantly reminded of France very similar riot: February 6, 1934, which left 15 people dead near the Palais Bourbon & French parliament.


That was a very bad day. We were lucky François De La Rocque wasn't a full blown right wing nut, otherwise - game over for the Republic.

The true right wingers (L'Action Française) were not powerful enough and needed De la Rocque "croix de feu" to storm the Parliament. Both groups were having protests in Paris that day, but De La Rocque staunchly refused to side with L'Action Française and topple the Republic that way. Much like a proto- De Gaulle (May 1958... ) he wanted to size power the "legal" way (if such thing even exists !), not through a riot-coup-bloodbath. Hence the Croix de feux did not joined the riot near the Palais Bourbon. He earned a reputation of traitor and his troop was now called the "froide queues", a play on word with "croix de feu" which can be translated as "cold dicks". Nice !

The French Right was polarized to the extreme, because Mussolini, Salazar, and Hitler. Later Franco, who got ride of a Frente Popular quite similar to the Front Populaire on the other side of the Pyrénnées the same spring and summer 1936. Frente Popular won the election in February, Front Populaire in May.
The French Left was hardly better, being polarized toward Stalin.
In a standard French aviation plant of the time the political rift was between the workers and the management / direction - and the rift was huge.
1936 and the Front Populaire, plus the Spanish civil war, polarized french politics even further.
On both sides was deep paranoia and fear about a coup. The bosses and French Right feared a communist coup; the workers and the left feared above all a Spanish Civil War like "Pronunciamiento".

Funnily enough this drove successive aviation ministers Pierre Cot (Left, Front Populaire) and Guy La Chambre (Right, in 1938) to the same idea, same place: EAA-301 in Chateaudun.
A place under strict military control, were onboard weapons (machine guns and 20 mm guns) would be added to combat aircraft. So that the communists workers or the fascists bosses (pick your choice !) could not steal the said weapons to stage a coup against the Republic. You never know !

Main problem was that EAA-301 was ill-equiped to arm the planned 9500 aircraft the AdA wanted in its inventory by 1941. For the sake of comparison, during the harsh winter of 1939-40 they armed 300 aircraft.

The political rift really did not helped a smooth transition from a 1921-devastated aircraft industry to a modern one. Le Front Populaire took all 20 private companies, eviscerated them, nationalized them, and then proceed to create the SNCAs according to geography (see my earlier post).
Basic idea: any aircraft plant located in the same corner of France (say, the North) must be folded into a local SNCA.
The reasonning was that plants close geographically would have easier time working together.
What was ignored was the "Frankenstein" nature of the thing.
Bloch had a peculiar culture, Amiot a different one, and on. The plants may have been geographically close, culture wise they were aliens - plus of different quality and efficiency, some private companies were better than others.

Imagine that the US government forced Grumman and Republic into a mergeup just because they had two plants side by side in Long Island.
Do you really think Grumman's culture (light and nimble Navy fighters) would be compatible with Republic (USAF heavy led sleds for ground attack) ?

That's what the Front Populaire did in 1936: the reasonning they adopted to try and reform. It did not worked. In the short term it created chaos.
 
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You are mentionning the unions, but the bosses had their own political issues, and so had the political right. 1930's France was as deeply polarized as today's America, if not worse. When I saw the January 6, 2021 riot and tentative storming of the Capitol, I was instantly reminded of France very similar riot: February 6, 1934, which left 15 people dead near the Palais Bourbon & French parliament.


That was a very bad day. We were lucky François De La Rocque wasn't a full blown right wing nut, otherwise - game over for the Republic.

The true right wingers (L'Action Française) were not powerful enough and needed De la Rocque "croix de feu" to storm the Parliament. Both groups were having protests in Paris that day, but De La Rocque staunchly refused to side with L'Action Française and topple the Republic that way. Much like a proto- De Gaulle (May 1958... ) he wanted to size power the "legal" way (if such thing even exists !), not through a riot-coup-bloodbath. Hence the Croix de feux did not joined the riot near the Palais Bourbon. He earned a reputation of traitor and his troop was now called the "froide queues", a play on word with "croix de feu" which can be translated as "cold dicks". Nice !

The French Right was polarized to the extreme, because Mussolini, Salazar, and Hitler. Later Franco, who got ride of a Frente Popular quite similar to the Front Populaire on the other side of the Pyrénnées the same spring and summer 1936. Frente Popular won the election in February, Front Populaire in May.
The French Left was hardly better, being polarized toward Stalin.
In a standard French aviation plant of the time the political rift was between the workers and the management / direction - and the rift was huge.
1936 and the Front Populaire, plus the Spanish civil war, polarized french politics even further.
On both sides was deep paranoia and fear about a coup. The bosses and French Right feared a communist coup; the workers and the left feared above all a Spanish Civil War like "Pronunciamiento".

