French Anti Ship Bombing 1939-40

[Carl Schwamberger]

Any experts here on the French air force of 1940? I am trying to understand the anti ship capability of the Armie de Air. Remarks about a small torpedo equipped air group have surfaced, but no documentation or details. More important I understand the training for low level attacks on ground targets was common. However I lack details on this technique. If it was practiced then it would have siginificant utility against ships as the sucessfull USAAF "Skip Bombing" or the German "Swedish Turnip" techiniques depended on vary low level approach to the target ship.

Thanks for any information or leads to sources

[Larry]

I'm not having much luck finding a French aircraft type that carried a torpedo and in any case a torpedo is not usually used for skip bombing.

Do you have an idea of the type used for these trials?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Not a clue. I've collected a large wad of text other folks cribbed from multiple sources. Other than two different mentions of "torpedo bombers". Maybe on the next pass through all these pages, or the one after that I'll find another detail?

One might guess it would be a twin engined aircraft but that does not narrow the possibilities much. Perhaps I'll take a look at the types used by the naval aviation.

But for now I am looking at a state of Indiana quarterly income tax witholding form

[CJE]

French torpedo bombers belonged to the Aéronautique navale (or French Navy if you prefer), which had seven "escadrilles" equiped with Laté 298 floatplanes on May 1940 (in all, 64 aircraft).
No torpedo attacks were ever attempted (even against Italy) and the Latés were only used for low-level gound attacks with heavy losses to the 109s and Flak.
The Armée de l'Air showed a complete lack of interest in anti-shipping strikes.

Hope this answer part of your question.

Chris

[Carl Schwamberger]

Chris... that is very helpfull. More than a experimental unit then. In numbers its not trivia, but not something that would dominate the war at sea.