French fighter aircrft

To me, those figures sound about right. I can highly doubt the the M.S406 could outscore the germans in a 109E. The 109E was a damn good fighter for the time, and the MS406, well, wasnt. The lack of gun heaters for the weak 7.5mm darne's reduced its altitude performance, giving the germans and much higher cieling of operation, and the ability to use theyre superiour diving and climbing characteristics to attack flights of the MS406's from above, and then climb up to altitudes where the Ms406 wouldnt be able to use its machine guns, run out of cannon ammo quickly with inferior sights, and be unable to reach, or even come too close to its maximum speed. The VG33 was the only major threat, besides maybe some hawks, that the 109E had to worry about. my opinion.

The Hawk-75 was the only threat to the Luftwaffe, in numbers, that came from the French Air Force. And a real threat it was too! The RAF lost half of it's strength aiding the French during Fall Gelb, luckily the RAF never wasted any Spitfire squadrons in France.

I can, but don't want to, believe that the French blame the air force for it's army failures. The loss of that campaign was solely down to the slow reaction and out-dated tactical thinking of Army command, and nothing else.

It's a shame that France collapsed so quickly ...because, although I strain to say it...the French had some really good equipment in their army and air force!

Yeah they did, but there tanks had the commander/gunner scheme, and the one man in the turret is enough mentality, and that simply wouldnt work. They had good equipment, but were victims of times past. They used theyre superior tanks (in armor, range sometimes, and armament) in a horrible fashion, spreading a little everywhere hoping that it would stem the tide, instead of having a strong, coordinated fast reaction group to stop an armoured thrust directly. The airforce, wasnt suited especially to ground attack and support of land forces. French bombers, though in my opinion cool looking, were slow, under-defended, lumbering beasts that made a great target for the luftwaffe. The french fighters, especially the Hawk, and VG33 were the only real contenders for air superiority, but again, the pilots didnt have experience like those of the luftwaffe. And then theres the maginot line, while a decent concept, the defense budget of the french could have been much better spent in local defense of towns, using maybe half the budget, and putting the rest into aircraft puchase/production and tank production/modernization of ideas and tactics.

The way I read that report, the Hawk 75A had the best showing against the Germans....

It was the best fighter in there fleets but the best way to see the French airforce was on the ground because the pilots had all surrendured. No I should not say that. The French airforce fought more than likely with great valor in a lost cause, just like the Polish airforce.

Hows about the D.520?

mosquitoman said:

Hows about the D.520?

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I think the 520 was a good aircraft and probably had the potential to grow as the Spitfire and -109 did, but for the most part it seems the most effective fighter the French had was the Hawk 75A. The 520 was used effectively by several other axis airforces....

The D.520 was a decent aircraft, and had some room to grow, but i dont know if the french would have been able to develop an engine in time with the reliability, altitude performance, and power to be competitive with the germans. They would have been able to keep up against the Italians most likely, since they were still flying Biplanes and very poor monoplanes for the most part at that time. Though the Cr.42 had a top speed near enough the french fighters to make it not too much of an advantage, except against the VG33.

carpenoctem1689 said:

To me, those figures sound about right. I can highly doubt the the M.S406 could outscore the germans in a 109E. The 109E was a damn good fighter for the time, and the MS406, well, wasnt. The lack of gun heaters for the weak 7.5mm darne's reduced its altitude performance, giving the germans and much higher cieling of operation, and the ability to use theyre superiour diving and climbing characteristics to attack flights of the MS406's from above, and then climb up to altitudes where the Ms406 wouldnt be able to use its machine guns, run out of cannon ammo quickly with inferior sights, and be unable to reach, or even come too close to its maximum speed. The VG33 was the only major threat, besides maybe some hawks, that the 109E had to worry about. my opinion.

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I think that you are mis-reading the information posted Carp.

Couple of important sentences;

>>The Morane-Saulnier MS 406 equipped eighteen squadrons in France on 10 May 1940. The kill-loss ratio for units flying the MS 406 was 191 to 89. The shortcomings of the Morane fighter compared to the Bf 109E have been the topic of many memoirs, but in the reported battles in which Messerschmitts faced Moranes alone, the French posted a record of thirty-one kills and five losses.<<

i.e. despite its shortcomings the MS 406, when flying combat missions, posted a kill ratio close to 2:1, when flying just against the Bf-109E, it had a 6:1 K/L ratio. Even if kills claims are double actual kills, that is still a very good showing.

Similarly, the article posted lists quite favourable kill/loss ratios for the MB 152 and D 520, at least in terms of enemy planes shot down to pilots lost.

In my opinion if you are looking for the best French built fighter it has got to be the D520.
If you are looking for the best fighter in French service then it would have to be the Hawk 75a

I will agree with that.

Jabber. I think you will find that Carp was agreeing with my posting. Forgive me Carp if I am wrong.
In the posting I was pointing out that with all the massive disadvantages that the MS had compared to the 109 I simply find it hard to believe that the MS could have achieved that kill ratio against the 109. The numbers and figures that I was quoting were from an experienced MS406 pilot who had flown pre war in the French Air Force and flew the MS406 against the Germans during the Battle for France. There is no doubt that he knew which was the better plane.

..it's a shame that Kirkland's article got posted here - it's very misleading in certain respects. Certainly Glider's info about the Ms 406 was about right...

So one minute your flying over France fighting the Germans.

Then you fly to Tunisia/Syria and call yourself the Vichy Airforce and start shooting down Hurricanes and Kittyhawks, while some of your own mates pop over to Russia and have ago at the Germans on the Eastern Front while the other lot are still shooting down Allies.

