Advanced French Fighters vs 1942/1943 contemporaries (15 Viewers)

[Steamed_Banana]

The little light tanks were already out of production and work on the Tetrarch light tank wound up taking up huge amount of resources for 100-177 actual tanks. The need for a 'bespoke' engine that was not used in anything else (except the Harry Hopkins) was a loss of engineer hours.
UK tank design/production was an absolute mess. With 6 different 2pdr armed tanks needing 5 different engines (and a slightly fewer number of transmissions) all needing development and testing and modification the little 6 ton light tanks were the least of the British problems. Build another 100-150 VIC with Besa guns and send them off to Abyssinia, Syria, Malasia and Borneo. Cost might have been 40-50 of the bigger tanks? A small, tiny drop in the bottom corner of the huge bucket that was the waste of the Covenanter program.

French tanks and armored cars were generally better than their British equivalent, if France had survived a bit longer maybe England could license-build some Somua S.35s and Panhard 178s

to replace say, Vickers VI and Cruiser Mk II or A13, and the Humbers. Keep the Matilda IIs though.

 

[Shortround6]

LeO 451s were carrying more ordinance than 1,100 lbs in Syria. I'll post some examples later.

I didn't say it didn't. What I am saying is that the range of 1600 miles is with a very light bomb load. It could, like many bombers, carry more bombs over shorter ranges but the max bomb load would be very short range indeed. With better engines I have little doubt the LeO 451 could carry both fuel and bombs.

B-23 was little more than a prototype, and was clearly inferior to the Leo 451.

Well, 38 planes are more than a prototype (unless you are Russian) but yes the B-23 was seen not up to date enough even while being built.
The NA-40 flew in Jan 1939 with P&W R-1830s but the Army didn't like it. It was repowered in Feb/March of 1939 with R-2600. It crashed in April 1940/
The first actual B-25 flew Aug 19th 1940. The US was not in shooting war and knew they had better aircraft the B-23 coming.
Wiki is wrong, the first B-25 in Aug 1940 had R-2600s that had 1700hp for take-off, the -9 engine was rated at 1350hp at 13,000ft at max continuous power. It had a two speed supercharger. Max power in high gear was 1450hp at 12,000ft.

I picked the B-25 to avoid arguments about Martin B-26. The Early B-25 was not flashy. It did a lot of things well. The French needed something like that, assuming they could build (or buy) engines.

Leo 451 had a 20mm cannon for defense, armor and self sealing fuel tanks, and made 300 mph with all that on board, in mid 1940.

The first B-25s went into action in the Pacific in April 1942, do you know of any earlier deployments?

There were no earlier deployments. The US didn't send out small groups of early aircraft to get shot up, mostly. The first 60-80 B-25s were more use as trainers to get the crews up to speed for the B-25Bs and Cs. Some of the earlier B-25s (some As) were used as anti-sub marine aircraft while the US built more maritime patrol aircraft.

France has 10 times the population and equivalently larger arms industry than Switzerland, not to mention they were already working on the 12Y/Z series in 1940 so I'm confident they could achieve the same results as the Swiss but sooner.

I have no such confidence. France had years to fix the 12Y, they didn't. The Russians had 7 years from 1933 to 1940 to try to fix the 12Y. They changed from 2 valves to 3 valves and increase the weight by about 22% and were having trouble making 1260hp and keeping durability. The Spanish team tried during/after WW II. The French tried after WW II and with better fuel available. They failed to reach the 1940 promises. Swiss actually had 4 engines. 1st try was just to get the 12Y-51 to do what they had been sold to begin with and that lead to the YS-2 engine, then they played with the YS-3 and then the YS-4. They went through several supercharger designs in addition to all the other changes.

The Ki-48 had a vastly superior operational history to the Blenheim and was still being used successfully on the front line against US and British Forces well into 1943. It's better in the sense that far fewer were shot down per mission, it was more accurate bomber, and it caused more harm to Allied targets than the Blenheim did to Axis targets.

This is going to take some proving. They built over twice as many Blenheim's and yes they built too many but unless we are comparing missions with similar quantities of escorts and similar quantities of interceptors and similar AA environments it is going to hard to judge. How do we judge accuracy?
If the Blenheims had gotten the number of escorts the Ki-48 got and had escorts that were as well trained what would the results have been?

It's objectively inaccurate to claim that the Ki-48 was a waste of resources, labor and / or crew.

For the Ki-48 I they were using a 8900lb empty weight aircraft and 4 men to deliver 300kg of bombs normal and 400kg max.
The early Ki-21 was 10,342lbs empty and used 5 men to deliver 750kg of bombs normal and 1000kg max (yes it was slow)
The M3G1 11 was 10,516lbs empty and used 5 men to deliver either 800kg torpedo or up to 800kg of bombs. (also slow)
Mitsubishi Ki-30 used a 4916lb empty airplane and two men to deliver 300kg of bombs normal or 400kg max load. It was slow but the extra speed and range of
the Ki-48 used a lot up a lot of metal and men for not much more speed and range. The extra men didn't offer up much better defensive fire power either.

