So the book is divided up chronologically and by regions. The end of the book covers the war between the Vichy French vs Free French and British / Commonwealth forces in the Middle East, from Lebanon down to Sudan in the horn of Africa, but mainly over Syria. For those who like weird air combat match ups it's a bit of a gold mine with lots of fights involving aircraft like Blenheims, LeO 451s, Dewoitine D.520s, MS 406, Hurricanes, Gladiators, Tomahawks, Martin 167 Marylands, weirder planes like Latecoere 298 seaplane / dive bombers, Loire 130 seaplanes, and even more exotic and / or antiquated types.
The French records must be very good because this section is more precise than most of his depictions of air combat both in other books, and in the earlier part of this same book where he gets into the fighting between the British and the Italians.
In the end of this section starting on page 262 he gives a summary of the fighting between France and the British-led Allies.
The Vichy French had 234 aircraft in the area, reaching a peak of 273 with reinforcements.
- During this battle taking place mostly from June to July 1941, the Vichy French fighter units were credited with 34 'confirmed' victories and six probables, with bombers credited with one more. actual British / Allied losses were 27 aircraft.
- The British and friends fighter units made 'confirmed' claims for 37 victories, one bomber gunner made one claim, against actual French losses of 26 aircraft plus 4 German bombers.
- Top scoring Vichy French pilots included Lt. Pierre le Gloan with seven victories, Cne Leon Richard with six, and Lt Marcel Stenou and Ens de v Du Merle both with three.
- Top scoring British / Allied aces were Flg Off Peter Turnbull of 3 RAAF with five claims, Flt Lt Alan Rawlinson also from 3 RAAF with three, and Plt Off Bill Vale of 80 Sqn also with three.
So air to air losses were almost identical. It's also notable that overclaiming wasn't very severe, probably in part because most of the fights were quite small, 2-6 aircraft on each side etc.
The difference in outcomes came in with the losses to AA and especially on the ground. The Vichy French lost 16 planes to AA, and 45 on their airfields to strafing and bombing attacks. They did not seem to be using revetments had had relatively little in the way of AAA, which the British took full advantage of with a lot of bombing and strafing attacks. The Vichy lost another 20 to accidents and 54 were abandoned when their airfields were overrun. Four more were written off to unknown reasons, for a total losses for all reasons of 169.
The British, by contrast, lost only 4 to AAA, and 3 to strafing and bombing. For a total in losses of 41 planes. That's where we really see the difference.
In this fighting, the Gladiator did very well, I think it's another case of 'hypermanueverability' being used to defeat faster better performing aircraft. They had a positive record against the best French fighter, the D.520. Most of the Allied victories however were from the Tomahawks of 3 RAAF. This one squadron played an outsized role in the air combat and also accounted for a lot of the losses on the ground, just to strafing as they carried no bombs. Hurricanes were at some disadvantage to the D.520 but did well against MS 406, which did poorly overall. The LeO 451 did fairly well and fended off British fighters with their defensive guns several times, claiming one destroyed (contrary to the expectations of some around here
). The Martin 167s on the other hand were getting shot down a lot, but they did better than the older Amoit etc. French bombers which were quickly retired. Potez 63.11s were around but barely seemed to be used at all. All the bombers on both sides seemed to be very effective at damaging ground forces and other ground targets, possibly because appropriate defensive tactics, light AA and things like smoke were not widely adopted yet.
I read this book out of order, and I'm just starting to get into the first part which covers British vs Italian air forces. For lovers of the goofy and the weird early war stuff, it's even better, as it starts in 1940 and includes planes like CR 32 and CR 42 fighters, IMAM Ro biplanes, SM 79, SM 81, Caproni Ca. 133 and 310 and 313-314, Vickers Wellesly, Hawker Fury and Gloster Gauntlet biplane fighters as well as the ubiquitous Gladiator, Blenehim 1f and IVf fighters, Fairey Battles, lots of engagements between goofy bombers of various types on both sides. The British had Martin 167 bombers too. Absolutely wild so far.
So far it looks like Hurricanes were having few to no problems with CR 32 or CR 42 (unlike the D.520s vs the Gladiators). The Gladiators went about even with the Italian Fiat biplanes. The Italian bombers were all highly vulnerable except the SM.79 (partly due to it's speed) which increasingly became their go-to bomber; the Blenheims were vulnerable but were being used aggressively (including as fighters).
The Italians also clearly overclaimed much more than the Vichy French did.
When I've finished this section I'll post a report on it. Highly recommend this book.
