Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
1) Firstly, the BoB was always portrayed in anything I read as the first time Germany had been stopped doing what it wanted to do
I don't disagree with that. I do disagree that in those earlier victories, the Luftwaffe did it easily. It did not. It suffered heavy casualties that affected it later.
2) The strength of the LW at the start of the conflict, that is, after the Battle of France is stated as it was. There is always a disagreement about numbers but they are broadly similar
Strongly disagree with that statement. Prior to the campaigns in the west, as of the end of March, LW returns including reserves was 3500 flyable airframes. By the end of the BoF it was under 1500. By the start of August it had recovered back to about 2800 and then levelled off, as the training schools were combed out to provide fillers for lost billets. The LW was already showing signs of combat stress by the time it went into battle over SE England
3) They may have shot some down even a lot down but they didn't stop the army below doing what it wanted to do.
This relates to two things, the doctrinal advantages the LW enjoyed and secondly the numbers they enjoyed. And factually it does ignore what happened over Dunkirk, or are you suggesting the LW let the BEF and the French 1st army group escape because they wanted them to???? Kleist was reporting that the LW had lost air superiority over that sector don't forget. People do tend to forget these details, papering over the cracks of the myths that we have all come to believe in.
4) The Germans didn't care about air losses, Goering was shocked at the reduction in strength of the LW prior to the BoB but he was the man in charge and he had paid no attention to it. The campaigns in Poland, Netherlands, Belgium and France had been a success.
The luftwaffes defeat was caught up against the losses it was sustaining and the inability to adequately replace those losses. It was a very shallow outfit, lacking the depth and resilience to undertake sustained heavy combat on a continuous basis. The Luftwaffe was structured towards short, sharp campaigns, with relatively long pauses between the campaigns. Whilst that tempo could be maintained they were going to win, if the war dynamic changed, they were going to lose.
The LW was in more or less continuous combat from April 1940. There were some periods that were quieter, but no periods of complete rest. This explains why in June 1941, the LW was the same or similar strength to what it had been prewar. By comparison, the RAF had tripled in size. In that intervening 22 month, from 9/39 to 6/41, the LW had lost 15000 airframes, roughly three times its force structure. A percentage of those losses occurred in the BoF.
5) After the first days of the war the Bf 109s were operating at increasing range and so their capacity to escort and protect became reduced. The French (like the B.E.F.) may have had some Stuka parties and other successes but down below their airfields were being over run
Bf109s also suffered from increasing serviceability issues. This slowed down their sortie rate as moreso over the increasing distances you mentioned. The very airfields you spoke about that were captured were quickly used by the LW as advanced airbases for LW a/c. conversely the allies were forced back to airfields across the channel and behind Paris, relatively speaking much further from the fighting than the advance LW bases, yet both the RAF and FAF increased their sortie rates, whilst the LW slumped.
6) To reduce air to air losses with a more conservative approach may well have slowed up things on the ground and created a front over which losses would be much greater and eventual defeat almost certain. This is an aviation forum which sometimes attaches far too much importance to what happened in the air.
German doctrine was an advantage, but tying one arm behind their backs and not providing the necessary logistic support to support their ambitions war plans was bordering on the criminal from the german perspective. Having made the decision to go to war, Germany absolutely needed to back up their war effort by going to a full war footing and stop loping along as if they were on a summer holiday romp. In this regard the British, even the French, were miles in front of the Germans. Their arrogance that they could win a war without raising a sweat is appalling history. They could have won, but chose to lose!!! Who does that!!!!!
Many thanks, I'll give them a look.A few suggestions
Amazon product ASIN 0141030658View: https://www.amazon.com/Lose-Battle-France-1940/dp/0141030658
Maybe
Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend
E. R. Hooton,"Phoenix Triumphant"
Cornwells book though is formidable. He details every single known losses of German, British,France, Italy,Dutch and Belgian aircrafts loss
TP, if you are of the opinion that the best property in a fighter is its ability to run because it is not able to hold its own at altitude, that is your prerogative. I would rather emphasize the other specifics mentioned in the RAF test - maneuverability, climb performance and controllability in a high power dive.Thank you again. 'Outflying' would've mean being better in crucial properties of a fighter, the P-36 did not offered that vs. Spitfire as far as we can read it.
