French fighter scores, mainly 1939-1940

[keith A]

I believe the French pilots made their claims honestly, as did the RAF and Belgian airforces, and an element of hope was, as always, included as to the fate of their opponents. The Polish pilots who flew the Caudron CR714 may indeed have shot down several LW aircraft but in the absence of confirmation I sincerely doubt this was the case. The Caudron was underpowered, undergunned and unmanoevreable. The fact that Polish pilots took to the skies in these abominations says a great deal for their bravery. They fought hard, and perhaps if they ganged up on a German bomber would succeed but the Bf109 pilot who was shot down by this aeroplane 9if that ever happened) is not the well-trained, well-armed fighter pilot we know they had in 1940.... by the end of the Battle of Britain, faced with no territorial advantage and a fighter force that at least could match them, this was a very different case. In fact after 1940, although they were defending their conquests and faced with demands on several fronts where they did not have such an advantage the LW was playing with a deck of cards with less aces, and a lot of jokers....

[keith A]

By the way Stig1207 I think your contribution to the discussion was valuable. Why does this forum not allow members to approve posts? "The aerodrome" does and it's a good method of gauging opinion on topics. I add to reputations on the forum but I know that other members do.

[Stig1207]

Originally Posted by keith A

By the way Stig1207 I think your contribution to the discussion was valuable. Why does this forum not allow members to approve posts? "The aerodrome" does and it's a good method of gauging opinion on topics. I add to reputations on the forum but I know that other members do.

Thanks keith, I feared I had expressed myself in way that could be misunderstood, I seem to be a master at that

When it comes to the subject of overclaiming, there still seems to be an element of:

'They all overclaimed, except for........(insert favourite ace, unit, airforce, etc).

Otoh, maybe it would be a boring subject if it wasn't the case

[keith A]

By the way "so, as my brother used to put it, they had pretensions ”like a drunk woman”. is about the most offensive thing I have ever seen on this forum. I am surprised that no-one else commented on this but maybe it's because your posts are so so very long. Your brother, and you are morons if you think this is an appropriate argument. I am astonished the moderators failed to notice this. I HOPE this is an oversight on their part. You, however neeed to grow up....is your brother twelve?

[keith A]

In case my response wasn't clear rof120 is the object of my comments.

[rof120]

Originally Posted by keith A

Cut and numbers added by me, rof120:

1. By the way "so, as my brother used to put it, they had pretensions ”like a drunk woman”.

2. is about the most offensive thing I have ever seen on this forum. I am surprised that no-one else commented on this but maybe it's because your posts are so so very long.

3. Your brother, and you are morons if you think this is an appropriate argument. I am astonished the moderators failed to notice this. I HOPE this is an oversight on their part.

4. You, however neeed to grow up....is your brother twelve?

REPLIES:

1. You must be out of your mind. This was just a harmless little joke (and, needless to say, not insulting to any women).

2. Obviously you didn't read all genuinely (and disgustingly) offensive posts… which never were erased.

3. Thank you for the morons. Nobody considers "this" an appropriate argument. My brother-the-moron was trained at the French officers' academy of "Saint-Cyr" (admission after a hard competitive examination) and he became a captain with the French paratroopers at their main base of Pau. I was a reserve-officer with the Armée de l'Air and a combat aircrew (after a tough competitive examination at academic level including mathematics, languages and geography - every sixteenth (16th) candidate was accepted but all had the necessary education level) but 17 years after WW II (not drinking "my vermouth" whereas enemies bombed the nearby city, and not hiding in any concrete shelter either).

4. I'll do my best to grow up even though I'm older than 70. I never give up this hope.

My brother the paratrooper officer died in my own arms at the age of 42 (a purely civilian death, not in some war - too bad isn't it).

More on victories (on page 2), air tactics, Adolf Galland, numerous aircraft photographs of many kinds etc. here:

http://yves-michelet.over-blog.com/

[rof120]

I fear I’ll be « verbose » again because discussing this matter seriously in 2 lines is not possible but don’t worry (if at all) for it’s nearly the last time ; for explanations see http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=55516

In one of the preceding posts we had a discussion on the credibility of 162 « certain » victories won by French fighters on Me 109s during the French Campaign (May 10-June 24, 1940). Williamson Murray, an excellent American historian, gives the figures of 169 lost in combat in May-June (including May 1-9) and 66 more lost in accidents (see W.M.’s book « Luftwaffe – Strategy for Defeat 1933-1945 », table III (numerical strength and various losses, etc.). Someone observed that 162 out of 169 Me 109s for French fighters leaves only 7 to other enemies, which of course is too few. I remarked that 169 combat losses is NOT CREDIBLE even though Murray is a very good man and very interesting but I feel he is much more active in theory, high above the clouds, than in concrete, low-level facts like daily losses in combat etc.

