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Bob Parks · Mar 31, 2017

nerofer said: ↑

The truth is that the Armée de l'Air had too many types of different fighters, none of which was truly satisfactory...

The most numerous was the Morane 406, very manoeuvrable but too slow and suffering from freezing of its guns at altitude.

The most efficient was the "H-75", or Curtiss P-36 to its country of origin; slightly suffering from a top speed perspective and lightly armed, but manoeuvrable, sturdy, very reliable (its Pratt & Whitney engine was worshiped by the french mechanics). Its only drawback was in fact its price (twice of the Morane), but it was indeed the best: during the "Phoney war" ("Drôle de guerre") "H-75" squadron were standing watch in the most treatened region of France (north-east)

The most promising was the Dewoitine 520, which had all the performance needed tyo counter the Messerschmitt 109, but was too late in production (and was considered tricky to master, with a tendancy to flick over)

The "Arsenal VG 33" referenced above could have made a very good fighter but the first production models reached the squadrons too late.

The Bloch 152 could have made an useful bomber interceptor with its heavy armament.

Then you had the Caudron-Renault 714 light fighter, which was indeed...too light: lightly armed, insufficent horsepower...

And a hotch-potch collection of different types, some imported such as the Koolhoven, etc...

In fact, the true real problem of the French aviation industry at the time of the second world war was the lack of a powerful engine, and the obligation to standardize on the Hispano V-12, which was rather inefficient.
And it would have been better to have standardized the industry on the production of one or two different types at most; unfortunately, the aviation industry was dispersed in too many small companies, all fighting each other to secure an order when there was a "Request for Proposal".

But despite this, the "Armée de l'Air" scored a high number of victories during the "Campagne de France", notably the "H-75" squadrons, and some D-520 pilots.

Rgds
Click to expand...

Geeze, that's hard to type! Anyway, I want to thank you for the very informative dissertation on the French Air Force. I'm not going to type that Arm'ee de l'Aire again. I was kicked out of French class at Duke for my pigeon French one morning. My professor was very upset that I wasn't serious about French. All I said was , " Parlez Crankcase, mon sewer, Bon mattin." Oh well.

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