TP, if you are of the opinion that the best property in a fighter is its ability to run because it is not able to hold its own at altitude, that is your prerogative. I would rather emphasize the other specifics mentioned in the RAF test - maneuverability, climb performance and controllability in a high power dive.
As for high power dive you shouldn't be surprised of the Hawk 75's diving ability. After all, the P-40 set a dive speed world record in 1942 and the P-36 was, apart from the engines, of a quite similar build. Here is a PR film of that P-40 record setting:
The P-36 550 mph. dive I mentioned (which you wanted to know more about) is referred to in Beauchamp and Cluny's book Curtiss Hawk 75 - the P-36 Bible (my opinion...). I have attached a scanned page from the book about the event. The background for the test was the final acceptance for the French orders, they wanted confirmation as to its ability to catch up with a Stuka in a dive. They got it. Please note the last paragraph in the text, which is why I was a little conservative in my "claim".
There is another item which is little talked about, the good range performance of the P-36. Its range, according to various manuals, was almost 1.000 miles at economic speed (200 mph.) at 15.000 feet. A nice feature in the Pacific. Curtiss test pilots in the USAAC acceptance trials stretched it to more than 1.200 miles flying at 170 mph. - at service weights, mind you! With the ability to stay with the bombers instead of diving away to save itself when enemy fighters approached.
Come to think if it, it would have been ideal for the Luftwaffe during Battle of Britain, flying circles around the Hurricanes and Spitfires and staying with the bombers with time and range to spare...
I'm not making up or misrepresenting anything, Parsifal.
You mentioned Murray in passing previously, so I guess that is a good enough source for you?
May-June 1940
Destroyed on operations:
Due to enemy action 1,129
Not due enemy action 216
Destroyed not on operations 83
Total: 1,428
Damaged are respectively 225; 183 and 80.
Total destroyed and damaged 1,916
I disagreed with your post saying that the British downplayed the performance of the Poles Czechs Dutch and French while exaggerating the power of the LW for their own ends. The fact is that they all fell very quickly. The British overestimated both the strength of the LW and Germany's aircraft production. German propaganda in this respect was so successful that the RAF shot down non existent aircraft in the BoB. Until long after the war only LW records showed how many aircraft were lost and what their strength at any time was.
After the BoB, nothing happened in the invasion of Russia to change the opinion that the LW as part of the German military was a very, very formidable opponent. The figures you quote are known now, they were certainly not known in 1940 but could possibly be surmised from the "maximum effort" raids on London, they were clearly running out of bombers.
As to your question, as far as I have read, it was a small group of fanatics who led Germany into war, to keep the population quiet they made sure as little effect was felt at home as possible. Until the army halted in Russia the German victories had been achieved at almost no cost to Germany at home. Of course by the time things changed it was too late.
what can I say. Murray is an older source and doesn't align with Campbell. For me Campbell is the go to reference for losses in the BoF. There are any number of idiosyncrasies in the reporting methodologies that might explain this.
if you want to claim that the FAF shot down 400 LW machines during the BoF, be my guest. I just don't agree with you.
Different blower gear??The Mohawk is from the Norwegian order and has an R1830-SC3G engine.
Does anyone know if there was supposed to be a difference with the R1830-SC3G engines given to France? French numbers seem to indicate critical alt was about 14,000 feet, not 10,000 feet as in the Mohawk II.
...
Spitfire I - 6.25 lb, 2600 rpm (6,050 lb)
Hurricane I - 6.25 lb, 2600 rpm (6,316 lb)
Mohawk II - 87 cm, 2550 rpm (5,962 lb)
All A&AEE tests. The Mohawk is from the Norwegian order and has an R1830-SC3G engine.
Does anyone know if there was supposed to be a difference with the R1830-SC3G engines given to France? French numbers seem to indicate critical alt was about 14,000 feet, not 10,000 feet as in the Mohawk II.
Well, you suggested I take it up with Murray, now you pull a new rabbit out of your hat. So how about you provide the sources that indicate that the French shot down some 1500 enemy aircraft,
some 50% more than they claimed to have shot down.
No, I have not claimed that the FAF shot down 400 LW machines; I have, however, linked to some French sources that regard the 1000 claims as being well optimistic. Their numbers are the 355-500 range, you don't agree with them, ok.
