Could France make due with just two fighters?

[Admiral Beez]

France had six entirely distinct single-seat, single-engine, monoplane fighter programs in production between 1936 to 1940.

1. Bloch MB.150. Specified 1934. First flight 1937. Introduced 1939.
2. Morane-Saulnier M.S.406. Specified 1934. (same as the MB.150). First flight 1938. Introduced 1938.
3. Arsenal VG-33. Specified 1936. First flight 1939. Introduced 1940.
4. Dewoitine D.520. Specified 1936 (same as the VG-33). First flight 1938. Introduced 1940.
5. Caudron C.714. Specified 1936 (same as VG-33). First flight 1936. Introduced 1940.
6. Koolhoven F.K.58. Specified 1937. Ordered from Dutch firm. First flight 1938. Introduced 1940.

These came in three batches, Specifications of 1934, 1936 and 1937. Had France chosen the best of each Specification rather than producing so many types would they have been better off? Did the government have the ability to force aircraft manufacturers to cooperate? Would concentration on fewer types have led to more aircraft being available?

The 1937 Specification also led to the SNCAO 200 and Potez 230, but neither was produced. If these two firms in addition to producing their existing aircraft have capacity to make a new fighter, and given the circumstances wouldn't it have been more prudent to tell SNCAO and Potez to focus on making D.520s or VG-33s?

For example, in 1938 the superlative Dewoitine D.520 first flies. This is a year before the laggardly Bloch MB.150 enters service. Could some Grande Fromage have said, hey Marcel, I want you to switch your plant over to this Dewoitine when it's ready?

 

[SaparotRob]

Yes.

 

[RW Mk. III]

Yes but it would have made too much sense.

Even if they'd picked the worst of the lot that wasn't the caudron, and just made one model at least there would have been uniformity, pilots and crew all know their equipment. Spares are more readily available. More laser-focused development can be done on the existing design. The approach they took made no sense from the perspectives of:
Training
Logistics
Development
Production

It had the advantage of:
???

 

[Admiral Beez]

Yes but it would have made too much sense.

It wouldn't even take any novel thinking. Just look around in 1937-39, Germany has one modern single seat fighter, the Bf 109. Britain, with a much larger industrial strength than France has two, the Spitfire and Hurricane. Japan has one, the Ki-27 Nate, to be followed by the Ki-43 Oscar. Even the massive USAAC focused on the Curtiss P-36/40. Why would France produce six different types?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

D.520 and VG-33

 

[Hardlydank]

I agree with your earlier post in a different thread which are the same 2 that flyboy said. D.520 and Vg.33 just make the most sense

 

[XBe02Drvr]

What about the politics? When the governing party or administration changes, all kinds of priorities change, including defense. It doesn't make sense that the French, with their track record to uphold, would make choices that made sense militarily. Have they ever, at any time since Napoleon?
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Shortround6]

Nice idea but French production was too screwed up to make it practical.
the French had ordered 730 Curtiss Hawk 75s for example and not the dribs and drabs of some their own planes.
The ones that were delivered (not all were) made about 1/3 of the total number of claims made by the French air force.

A prototype flying in the spring of 1940 (or even late 1939) does nothing one way or the other for production planes that needed to be built in the summer of 1939.
Caudron C.714. was a total waste of effort and example of France trying to do things on the cheap. (4 other prototypes in the design competition and two attempts at putting more powerful engines in the 714 as attempts to make something actually useful)

The story goes that Arsenal VG-33's were sitting at the factory waiting for engines. Canceling the Bloch 151/152 which used G-N radials for more fighters that used H-S engines might not have gotten the French any more operational fighters, in fact it may have been less. They did equipe nine Groupes de Chasse.

 

[Admiral Beez]

It doesn't make sense that the French, with their track record to uphold, would make choices that made sense militarily. Have they ever, at any time since Napoleon?

Certainly postwar the French got their procurement decisions in order. One firm awarded all fighter contracts, Marcel Dassault's (nee Bloch) firm, with pretty much every fixed wing combat aircraft being Mirage based. One firm for rotary wing, Aérospatiale. One firm for tanks and AFV, AMX/GIAT. Obviously WW2 scared them straight, and socialist nationalization of the defence industries got the job done.

I imagine if interwar France had a modern-day effective and brutal Napoleon as dictator that France's defences would have looked entirely different. First off, likely no Maginot Line and second of all, no slow, ponderous tanks, and lastly all out invasion of the Rhineland in 1936 when Hitler goes for remilitarization. As for fighters, the designers at Potez, Cauldon, Morane-Saulnier, and SNCAO go to the guillotine while Marcel Bloch is told to do something better or face the same fate. Once the D.520 and VG.33 are presented, Marcel is told to switch MB.150 production to make one of those two under contract, or step up to the blade.