Funnily enough this drove successive aviation ministers Pierre Cot (Left, Front Populaire) and Guy La Chambre (Right, in 1938) to the same idea, same place: EAA-301 in Chateaudun.
A place under strict military control, were onboard weapons (machine guns and 20 mm guns) would be added to combat aircraft. So that the communists workers or the fascists bosses (pick your choice !) could not steal the said weapons to stage a coup against the Republic. You never know !

Main problem was that EAA-301 was ill-equiped to arm the planned 9500 aircraft the AdA wanted in its inventory by 1941. For the sake of comparison, during the harsh winter of 1939-40 they armed 300 aircraft.

The political rift really did not helped a smooth transition from a 1921-devastated aircraft industry to a modern one. Le Front Populaire took all 20 private companies, eviscerated them, nationalized them, and then proceed to create the SNCAs according to geography (see my earlier post).
Basic idea: any aircraft plant located in the same corner of France (say, the North) must be folded into a local SNCA.
The reasonning was that plants close geographically would have easier time working together.
What was ignored was the "Frankenstein" nature of the thing.
Bloch had a peculiar culture, Amiot a different one, and on. The plants may have been geographically close, culture wise they were aliens - plus of different quality and efficiency, some private companies were better than others.

Imagine that the US government forced Grumman and Republic into a mergeup just because they had two plants side by side in Long Island.
Do you really think Grumman's culture (light and nimble Navy fighters) would be compatible with Republic (USAF heavy led sleds for ground attack) ?

That's what the Front Populaire did in 1936: the reasonning they adopted to try and reform. It did not worked. In the short term it created chaos.
In any case, if you want to spend a lot of dollars and are already willing to make the prideful French industry mad, you might as well spend them hiring help from US engineers/companies/managers to fix it and the aircrafts.

My understanding has been that part of the problem was a simply insufficient total aircraft manufacturing capacity within France.

Another part of the problem, and the basis for floating of ideas to build French aircraft factories in Louisiana or Quebec and to allocate part of the proposed Savannah manufacturing complex to aircraft, or at least aircraft engines, might have been right-leaning managements' dismay at the left-alignment and blasé attitude toward production disruption of French aircraft workers' unions. Aircraft company Boards of Directors perhaps hoped that North American labor would more highly value the jobs, and would strive to be cooperative because they saw themselves as competing with French labor for continued job opportunities.

The French industry likely would have had sufficient capacity if the labor and other issues could have been fixed. But, those issues were societal and cultural, and it was generally agreed there was no practical solution in the short term.

In any case, the way to move from a fractious, inefficient, tradition-bound manufacturing system in France...or anywhere...toward what some observers saw as more efficient and effective North American approaches to mass complex-machine manufacturing would not have been to import a few consultants. Consultants can identify problems, but they can't magically fix most of the issues they identify, which might have included labor attitudes, inefficient facilities, all the same issues at suppliers and subcontractors, local and regional infrastructure, and government interactions. The most assured way to successfully fix all of those issues at once would have been to build a new factory in a more optimal location, far enough away that the prior problems do not follow you. Established manufacturing companies in many industries and nations, seeking to rapidly evolve from a higher-cost, ineffective historical status so as to have a competitive future, have taken this approach.


The impact of the labor problems and nationalisations is a bit overstated, it existed but the lack of money in 1937 (solved in late 38/39) played a greater role (such as the grossly underfunded program to retrain unemployed workers which could offer substantial improvements). The labor problems themselves were pretty much solved in December 38 and even greater efficiency could have been achieved with a bit more authority. There was still time at this point to get enough aircrafts ready.

In general, most of the faults still lie at the Air Ministry (and I would add that the major technical mistakes this ministry made were not politically motivated) and Finance Ministry levels. The "culture" was not a permanent bottleneck.
 
I don't know. The SNCAs at the beginning really put a lot of chaos in the system. It is not a personal axe I grin, really: I red that from rather serious sources. Maybe the chaos peaked in 1937, when few if none new aircraft rolled out of the plants. By 1938-40 things were improving, although at snail pace and with gross inefficiencies along the way. Long term (the 1950's), the SNCA organization was not that bad, but it took some time to make it work, and 1940 disaster certainly came at the worst possible moment.