Higher critical altitude was for 92 oct fuel, lower for 100 oct fuel?
You have claimed that the LW lost "about 1000" airframes to the FAF, for an in-specific time period. You have quoted Murray with a figure of 1916, again time period not specified but that is a figure that is moving into the realm of the plausible.
Cornewell quotes figures of over 2180 a/c LW aircraft lost in the west from September 1939 through to 10 June 1940. over 1800 a/c were lost 9 May to 10 june by the LW. After 10 June the situation becomes very confused, plus none of these sources account for airframes that managed to return, were sent back to the factories for repair, but were written off. That process could take months sometimes ,
Some of my figures are by deduction. Having worked out the total losses suffered by the LW based on
Cornewells figures, and then adding the write offs from other sources that were deducted months later, we arrive at a loss figure of 2500a/c lost on the western front September 1939 to June 10thWe have fairly accurate losses inflicted by the RAF up to that time, as well as the Dutch, the Norwegians and other. by a process of subtraction from that raw, a figure of at least 1500 from the FAF is arrived at. That's a conservative figure and represents a minimum
I think the comment "France...tried to get the RAF to deplete its air strength ..." assumes the French thought the British were naive and altruistic, whereas the general assumption of the French government was closer to the British being selfish and untrustworthy: after all, it was the British who did nothing and even fought France in their attempts to limit German re-militarization. As for Stalin? This was a man who refused to believe Hitler would break their bilateral non-aggression pact, despite warnings, even after German troops were invading.
The RAF was in France to help Britain; helping France would be a side effect.
France lost for a mix of military reasons and domestic political ones, the latter probably responsible for many of the military ones, including the poor state of the French Air Force.
The R1830-SC3G engine used a 7.15 blower gear and was rated on 87 octane fuel.Different boost pressures to go with different fuels would explain different critical altitudes.
The fact remains, no matter how hard the French airforce had fought they simply didnt have the aircraft capable of even coming close to putting up a fight. The fact remains their best and most numerous fighter was the Morane Saulnier MS 406, and Dewoitine D.520
The Morane, although sturdy and highly maneuverable, it was underpowered and weakly armed. I will concede Britain at that time luckily had two of the most advanced fighter interceptors in the world. Not to mention a defence network that was unlike anything else. Plus i think there was a little more to it than just using France as a buffer. In the early days of May 1940 RAF Fairey Battles were thrown against German held bridges and ground forces, be it right or wrong. On the 14th May seventy-one British bombers took off; forty did not return. No higher rate of loss in an operation of comparable size has ever been experienced by the Royal Air Force. The RAF lost 959 aircraft during the defence of France, of which 477 were fighters. The French also had all their hopes on the Dewoitine D.520 which coming so late in 1940 that pilots were simply not trained or savvy enough to make use of them. (Even though British Spitfire pilots had the same problem but faired a lot better)
Between May and June 1940, the German Luftwaffe overwhelmed the French Armée de l'Aire. While many French pilots such as Antoine Saint-Exupéry — author of The Little Prince — went on to fight for the Allied cause, most French warplanes fell into the hands of the French Vichy regime. So while the French Dewoitine fighters did see a lot more combat after the Battle of France, they mostly fought against the Allies.However the relatively lightweight liquid-cooled engine was prone to overheating and bulky underwing radiators created additional drag, causing the type to fly just below the desired speed of 332mph, which is questionable. The testers chastised the French fighter for its difficult handling characteristics compared to the 109. The D.520 had a tendency to fall into a spin and experience "brutal stalls." The Dewoitine's confusing control scheme also left it prone to cartwheeling while taxiing on the ground!. Between 85 and 106 Dewoitines were lost during the Battle of France — though only 28 to 32 fell in air-to-air combat. However the relatively lightweight liquid-cooled engine was prone to overheating and bulky underwing radiators created additional drag, causing the type to fly just below the desired speed. The rest were either destroyed on the ground, crashed or captured. So yes, imo the French airforce were about as effective as a chocolate fireguard. 33 units were equipped with the D.520. For what good they did they should have took out the guns and tried to stop the Germans on the ground like they should have in the beginning.....
Plus i think some of you guys have your German loss rates a little off. They swing wildly from 1000 to 2800? Please. The real number was around 1500 and i seriously doubt it was even that high.