Meanwhile waiting in England the Free French Air Force are preparing!!

"During his complicated combat career, Pierre Le Gloan shot down 18 aircraft (4 German, 7 Italian and 7 British), which gave him the 4th position among the French flying aces of the war."

What's all that about then???

FlexiBull said:

So one minute your flying over France fighting the Germans.

Then you fly to Tunisia/Syria and call yourself the Vichy Airforce and start shooting down Hurricanes and Kittyhawks, while some of your own mates pop over to Russia and have ago at the Germans on the Eastern Front while the other lot are still shooting down Allies.

Meanwhile waiting in England the Free French Air Force are preparing!!

"During his complicated combat career, Pierre Le Gloan shot down 18 aircraft (4 German, 7 Italian and 7 British), which gave him the 4th position among the French flying aces of the war."

What's all that about then???

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Those were different times, Flex: "My country is wrong, my country is right, my country". That was true for the French as well. Remember it was the French government (at least the one controlling some French soil) that turned against the allies. The fact that they were at least based in France gave some the opinion that they were the real French government. I think we cannot judge those who fought for Vichy that easily. I cannot guess what my fellow Dutch countrymen would have done if the Germans would have installed a puppet Dutch government her in the Netherlands. Probably some of our soldiers would have fought the Allies as well.

Remember it was the French government (at least the one controlling some French soil) that turned against the allies.

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I think you have that backward. Beginning in July 1940 Britain fought an undeclared war against the legitimate French government.

From what I've read, there were volunteers from all of the occupied countries, including Poland, in the Wehrmacht. Had the US fallen to the Germans, I'll bet a number of Americans would have joined, too.

Here's a link to a web site post on the subject of Dutch volunteers in the SS:

Axis History Forum • View topic - Dutch SS Volunteers

CD

FalkeEins said:

..it's a shame that Kirkland's article got posted here - it's very misleading in certain respects. Certainly Glider's info about the Ms 406 was about right...

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And why is it 'shame' to post the Kirkland's article here? Is there perhaps a more accurate assessment of French armed force prior and at start of WWII?
If so, please post something about that.

I have read that one of the main reasons that the H-75 did so well in French hands, relative to other aircraft that were seemingly superior in performance (like the D 520) was that the H-75 was delivered on time, and that the pilots had plenty of time to get proficient on the type. The uits that went into battle with these mounts were fully trained units, unlike the rush jobs that went into battle after the invasion had started.

The MS 406 in my opinion was the weak link in the French fighter forces. The other thing that is really striking about the french air force was its lack of a modern bomber force. I pay due deferance to the very superior bombers in the pipeline, like the LeO 451, and the AM 354, but these were arriving in only small numbers at the critical moment.

If the french aero industry had made its modernization moves even 8 months before it did, things may have been very different, but like all the air forces that faced the LW up until August 1940, they were just peacetime puppies up against the most professional air force of its time. The LW had superior tactics, and experience, thanks to its experiences in Spain and Poland, the french had antiquated tactical concepts (a failure to concentrate air resources at the critical points on the front, outdated aerial formations, ground attack methods....the so called "hedge hoppers"liike the Bre 690... that were second rate compared to the pinpoint attacks of the Stukas, and a high command that failed to appreciate the impact of airpower until it was too late.

I have read Kirkland before, and whilst he is a good source, he needs to be treated with a certain degreee of circumspection. I do agree with his broad conclusions....namely that the french high command was one of the main factors in its own demise. but his claims about the missing airframes is just exaggeration. Every airforce has to maintain large reserve, and there are always large numbers of airframes apparently unnaccounted for. Just loo at the LW in 1944, it produced something like 40000 fighters in 1944, was losing about 2000 airframes per month (just roughly...im not trying to be super accurate here) and yet at the end of the year had less than 5000 fighters on strength....what happened to all the other aircraft. Similar arguments can be levelled at every major player in the war....they could never field all the aircraft they produced....

Something further to add, concerning losses. I cant answer the combat records for individual types, or formations, but overall, the breakdown of losses was as follows:

"The Luftwaffe virtually destroyed the Armée de l'Air during the campaign and inflicted heavy losses to the RAF contingent that was deployed. It is estimated the French lost 1,274 aircraft destroyed during the campaign, the British suffered losses of 959 (477 fighters). The battle for France had cost the Luftwaffe 28% of its front line strength, some 1,428 aircraft destroyed. A further 488 were damaged, making a total of 36% of the Luftwaffe strength negatively affected. The campaign had been a spectacular success for the German air-arm. The Luftwaffe had effectively destroyed three Allied air forces and inflicted heavy losses to a fourth.

The LW emerged from the battle with approximately 860 S/E fighters, and had been reinforced during the 6 week campaign to the tune of about 100 aircraft. Since their fighter forces started with 1016 machines, and 100 were added to that total, the net losses to the LW Me 109 equipped units was no more than 260. Since the MS 406 formations are known to have been decimated (not all from fighter engagements....many were lost to bombing raids on the airfields, many more were burnt to avoid capture) and there were about 400 of them on strength at the time of the battle, it is highly unlikley that the claim they achieved kill ratios of 6:1 over the german fighters has any validity at all. perhaps they achieved something like that against all german aircraft , but I doubt very strongly that such an exchange rate was achieved against the fighters

One more thing to note. The loss rates suffered by the LW in the 6 week campaign in France were higher than any comparable period in 1940, including the very height of the BOB. Despite these heavy losses, the campaignis considered a decisive German victory in the air battle, why, because the LW achieved nearly all that was expected of it (except over Dunkirk....)