The AdA started the 1940 battle with 1500 aircraft - same stagnating number as in March 1938. Although a turnover of new, non-obsolete airframes had (mercifully !) happened.
Then the AdA lost half of that initial force, yet ended with 2000+ airframes late June. So the industry really kicked out full bore in April and accelerated at breakneck pace in May - June. Not only replacing 700 losses but adding 500 more airframes to the ODB - that's north of 1200 new aircraft over three months: 400 monthly: a pretty respectable number.

So it worked in the end, but too late.

Vichy and the Germans in the fall of 1940 made separate counts of combat aircraft of every kind across the two zones, "free" and "occupied" - and found between 3000 and 4000 of them. So the effort was real and important.
The bulk of that number however was found in "depots" - they had been declared "unfit to combat". There were some valuable reasons for that.
Case 1 - Potez 63 series. Worked well enough, but were too vulnerables against the LW or flak.
Case 2 - Defective aircraft: Potez 630 and Breguet 691 engines were definitively broken, making them unfit even for training.
Case 3 - Caudron 710 series. Close from Case 1 but slightly different: not that vulnerables, more akin to inefficient
(except with exceptional pilots - the Polish ones, for a start).

It is pretty telling that the one and only aircraft type to reach the 1000+ production run were the MS-406 and Potez 63. They were sane and technically modern aircraft but were lacking in engine power hence in basic performance. Potez 63 lacked horsepower, MS-406 was a drag queen.
 
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I'm left wondering sometimes whether the best solution might have been

FIGHTERS
- MS-406 or the Loire-Nieuport alternative - full bore, and no other french fighter type
- Since they were not that good, go Curtiss H-75 full bore, too

BOMBERS
- a Potez 63 massive strike force, whatever the type vulnerability, it was one of the few multi-engine types available in large numbers
- go american for something better: DB-7 and Martin 167F were truly excellent and appreciated by their crews.

Also: keep the MB-174 for strategic reconnaissance, it did well. Less Potez 63-11 would help the Potez 63 strike force.

Best case
- LN-161 & H-75
- Potez 63 strike force
- (alternative: Breguet 690, but NOT for tree top assault right into the flak. No lower than 2000 ft otherwise: OTL suicide)
- backed with as much DB-7s and Martin 167F as possible
- MB-174 for reconnaissance

And that's it, throw OTL everything else under a bus - except perhaps a more advanced french fighter type (a french Spit or 109 or Mustang, if you prefer it that way. Could be one of the many Dewoitines, all the way from D-513 to D-551 including D-520 variants).

- The LeO-451 and Amiot 350 were proven to be completely unuseful in their roles. What's the point of bombing Germany at night when the emergency is to bomb panzers at low level ? and OTL proved beyond any doubt they were not good in the second role. Their 20 mm defensive dorsal guns were an idiocy and a waste.

- MB-152 was robust with 20 mm guns, good, but too slow and underpowered to do anything useful even against bombers. Put Bloch on the MB-170 instead, full bore.

- Arsenal VG-33 and Caudron 710 were variations on the same theme: the non strategic LWF "wonder fighter" which history has proven to be a fallacy and perfect idiocy.

- Breguet 690: started as a Potez 63 competitor, ended in the assault role where it was butchered. Dive bombing was the way to go, but the very Breguet butchered the LN-400 series, which were passed to the Navy then called to the rescue only to be slaughtered by flak trying to bomb bridges. So what was the point of the whole assault vs dive bombing stupid saga ?
Bottom line: the answer was DB-7 & Martin 167 bombing at 2000 ft. Faster than a dive bomber, higher than a Breguet 690. Can sneak between fighters (fast enough) and flak (high enough). Particularly with a solid escort of LN-160s or H-75s.

- all the HS-404 20 mm guns "recovered" from the bombers and MB-152s: put them on either Potez 63 or Breguet 690 noses, for straffing.
 
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I'm left wondering sometimes whether the best solution might have been

FIGHTERS
- MS-406 or the Loire-Nieuport alternative - full bore, and no other french fighter type
- Since they were not that good, go Curtiss H-75 full bore, too

BOMBERS
- a Potez 63 massive strike force, whatever the type vulnerability, it was one of the few multi-engine types available in large numbers
- go american for something better: DB-7 and Martin 167F were truly excellent and appreciated by their crews.

Also: keep the MB-174 for strategic reconnaissance, it did well. Less Potez 63-11 would help the Potez 63 strike force.

