Quote:
Originally Posted by FalkeEins
400 produced, what proportion serviceable or even combat-ready ? 'Avions' no 143 article on GC II/7 page 51 and 'Avions' No 52 page 18 provide some 'context' - my translation. The picture is far more mitigé than you suggest;
" The Dewoitines were being delivered to us piecemeal ('..au compte-goutte..') Finally five pilots and five mechanics flew to Toulouse on board a Bloch 220 on the afternoon of May 14. Once there more surprises awaited us - the aircraft were not ready for a variety of reasons..(...) ..during the spring GC I/3 in Cannes had been tasked with operational testing of the D.520 ("expérimentation opérationelle") and had established a listing of no fewer than 132 changes that would have to be made to production machines before they were suitable for service.** Obviously this had an impact on the rate of production of the aircraft. More seriously however, the CGT (communist trade union and 'maitresse d'oeuvre' at the Toulouse factory) had received an order from the PCF (French communist party) to 'go-slow' on the production of the D.520 as a direct result of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. The airfield at Francazal was literally awash with aircraft that we couldn't use while our pilots continued to die at the controls of their Ms 406s...our five pilots finally returned with their aircraft ten days later on the 24th.."
(générale de brigade aérienne Duval)
**see Danel/Cuny P66-73 "..l'application des modifications 'bon de guerre'.." - 228 D.520 produced by May 10..only 75 in Armée de l'air service - of which 28 were declared 'non bon de guerre'. By 05 June a total of 138 D.520s had been declared 'bon de guerre' of which 68 (50%) had already been lost..
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by rof120
34 D.520s took part in the fighting from May 14 on (GC I/3), 68 from May 15 on (GC I/3 and II/3), about 102 on June 1 (add GC II/7) and so forth (units, like for example GC III/6, newly reequipped with D.520s, came back to the front all the time - totalling 5 Groupes de chasse, each with 34-36 D.520s, totalling a complement of 170 D.520s in first-line units. Losses were compensated for without any difficulty (production exceeded 400, "one an hour", as "Flying" put it about 1959).
400 produced, what proportion serviceable or even combat-ready ? 'Avions' no 143 article on GC II/7 page 51 and 'Avions' No 52 page 18 provide some 'context' - my translation. The picture is far more mitigé than you suggest;
" The Dewoitines were being delivered to us piecemeal ('..au compte-goutte..') Finally five pilots and five mechanics flew to Toulouse on board a Bloch 220 on the afternoon of May 14. Once there more surprises awaited us - the aircraft were not ready for a variety of reasons..(...) ..during the spring GC I/3 in Cannes had been tasked with operational testing of the D.520 ("expérimentation opérationelle") and had established a listing of no fewer than 132 changes that would have to be made to production machines before they were suitable for service.** Obviously this had an impact on the rate of production of the aircraft. More seriously however, the CGT (communist trade union and 'maitresse d'oeuvre' at the Toulouse factory) had received an order from the PCF (French communist party) to 'go-slow' on the production of the D.520 as a direct result of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. The airfield at Francazal was literally awash with aircraft that we couldn't use while our pilots continued to die at the controls of their Ms 406s...our five pilots finally returned with their aircraft ten days later on the 24th.."
(générale de brigade aérienne Duval)
**see Danel/Cuny P66-73 "..l'application des modifications 'bon de guerre'.." - 228 D.520 produced by May 10..only 75 in Armée de l'air service - of which 28 were declared 'non bon de guerre'. By 05 June a total of 138 D.520s had been declared 'bon de guerre' of which 68 (50%) had already been lost..
REPLY
As I underlined already in the very first line of this thread and repeated some time later,
(Exact quotation) “The scores of French fighter pilots (not the aces only) are a difficult field of research.”
Obviously this remark is valid of their aircraft, the serviceability of these etc. and the whole context.
I’ll start with your last words: “By 05 June a total of 138 D.520s had been declared 'bon de guerre' of which 68 (50%) had already been lost.”
I hope you’ll admit that 138 D.520s (most probably) delivered to first-line units by June 5 is higher a figure than the 30 propagated all over the Internet by well-meaning but misguided amateurs. The real number was 4.6 times higher than 30. Not a bad increase is it. (The real number on May 10 was 57 but only GC I/3's 34 fighters could be engaged as early as this (first mission on May 13). What’s more, it was in no way the end of it for deliveries of D.520s which were fit for combat continued all the time and increased by the day. In a TV interview (“Histoire de l’aviation” – this was one of the few worthwile minutes of this TV-programme) Émile Dewoitine said that he was able to double production if asked to. As you know production took place in the Toulouse factory and there was a “shadow factory” at Saint-Martin-du-Touch (or Tarbes, I'll check on this).
