My original comment was: "The P-36 pilots in France had the advantage of a few weeks to get familiarized with their aircraft, which I think helped a lot. D.520 pilots were thrown into the breach with little if any training on type. Same for the Bloch 150 series though those probably had more development work needed before they would be viable. "
This is basically true, except it was for a longer period than I realized.
Then you wrote "some hawk units had them since 1939" and I replied with IIRC etc. I wrote that because 1) It's what i thought was the case, admittedly not being an expert on the Battle of France, and 2) I wrote IIRC because I was not sure. And 3) I figured someone else here would correct me if i was wrong because I know there are some people active here who do know the French air force history quite well.
I have my little corners of WW2 aviation history that I do know quite well, and when I'm fairly certain something is true - and I have sources for it - I'll say so.
You apparently were not aware either that in fact almost
all of the Hawk squadrons had them since Winter or Spring 1939. Or were you?
All of which is a very minor detail as to the point being made - French pilots and ground crew had more time to learn to fly (and maintain) the H75 than the D.520, upon which I think we both agreed. This in turn was a point which had veered off from a previous debate about whether the Whirlwind or the Hawk would have been effective for the British during the Battle of Britain, which I had been pointing out they were not suited for due to limited altitude performance. Another point where I think we agreed except possibly in some details.
Many of us make statements. Many times I have been wrong.
When somebody corrects me I often look things up, before posting reply.
If I reply that I am right I try to bring sources or will provide them if requested.
You are entitled to do so. I will do the same- when I have time, and if I have the resources. I don't have sources for the French Air Forces in the Battle of France, and i didn't have time to go looking, so I let it ride and made clear that i didn't know for sure. Again, that is what IIRC means. "If I recall correctly", the "I may not have" being implicit here.
This was the 2nd post after I gave the beginning delivery dates (spring of 1939) which called into question the time line of most units not getting them until few weeks before the invasion.
Sorry I didn't post the book title, authors and date of publication for you.
I never asked you to, I just wrote that I thought they had ramped up the number of squadrons later. Apparently I had confused that for the later delivery of the (much more capable) Hawk 75A3 in April 1940.
You just doubled down with the "IIRC".
Because of the reasons I outlined above. You made a sharp remark and I thought you were genuinely curious so I looked it up once someone listed the units, and then you got pointlessly snarky.
I use the "IIRC" a fair amount, in a first post/reply, if somebody says I am wrong then I will try to look it up. I don't use it as the 2nd step.
You often post a lot of vague stuff Shortround, it rarely bothers me. Usually your posts are interesting regardless, except when you get cranky.
Maybe I am wrong about this. I dislike getting into arguments that bring no facts to the discussion.
Sometimes there doesn't need to be an argument. I'm not sure how much it matters precisely how much time the French H75 pilots had to train, when the point being made was that they actually
had time to train before going into combat, whereas the D.520 pilots more or less had to hit the ground running. Which appears to be correc.t
There are certain people on this board that I will not question in certain areas because I figure their knowledge far exceeds mine.
I also make more than my share of typos so I don't try to score "points" on anybody for theirs and if I make a typo on number (like altitude or speed) and somebody calls me on it, then good, my spelling may suck but I want the numbers/facts to be correct. Let me correct it and thanks for pointing it out.
I'm glad for my numbers (or dates) to be corrected if they are wrong too, but sometimes that comes along with a completely pointless extra dose of acid and given that as you note, we all make little mistakes on here (again, if we didn't, we'd have far less to discuss), I don't need to take that from anybody.