Best case
- LN-161 & H-75
- Potez 63 strike force
- (alternative: Breguet 690, but NOT for tree top assault right into the flak. No lower than 2000 ft otherwise: OTL suicide)
- backed with as much DB-7s and Martin 167F as possible
- MB-174 for reconnaissance

And that's it, throw OTL everything else under a bus - except perhaps a more advanced french fighter type (a french Spit or 109 or Mustang, if you prefer it that way. Could be one of the many Dewoitines, all the way from D-513 to D-551 including D-520 variants).

- The LeO-451 and Amiot 350 were proven to be completely unuseful in their roles. What's the point of bombing Germany at night when the emergency is to bomb panzers at low level ? and OTL proved beyond any doubt they were not good in the second role. Their 20 mm defensive dorsal guns were an idiocy and a waste.

- MB-152 was robust with 20 mm guns, good, but too slow and underpowered to do anything useful even against bombers. Put Bloch on the MB-170 instead, full bore.

- Arsenal VG-33 and Caudron 710 were variations on the same theme: the non strategic LWF "wonder fighter" which history has proven to be a fallacy and perfect idiocy.

- Breguet 690: started as a Potez 63 competitor, ended in the assault role where it was butchered. Dive bombing was the way to go, but the very Breguet butchered the LN-400 series, which were passed to the Navy then called to the rescue only to be slaughtered by flak trying to bomb bridges. So what was the point of the whole assault vs dive bombing stupid saga ?
Bottom line: the answer was DB-7 & Martin 167 bombing at 2000 ft. Faster than a dive bomber, higher than a Breguet 690. Can sneak between fighters (fast enough) and flak (high enough). Particularly with a solid escort of LN-160s or H-75s.

- all the HS-404 20 mm guns "recovered" from the bombers and MB-152s: put them on either Potez 63 or Breguet 690 noses, for straffing.
Agreed. Breguet 690 was actually supposed to be the heavy fighter competitor to the Potez 63 but was given the flawed HS radials, and late at that so instead of being chosen over Potez 63 we got both and Breguet was given a new role. So either go full Potez or give Breguet the proper engines in time to get it.

It's worth noting the MB15X was the first attempt at a modern fighter by Bloch, who was more familiar with bombers. It might have been best for him to never start, or to cut his losses after the disastrous early flights of the MB150 to focus instead on the bombers. Again as I said before, the US engineer who fixed MB152 could have been used on MB13X instead, maybe accelerating the 170 series.

I agree that the Caudron proved largely pointless since it was never built in numbers anyway, though granted it's precisely because it only got bought in the dozens that it didn't waste an excessive amount of ressources.

Arsenal was doomed the moment politicians considered it as their baby and a way to put wood workers and it was the worst of both worlds. There wasn't actually enough wood or artisans to mass-produce it, its construction still used too much metal, and by using the HS-12Y series it was just competing with other aircrafts. It's very much the "start-up genius concept" which is completely useless in reality.

20mm guns for bombers were also proven to be impractical quite early, in 1938 or so, and Amiot even requested mounting twin or triple 7.5mm mounts instead, but this was never approved. Once again some people who thought they had a good idea were too obtuse to admit they were wrong.
 
The Breguet & Potez 700 hp radials evidently lacked power, compared to the following 1100 hp ones of MB-152 & LeO-451 fame
(note that I gave up trying to get the companies and names right (14+letter) - makes my brain bleed !)
Main advantage of the lower power radials: they were cheap and plentiful, right from 1935-36. So better to bit the bullet and use those 700 hp radials.
In that regard, the Breguet was aerodynamically much cleaner than the Potez, kind of 50 km/h faster on the same engines - 480 vs 430 something.
But curvaceous shapes like the Breguet don't like mass industrialization - just ask the Spitfire vs the Hurricane, notably the wing.
At the end of the day Breguet build four times less 690s than Potez 63 - 250 vs near 1000+.

So the case of the Potez 63 vs Breguet 690 should be carefully examined, for what I call the "early strike force" - later to be reinforced by the two US types.

Where it gets really interesting is that cancellation of Bloch 150s; LeO 450; and Amiot 350 series, "free" a large amount of a) powerful, 1100 hp radials and b) a large amount of HS-404 20 mm guns.

The answer is obvious: either the Potez (63) or the Breguet (690) have to snatch these engines and guns. OTL such planes existed at prototype stage: Potez 670 and Breguet 700. So maybe that was the way to go. With 800 hp more, there is plenty of power to add armour and moar 20 mm guns and pack more punch against panzers.

In passing: don't weep over the MB-150. If you need a radial engine fighter, the Curtiss H-75 fits the bill. Same for the medium altitude bombers: the B-25 and B-26 are coming.
 

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