66 Me 109s lost in accidents would be 39 % of the combat losses, which hardly anybody can believe, I think. What’s more, Me 109s were involved in an extremely hard, very fierce air war in which their technical superiority (Me 109 Es only were used, no Bs, Cs or Ds any more in the battle area) made it possible for German fighter pilots to win very numerous victories (not as much as some people, in particular Germans and a few Frenchmen, claim, i.a in all too long victory tables, but very numerous indeed). This superiority was the result of a good design too (as a whole) but almost exclusively of a very powerful, excellent engine made by Daimler-Benz (DB 601), which featured fuel injection in the cylinders, a very significant improvement (this was in the pipe in France too with Hispano-Suiza engines which would have been used from about August on – not at all in the UK).

According to at least one German source which can be taken seriously albeit not believed blindly ("Der Spiegel") not 169 Me 109s or 235 (including accidents) were lost but 535 (without raising the total number of German losses including bombers etc.), which I deem much more credible and explains a lot of things. Perhaps it’s not exactly 535 but this doesn’t matter much for the reasoning right here.

As I remarked already in this same thread « superior » does not mean ”invincible”, not at all. Yes the 109s fought a lot and won a large number of real victories (many on helpless enemies like British bombers including the poor Fairey "Battles" and ”Blenheim IVs”, Gloster ”Gladiator” biplanes (belonging to Norwegian, Belgian and British air forces), various Allied recce and close recce AC and more, and many other German victories on various Allied fighters : Morane 406s, Hurricanes, Spitfires (in the 9 days of the Dunkerque operation only), Bloch 152s, Curtiss H-75s, even about 48 superlative Dewoitine 520s and miscellaneous types. Nobody can imagine that even a superior fighter could fight (mainly) two strong air forces – French and British – without sustaining heavy losses in combat, not to mention those destroyed (certainly several dozen) by return fire from Allied bombers and recce AC.

Yes the engine performance of Me 109s made them clearly better than all Allied fighters except Dewoitine 520s (which were used in non-negligible numbers, about 100 on average) and Spitfires, which in May-June 1940 were hardly engaged in higher numbers than the D.520s. Even during the Battle of Britain (roughly 2 months later) Spitfires were only about 1/3 of roughly 600 RAF fighters in spite of a strongly rising production in aircraft factories. I made the following remark already : yes most French AND BRITISH fighters including Hurricanes, Gladiators, Blenheim Is and Defiants, were clearly inferior as compared to the Me 109 but this does not mean « useless », « worthless » or « helpless ». Quite on the contrary : they shot down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds more of German aircraft of all kinds including several hundred Me 109s (and Allied AA made a contribution too). Dutch fighters, too, fought with great distinction just like Dutch AAA and Army units and they did shoot down quite a few « Huns ».

How many 109s exactly were destroyed in combat, that is a question, but according to myself certainly many more than W. Murray’s 169, a doubtful figure found in German documents translated into American… 1,016 engaged 109s faced roughly 1,000 Allied fighters of acceptable quality even though most of them clearly were not as good as 109s. Of these 1,016 Me 109s a number had to be held back in Germany to protect the coasts and vital areas like Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Kiel, Berlin, the Ruhr region and more. How many were held back ? I can’t remember but we can find this figure in J. Prien’s volume 3 (JFV, purple series), in which the bases of all German fighter units are given (my copy is still in a box). I guess about 150 of these Me 109 Es were held back in the rear area. This leaves about 870 for the main battle area. Same thing for the Allied fighters, which had to protect some vital areas in the rear too.

Most people dealing with aircraft losses, or all of them, give the percentage of losses in accidents on the basis of total losses (combat + accidents) of which accidents are a part so let us do this here too.