 

[Shortround6]

French tanks and armored cars were generally better than their British equivalent, if France had survived a bit longer maybe England could license-build some Somua S.35s and Panhard 178s

No, the tanks weren't.
The Panhard was pretty good but in 1940 there was no point. By the time they got the drawings across the channel and started to actually build a Panhard the Diamler armored car would have been in full production and the Panhard was good, it would not do anything the Diamler could not do. While the 2pdr gun wasn't a great tank gun in 1940, it was a powerhouse in the armored car world.
The Somua 35 was just the least sucky French tank out of a host of sucky tanks. And most of the suckyness was due to basic design. Bad vision and one man turrets, which are hard to fix. Bigger turret may mean wider tank and things like that. Granted the British went backwards for a while with the Covenanter and Crusader but going even further backwards to the Somua might have been enough to make Britian give up on tanks
Decent gun and armor on the Somua does not make up for crap vision and poor rate of fire and worse rate of engagement (this also assumes you can fix the radio problems and actually install radios and radios that work.)
Germans were starting to fit the short 50mm gun into the MK IIIs in June/July of 1940 and the Somua's armor was not the protection it had been in May/June of 1940.
British had enough crap tanks of their own without trying to convert to the metric system to build the Somau to build another crap tank.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

The French steadily improved the power output and reliability of the 12Y from 1932 through 1940. The original 12Ybr was rated for 650 hp at 2,200 rpm in 1932. The 12Y-45 was rated for 920 hp at 2,400 rpm in 1936, and the 12Y-50/51 for 1,100 hp in 1939. Weight did increase from 415-492 kg. But that was still a lot lighter than a V-1710-33 at 608 kg.

As for the Somua, you have to learn to stop comparing to ideals and stick to context and reality. The S.35 was objectively better than any of the existing British tanks in 1940, and for that matter through 1942 and probably 1943. It definitely needed a bigger turret, a better radio, an improved main hatch etc., and a much better gun.

Gun:

Somua S.35 47mm APX - Range 2,000m, muzzle velocity 855 m/s, shell weight 1.73 kg, ROF 15-20 r/m, penetration 106mm at 100m, 89mm at 500m, 72mm at 1,000m
British tanks 2 pounder - Range 1,500-1,800m, muzzle felicity 792 m/s, shell weight 1.08 kg, ROF 22 r/m penetration 53mm at 460m, 42mm at 1,000m
Panzer III 3.7 cm KwK 36 - Range 300m, muzzle velocity 762 m/s, shell weight 0.658 kg, ROF 13 r/m, penetration 40mm at 100m, 30mm at 500m
Panzer 38(t) 3.7 cm KwK 38(t) - Range 1,500m, muzzle velocity 762 m/s (AP) or 1,020 m/s (APCR), shell weight 0.85 kg, ROF 15-20 r/m, penetration (AP) 53 mm at 100m, 40mm at 500m
Panzer 38(t) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- penetration (APCR) 77mm at 100m, 47mm at 500m

Most importantly like the German and Czech tanks, the S.35 could not only engage tanks, it could also engage and destroy AT guns, infantry and artillery because it had HE shells. With almost 3 times the HE as the Pz III.

Armor:

S35 40-47mm (sloped)

Cruiser Mk III 6-14mm (flat)
Cruiser Mk IV 6-30mm (flat)
Matilda Mk 1 1-60mm (partly sloped) - machine gun for main armament
Matilda Mk II 20-77mm (flat)
Panzer Mk IIC 5-15mm (flat)
Panzer Mk IIIA 15mm (flat)
Panzer Mk IID 30mm (flat)

The S.35 proved itself at Hannut and Arras, the deployment and tactics were what ultimately cost them to be defeated. As a tank, it worked out quite well despite it's flaws, and overmatched the Pz IIs and IIIs. The Cruiser tanks never did. The Matilda II did pose a problem for the Germans, but was badly hampered by the baffling lack of AP ammunition and the top speed of 9 mph offroad. Compared to 20mph for the S.35

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Actually, France did have a rather strong heavy fighter/ground attack project in the works with the CAPRA R40:
View attachment 896066

View: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2219850264895329/posts/3711865475693793/

Sadly, the mockup got destroyed during the Battle of France, and the whole project died with the armistice.

Wow! i never heard of that one. Incredible!!

 

[Steamed_Banana]

The Lily had a much lower loss rate per mission than the Blenheim, particularly in China / Burma / India. That is very clear in Shores operational history. They were usually but not always flying with a heavy escort often with a small number of bombers, like under ten, escorted by 40-50 fighters. They carried a small bomb load (and often quite small bombs) but they were accurate and could dive-bomb to some extent, which seems to have helped them inflict losses from their raids. For example they usually destroyed Allied aircraft when they attacked Allied airfields. Maybe I'll start a thread on their operational history.

We can say what we want about AAA defenses of the Chinese being sub-par, but the British and American AAA by 1942-43 was pretty good, and yet the Ki-48s were still operating with relatively low loss rates.

One of the odd and interesting things about the relative success of the Ki-48 is the dismal failure of the larger, better armored, and much better armed Ki-49, in pretty much exactly the same Theaters (including CBI and New Guinea area).

Speaking of New Guinea, there is no way in hell that Blenheims could survive the operational environment over New Guinea in 1942-43.