“68 had already been lost” (by June 5). Yes this is quite possible. You cannot wage war without sustaining any losses. What about German losses to D.520s? They were certainly much higher including the fighter losses alone. May I draw your attention on the fact that the loss of 68 of these superlative fighters is an indication of an aircraft complement of the units flying them much higher than 68. (This is valid of the fighter strength of virtually all warring parties). For the moment I am unable to have a closer look at your figures but they could be pessimistic as usual as soon as the FRENCH air force is concerned. See for example 138/30,,,
Heavy losses are not surprising because French Air HQ used the D.520s, as often as possible, in hard missions and air battles, and they often flew top cover for other fighter types. Flying top cover was even more dangerous, and resulted in higher losses, than other types of missions for clearly in most cases German fighters attacked the top cover first (in the BoB too).
1991 Paul Martin (in the book “Invisibles vainqueurs”) published figures of 32 D.520s lost in combat including 1 (one) to Flak on June 16, plus 4 in accidents (plus one before the French Campaign started on May 10). In 2000 he raised combat losses by 56 %, which means combat losses of 50. I can’t remember whether his figure for accidents was raised too. A total figure of 68 is possible indeed, taking into account the AC which came back with heavy damage, were sent to the rear and never were repaired because they were not considered worth repairing.
The negative experiences suffered by five pilots of GC II/7 on May 14 – this was only the 5th day of a campaign which lasted for 46 days - are not very surprising. The mass production of D.520s had just actually started after trials, checks (including by GC I/3) etc. There was teething trouble as usual when you start an industrial mass production anywhere in the world, in particular of such a complex product as a state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, even though the D.520 had been especially designed for easy, rational mass production needing as few manhours as possible.
I understand even at the end of the campaign around mid-June GC III/6, newly equipped with D.520s and facing menacing Italy (God knows why – D.520s would have been much better employed against the Luftwaffe for against Italian AC Morane 406s and Bloch 152s would have done the job) shot down comparatively numerous Italian AC without suffering any own losses. So even near the end first-line units were receiving D.520s which proved themselves in combat. Two or three more groupes de chasse (GC) received D.520s too but too late to see action in June and they were ordered, like all other units having the range, to fly to North Africa.
The communists (1940)
Everybody knows, or ought to know, that all communists including the French ones did their best to help Nazi Germany fighting the democracies of Western Europe because Hitler and the USSR led by the other mass-murderer Josef Stalin had signed a so-called “non-aggression pact” so the Nazis and the Communists were allies and good friends. I don’t know any words, in any language, which could express my anger, my disgust and my contempt strongly enough. There are no words. The communists started to fight Hitler’s Nazi Germany first after Germany had attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941, and they did so because Moscow had given them the order. In France after WW II they screamed everywhere, and they are till doing so, that they are “Le parti des fusillés” – to make it short, the party of the Résistance fighters. Ha ha ha. They fought for Russia not for France.
Yes 1940 the French communists hindered the French war effort as best they could, in particular in aircraft factories. Only two of these traitors were shot for this. The importance of this systematic sabotage against “the capitalist war” should not be overestimated however. French authorities were fully aware of the communist behaviour, intelligence was satisfactory on this and corresponding measures were applied. The country was at war so government had every right to force workers to work properly (no strike allowed) and to watch what they did in the factories and elsewhere. The communist traitors did some damage, it is true, but this damage was not really significant. Their propaganda and other actions among infantry soldiers were probably much worse and effective.
Have a look at the fantastic book “l’aviation de chasse française…” by the same authors as for “Le Dewoitine 520”, Raymond Danel and Jean Cuny. By the way, on May 10, 1940, French units had not got 30 or 34 D.520s but 57 (almost twice 30). On page 191 you can see that after the fighting had ended the Italian-German armistice commission counted 170 remaining D.520s in the non-occupied part of France (about 1/3 of the territory, in central, West and South France except the Atlantic coastal area). This does not include dozens of AC of the same type which were still in the occupied 2/3 of the French territory. Approximately 165 more had been flown to North Africa so there were about 280-300 remaining D.520s (not counting those which were destroyed).
All this hardly can confirm a complement of “30” D.520s in the French Campaign. In fact they were as numerous (or even more) as the “Spitfires” in the Battle of Britain, for which the British industry had one more month to continue and increase production.
Sorry – I have to attend a lot of urgent business now. Typing errors etc, will be corrected a little later, or so I hope.