For French fighter losses in combat and in accidents my only source at the moment is the book « Invisibles vainqueurs » (1991), by Paul Martin and publisher-historian Yves Michelet (Martin contributed, among other things, all statistics in this book) :

Fighter type / Lost in combat
including to Flak, excluding
losses on the ground (bombs…)

MS 406 123
MB 152 72
Curtiss H-75 55

Lost in accidents: 3 MS 406s, 7 MB 152s, 1 Curtiss H-75 1

So according to W. Murray (table III) Me 109 losses on operations were 235 including 66 in accidents (28 % of 235).

According to Paul Martin French fighter losses for the three mentioned types were 250 in combat plus 11 in accidents (11 is about 4.2 % of 261).

If the 109s really had such a high loss rate in accidents these fighters were terrible, or their pilots were. I believe none of these two explanations is correct. Conversely I don’t believe Martin’s accident figures, which I feel are much too low. Surely there were more accidents than that on the French side. I suspect that a large part of the French accidents was not registered : no documents availabe, O my God! How terrible not to have good documents on this. But I think yes, such documents exist in the French archive.

Provisionally I have no other possibility than making an evaluation, an educated guess. For Me 109s I guess about 10 % of all losses were accidents (air battles were very intensive and as a whole combat losses were high), which with Murray’s figures is 23 or 24. Let us say 24, which leaves 211 for combat losses including to Allied AA and rear-gunners, together about 20 % at most, which is approximately 11, leaving about 200 to Allied fighters (95 %). Obviously all these figures are rough evaluations. I hope I’ll be able to refine them in the future but even as they are today they give a much more realistic picture of the whole. 200 Me 109s lost to Allied fighters is much more like it (not to mention about 508, which is 95 % of « Der Spiegel’s » total figure of 535 ; 90 % of 535 would be 482). According to me approximately 500 Me 109s shot down by Allied fighters could be too high a figure but it is much closer to reality than 200 or even than 95 % of Murray’s 169, which is 161! A more realistic assessment would be near 450, taking AA and rear-gunners into account.

This particular research is not finished but I am quite confident that it will be possible to come very close to reality, possibly in the next weeks or months. Take care.

[rof120]

I think I made it clear enough that the Me 109's superiority (except against Spitfires and Dewoitine 520s) did not make it invulnerable to gunfire of all kinds. According to "Der Spiegel" (Germany) no less than 535 Me 109s were lost (destroyed) to all causes during the French Campaign alone (May 10-June 24, 1940), including accidents and losses to AA, rear-gunners of Allied bombers and recce AC and of course all Allied fighters including Dutch and British ones, and mainly the 912 deployed French fighters (as of May 10).

It is possible that "535" is not quite accurate but in any case, with all my knowledge of this matter, I find it perfectly possible.

Certainly some people don't believe it or… refuse to believe it. All right, look at another well-known GERMAN SOURCE: "Die Jagdfliegerverbände der deutschen Luftwaffe 1934 bis 1945", volume 3, by Jochen Prien et al (The Fighter Units of the German Air Force 1934-1945), purple series, often mentioned as JFV (here volume 3). The story is set out for every Jagdgruppe of 40 fighters and for the "Stab" (staff) of 4. The author(s) give, among other information, the numerical strength of all (? - my copy is in a box) engaged Me 109-units at different dates, like 40 on May 9 or 10 (before missions were flown) and, quite typically, 17 about June 10, 14 or 18. I can't be more precise for the moment because my copy of this interesting book is not available right now but if you own a copy yourself you can have a look at these tables of numerical strength. If I remember correctly several Me 109 "Gruppen" had only 17 fighters left around the middle of June and the number of operational pilots (which could be sent into battle) was strongly reduced too, both in spite of received replacement aircraft and pilots. I guess the numerical strength in fighters had been reduced to about 20 or 25 at best on average for all "Gruppen" (40 at the beginning).

This reduction of the numerical strength of Me 109 units is very impressive.

You can also look at the total aircraft losses (destroyed AC only) suffered by the Luftwaffe in both great air campaigns of 1940 according to American historian Williamson Murray:

French Campaign : 1,428
almost exclusively from May 10 through June 15. From June 16 through June 24 only a few aircraft were lost every day, or none at all, on both sides. So the Luftwaffe lost approximately 1,420 AC in 37 days (on average: 1,150 in a month of 30 days)

Battle of Britain (July 10-September 30): 1,636 in 83 days, which is 591 for a month of 30 days.