 

[swampyankee]

It wouldn't even take any novel thinking. Just look around in 1937-39, Germany has one modern single seat fighter, the Bf 109. Britain, with a much larger industrial strength than France has two, the Spitfire and Hurricane. Japan has one, the Ki-27 Nate, to be followed by the Ki-43 Oscar. Even the massive USAAC focused on the Curtiss P-36/40. Why would France produce six different types?

Domestic politics and a corrupt, inefficient military procurement system.

 

[Admiral Beez]

It's amazing that with the D.520 and VG.33 in production that SNCAO thought this POS was going to be useful. Just look at that tail.

 

[swampyankee]

It's amazing that with the D.520 and VG.33 in production that Potez thought this POS was going to be useful. Just look at that tail.

View attachment 584429

Potez's pet senator didn't have the clout to get it produced.

That sort of fin arrangement is likely a symptom of not enough vertical fin being discovered during testing.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Potez's pet senator didn't have the clout to get it produced.

That sort of fin arrangement is likely a symptom of not enough vertical fin being discovered during testing.

Edit, my bad, that's SNCAO, not Potez. Their submission, the Potez 230 was a little better, but with bizarre wing shape. Either way, both should have been told to make D.520 and VG.33.

 

[SaparotRob]

The premise is would France have done better with just 2 fighter types instead of a menagerie of "Worlds Worst ...."
The reality of incompetency, corruption or ineptitude was not the question.

 

[Kevin J]

France took too long to turn the 1935 MS 405 into the 1938 production MS 406. The Bloch 150 series likewise took too long to get into service in a working form. The Swiss showed the MS series could be made to work. So we had the Tornado and Typhoon in 1939/40, the French the D520 and VG 33, what's the problem? So the French has to buy the Hawk 75 because the Bloch fighters weren't that good, what's the problem?

 

[Admiral Beez]

The premise is would France have done better with just 2 fighter types instead of a menagerie of "Worlds Worst ...."
The reality of incompetency, corruption or ineptitude was not the question.

Correct. I would suggest the two fighters would be the MB.150 series and only one of the D.520 or VG.33. So, no MS.406, C.714, FK.58 and no hail mary rubbish from Potez or SNCAO.

The MB.150 precludes the D.520 and VG.33 by years, so there's no way to keep the MB.150 out as one of the two French fighters.

 

[Kevin J]

Correct. I would suggest the two fighters would be the MB.150 series and only one of the D.520 or VG.33. So, no MS.406, C.714, FK.58 and no hail mary rubbish from Potez of SNCAO.

The MB.150 precludes the D.520 and VG.33 by years, so there's no way to keep the MB.150 out as one of the two French fighters.

The MS 405 first flies in 1935, the production version is the MS 406 of 1938.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The MS 405 first flies in 1935, the production version is the MS 406 of 1938.

Good point. With the MB.150 not providing much advantage over the MS 406, perhaps then it's MS.406 and D.520 (or VG.33).

 

[swampyankee]

Edit, my bad, that's SNCAO, not Potez. Their submission, the Potez 230 was a little better, but with bizarre wing shape. Either way, both should have been told to make D.520 and VG.33.

Bizarre, yet similar to that of the He.111.

The premise is would France have done better with just 2 fighter types instead of a menagerie of "Worlds Worst ...."
The reality of incompetency, corruption or ineptitude was not the question.

Well, even corrupt organizations can get things right, sometimes. I'd second the MB.150 series. French industry did end up producing some promising "heavy fighters," with the SE.100 seeming to have some promise, although it was also undeniably weird, but, like many other French designs it was too late.

 

[Shortround6]

The Potez 230 was a rival to the C 714.

French information can be a little confusing or imbued with a fair degree of optimism.
first flight was 30 March 1940. It weighed 3,968 lb with no guns and a Hispano-Suiza 12Xcrs engine. Which was a smaller 27 liter version of the 12Y engine.
While it is reported to have good speed (348mph) this was due, in part, to the tiny wing of of a reported 118 sq ft.
Plans were being made to stick in the larger 12Y engine.
Germans were reportedly impressed enough with the torsion box wing construction to haul the Prototype and all engineering drawings to Germany for further study?

A major hold up to production over the winter and into the spring seems to have been engines/propellers/instruments and other bits and pieces you need to make an airplane work that are not built by the manufacturer and are bought from outside suppliers instead.

Unless you can straighten out that part of the supply chain it doesn't matter which factories are build what airframes.