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Originally Posted by Ruy Horta
When presenting a case its wise not to overdo it.
If french pilots complained about their cannon, it was their right
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- Ruy, please! Read my statements before you answer them! I explicitely wrote that the pilots found their cannon "good" but lamented the small ammo provision, "only" 60 rounds.
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its not fair to answer their case by simply pointing towards the Germans and their lack of a superior gun.
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- I don't understand this remark. In any case you know I use to fiercely defend French fighter pilots but this does not mean accepting what they wrongly believed at the time (and even later) just because they did not have the information, which was not their fault.
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After all these were the pilots fighting the air war of 1940, not us...
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- I couldn't agree more and this fight was damn hard (for the German aircrew too).
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Indeed "discovered" is the right way of putting it, this information has been fairly easy to obtain after WW2.
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- Perhaps but in France you got the wrong data very long after the war. Indeed one of the greatest 1940 French aces published a book 1985. In this book he reported that the Germans had got "15,700" combat aircraft on 10 May 1940 and, if my memory is OK, "15,000 tanks with 15,000 more in reserve". This was 45 years after 1940! I respect and admire this man very much, he won many victories including on 109s and he very nearly was killed but this cannot prevent me to say that he is, or was, not an historian. This is not an insult but just the truth. I still respect him.
A war hero is rarely a good historian.
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Explaining the Battle of France in terms of French supriority would not pay tribute to the men, nor do justice to the subject, ...
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- Who spoke of "French superiority"? I did not. The French lost didn't they (but NOT in the air) so there must have been a strong overall German superiority. This German superiority was mainly in the BRAINS of the top-ranking military leaders and also, often, of the middle-ranking ones : Guderian, Rommel and others. Did you really read what I wrote? The French CANNON was better. This was good but not quite enough to establish a French superiority! I am not as stupid as you seem to think. I KNOW the Me 109 was better than all French fighters except the D.520, which came too late to have a decisive impact (but it did harm the Luftwaffe). Nevertheless we should never forget this : "better" is not the same as "invincible". Hundreds of 109s were destroyed in the French Campaign (not by the French only). Many were shot down "even" by supposedly "inferior" Morane 406s whose pilots were brave and above all good.
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Using the Bloch 155 and belt fed cannon development in 1940 is beside the point, since it didn't matter much in operational terms.
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- My God, this was just a technical detail showing the technical advancement of the Armée de l'Air in June 1940. The LW needed at least 6 more months, possibly 8 or 10, to do the same and introduce a belt-fed cannon which was the German equivalent of the French one. This progress in FRance in June 1940 had hardly any effect for just a few 155s saw any action at all. Just a few more months... Everything was in the pipe, was being produced in French factories. In Sept. 1940 (nearing the end of the BoB) air war over France would have been VERY different. It is not entirely UNinteresting to think of what would have happened, had the damned French and British armies held the ground a little better, which was fully possible, as you wrote yourself in another posting.
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Besides the equivalent of an operational MB 155 would be a Bf 109F, eventually with a MG 151 or MG 151/20, equally belt fed.
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- No, no, the 155 was an improvement but still slower than a 109 E, let alone an F. The French planned only a limited 155-production. But when the F entered service on the French side it would have faced D.524s, which were fully able to put up a good fight against any F, and D.551s, which simply were a fighter pilot's dream, and other, much-improved types (Arsenal...).
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The French AF had to do a difficult job, in some areas they did a superb job, in others they were less successful - reasons ranging from the technical to the political. But such variables come in to play in every war and every battle. The french aren't unique...
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[Just ask the dames!]
- Yes, all this is true.
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IF the French AND British (the latter seem to gloss over their role in the continental defeat) armies had been able to fight the Germans to a stand still, the French AF would probably have been able to perform at an inreasingly effective level - technologically and strategically.
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- Yes, I have been spreading this remark for the last 15 years. But more importantly, it was possible to get a standstill. Read my future book, in a few years, if you want to know how!
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France didn't have the benefit of a sea to hide behind. The defeat of the French AF wasn't caused by the Luftwaffe, it was caused by the Heer.
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- Yes, certainly. The German Army occupied the French airfields. What could the Air Force do? Fly to North Africa, which Government ordered it to do.
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Their is no substitute for a tank on the runway...
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- But the French had more tanks and better ones. What a mess!
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What would be nice is to break through the British myths which form the basis of most (english) sources period.
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- OH YES!
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I'd love to see an objective analysis on the air war over france, not a subjective glorification reversing the myth.
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- If you mean ME I certainly do not feel I glorified anything nor anybody. I just shared some information (facts) with the readers. I feel perfectly objective. For ex. I certainly do NOT like 1940 German soldiers but already 1991 (not 1990) I wrote in "Invisibles vainqueurs" that German aircrew (not fighter pilots only) were brave and fought on in spite of their heavy losses. These losses were in fact often appalling but they did not give up. And shortly afterwards they suffered new, heavy losses over England and didn't give up either...[/quote]