According to these figures the German loss rate was almost twice as high over France and the Benelux countries as over the UK (in the BoB).

I have to add that Murray's German loss figure for the BoB is by about 200 higher than the usually mentioned figure (1,428, and 1,469 in the French Campaign). This is possibly one of the consequences of using an American translation of German documents. If we use the most frequently published figures the above-mentioned loss rates per month become:

1,191 over France etc.

516 in the BoB.

In this case the German loss rate over France etc. was clearly higher than twice the BoB loss rate.

This does not belittle the achievements of the RAF in the BoB. There the aim was NOT to destroy a maximum number of enemy aircraft but to survive as an operational (usable) air force and still be around in spite of German attacks. This goal was perfectly achieved by the RAF thanks to excellent leaders: Dowding and Park.

It does not belittle the achievements of the RAF in the BoB and it proves that French fighters put up a terrific fight in May-June 1940 for nobody can believe that about 100 Hurricanes and a few Gladiators (!), "Defiants" and Blenheim fighters (! again) (reinforced by more squadrons but they all suffered very high losses) did almost all of the job - supplemented by RAF 11 Group during the 9 days of the Dunkerque air battle. 11 Group had a numerical strength of about 250 fighters (Spitfires too) and Dowding refused to engage more fighters than these above Dunkerque. (Fighter Command then had about 600 fighters.) According to myself the Luftwaffe lost about 90 AC to RAF fighters in the Dunkerque battle (at the same time the fighting went on against the French in other areas) even though optimistic RAF fighter pilots claimed about 400. They fought as best they could and the British soldiers there were very unfair to them, accusing the RAF of doing nothing against the German air attacks which terrorized these terrible warriors. French Fighters for their part still had a numerical strength of 600-800 (I can't be more precise right now).

The 1940 French fighter arm deserves the utmost respect and admiration for its bravery and its outstanding achievements (just as the RAF fighter boys for their achievements both over France etc. and in the BoB). This is quite simply the truth, it is reality - I hope I proved it in the above text. It is about time to admit this fact at last, which does NOT lower other people's merits.

[edwest2]

Well then. A book, or several books, appear to be in order. Minus the personal asides of course.


Ed

[rof120]

Williamson Murray's book "Luftwaffe etc." is most interesting and very useful even though most readers who are writers too did not understand what he was talking about (Murray did) and foolishly took his "Losses as Percentage of Initial Strength" (last column of tables III - French Campaign - and IX - Battle of Britain -) as the loss percentage in combat, which is seriously wrong because the actually engaged force was much less numerous than the "initial force". For example the latter was 1,369 for Me 109s on 4 May 1940 but "only" 1,016 were actually deployed. This means that no less than 353 Messerschmitt 109 fighters existed but were NOT engaged in combat (more than 1/3 of the engaged force - possibly Me 109 B, C or Ds...). The late Patrick Facon, historian with the historical dept. of the Armée de l'Air, is one of those who didn't understand and hence drew wrong conclusions "proving" how ineffective French fighters were. Facon is a highly-respected historian (not by myself) and his works are often quoted… Big sigh…

Apart from this W. Murray indicates that 169 Me 109s were lost in combat (table III). In table V we can see that the "Number of fighter pilot casualties" was… 169 too. This can be true - such a coincidence is possible when publishing so many figures and statistics. Nevertheless it would mean that almost every single Me 109 destroyed in combat had a killed pilot too. Accidents caused some casualties but in very many cases the pilots survived accidents on take-off or landing, in particular if caused by the narrow undercarriage, and some other accidents too (this seems to have changed later in the war because green German pilots were by far not as good as 1940, but we are discussing only 1940 here).

As I explained in previous posts I don't believe that Me 109 losses IN COMBAT (including losses to AA and air-gunners) were as low as Murray's 169 (some error or misunderstanding probably occurred) and I believe that they were much higher than that, something like approximately 420-430 (plus losses to other causes than air combat - taking "Der Spiegel's" total figure of 535 as a basis). This makes 169 pilot casualties much more credible for, as far as I know, approximately one fighter pilot died for every three destroyed fighters (roughly 1/3). But unfortunately I don't know if we can trust this figure of 169 killed. Perhaps someone has more precise information, possibly from Prien's JFV volume 3.