France invested more in their air force instead of army and navy?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

What if France recognized the important role of the air force in the interwar years and skimped on the navy and army to spend 40% of it's defense budget in the 1930s on it's air force? How much of a difference would that make in 1940, given that the Luftwaffe was one of the most critical reasons the Germans won? Also how would the funding cuts to the navy and army impact both of those services? Might this create another problem with the army, creating butterflies that still lead to their loss?
 
What if France recognized the important role of the air force in the interwar years and skimped on the navy and army to spend 40% of it's defense budget in the 1930s on it's air force? How much of a difference would that make in 1940, given that the Luftwaffe was one of the most critical reasons the Germans won? Also how would the funding cuts to the navy and army impact both of those services? Might this create another problem with the army, creating butterflies that still lead to their loss?
Will the French be better led in this scenario? The OTL air force was probably ok in a resource standpoint but their sortie rate was atrocious. The funding will probably help stave off the defeatism and poor morale that was a part of the reason for the poor sortie rate historically but leadership change is necessary.
 

Deleted member 1487

Will the French be better led in this scenario? The OTL air force was probably ok in a resource standpoint but their sortie rate was atrocious. The funding will probably help stave off the defeatism and poor morale that was a part of the reason for the poor sortie rate historically but leadership change is necessary.
I think if the recognize how important the air force is enough to fund it better, they would be more willing to use it and use it more effectively.
 

Archibald

Banned
Would have made little difference. An enormous effort was done from 1938-39 but the whole combat aircraft procurement process (from operational requirement to combat missions) was in shambles. The Front Populaire actually tried a major reform of the french aircraft industry (from 1936) but Pierre Cot completely fumbled it.
Go figure: private companies were broken up, nationalized, and re-created (SNCF-style, SNCAs) according to geography (what the fuck has geography in common with aircraft industry, I don't know). Broadly - North, Center, South-West, South-East aircraft plants were grouped, whatever their origins. You guess, that created chaos. Meanwhile motorists and subcontractors were left untouched.
What happened was that the left-leaning Front Populaire feared a powerful private aircraft industry that could be turned against them. They had good reasons to fear that private companies might be infiltrate by organizations like La Cagoule.
 
I wonder if a stronger air force would have prevented Munich. The head of the French airforce gave a letter the French prime minister is terrible on the even of the Munich conference saying that in the case of war the Germans would destroy our air force within a week.
 

Deleted member 1487

I wonder if a stronger air force would have prevented Munich. The head of the French airforce gave a letter the French prime minister is terrible on the even of the Munich conference saying that in the case of war the Germans would destroy our air force within a week.
Doubt it, the Brits wouldn't support the French in case of war in the end, so they backed down as a unit.
 

Archibald

Banned
Henri Vuillemin was head of the French Air Force from 1938 and 1940. He was a good man but lacked authority and self-confidence.
Also: the freakkin' French Army did not wanted to relinquish combat aircrafts to the Air Force (that had been created in 1933). They had an enormous fleet of mostly obsolete cooperation / reconnaissance aircrafts, thing Les Mureaux 117.
Too many French squadrons had dual commanders, one from the Air force, the other from the Army. For example, fighters groups of Curtiss H-75 were under authority of the Army. Hence they were thinly squattered all over the Western front, from the Channel to the Switzerland border.

In short, a major clusterfuck at every level. That 400 German aircrafts were shot down in seven weeks was a tribute to French fighter pilots courage.
 
Doubt it, the Brits wouldn't support the French in case of war in the end, so they backed down as a unit.
After Munich France started spending 40% of their military budget on the airforce.

There was 250,000 workers in the aircraft industry in 1940 and they couldn't consistently produce above 300 planes a month. Something was rotten in the aircraft industry. They need a beaverbrook type running all over the civilian industry to fix things. I don't think that would have been tolerated in peace time.
 
Simply pouring money wouldn't solve the issue, you also had to break up the left-wing resurgence and working class militancy. Read State Capitalism and Working-class Radicalism in the French Aircraft Industry for this issue.
 

Archibald

Banned
After Munich France started spending 40% of their military budget on the airforce.

There was 250,000 workers in the aircraft industry in 1940 and they couldn't consistently produce above 300 planes a month. Something was rotten in the aircraft industry. They need a beaverbrook type running all over the civilian industry to fix things. I don't think that would have been tolerated in peace time.

You nailed it perfectly.
 
To me there is two main problems.

1. Industry.

2. Sortie rate.

Both of these need to be fixed. The existing air force with a decent sortie rate (let's say 3 times historical their sortie rate would have put them on parity with the British but below the German sortie rate) would have done a lot better.

Industry, aircraft production should have been significantly higher for the amount of resources available. They could have trebled the production numbers from 1935-1939 and provided the additional airframes necessary to face off against the Luftwaffe in a longer campaign.

I actually believe that if the airforce sortie rate was improved they would have held a rough aerial parity with the Luftwaffe for a while but would have been a wasting asset as aircraft production wasn't high enough.
 

Deleted member 1487

After Munich France started spending 40% of their military budget on the airforce.

There was 250,000 workers in the aircraft industry in 1940 and they couldn't consistently produce above 300 planes a month. Something was rotten in the aircraft industry. They need a beaverbrook type running all over the civilian industry to fix things. I don't think that would have been tolerated in peace time.
and we hear about how rotten the German aircraft industry was!

To me there is two main problems.

1. Industry.

2. Sortie rate.

Both of these need to be fixed. The existing air force with a decent sortie rate (let's say 3 times historical their sortie rate would have put them on parity with the British but below the German sortie rate) would have done a lot better.

Industry, aircraft production should have been significantly higher for the amount of resources available. They could have trebled the production numbers from 1935-1939 and provided the additional airframes necessary to face off against the Luftwaffe in a longer campaign.

I actually believe that if the airforce sortie rate was improved they would have held a rough aerial parity with the Luftwaffe for a while but would have been a wasting asset as aircraft production wasn't high enough.
Part of the issue is that only about 25% of the air force was operational in 1940, the rest had maintenance issues, was used for training, was modernizing equipment, etc. Apparently they even had to use combat pilots to ferry new aircraft to training centers during the 1940 campaign due to lack of pilots.
 
Just a couple of factoids regarding how bad the the aircraft industry was organised.

200 different prototypes were paid for by the French aircraft ministry between 1929 and 1932.

There's an incident in 1935 where 65 planes of one type were ordered from 17 different factories rather than setting up a production line.
 
I don't see how improving the air force, but neglecting the army would turn out better for the French. Having an even worse French army fight the Wehrmacht doesn't sound good to me even if their air force is more on parity with the Luftwaffe. Neglecting the navy though would turn out to be a good bet as in the end the French Navy didn't contribute anything to the war effort. However, French neglect here is going to rub the British the wrong way since they expected the French navy to be vital against the Italian navy in the Mediterranean in case of war.

IOTL, the French sought to compensate for their poor domestic aircraft industry by buying lots of American planes (most of which were not delivered in time) so that is always an option as they reconfigure their doemstic industry. However, we need to be careful here as to when to begin buying planes. Early thirties models would be obsolete by 1940. Furthermore, US export orders were sometimes hampered because the US Army Air Corps had their own needs and didn't want to see American planes going to other countries that were needed in the US. So there are some political obstacles involved. If these can be overcome though, then we may see large orders of P-36 and other US aircraft arrive in 1938-1940 while the French work out the problems in their domestic production, hopefully producing their own models like the Dewoitine D.520 earlier than OTL and providing them a fighter equivalent to the Bf109.

Given the many problems of France at the time, ultimately I don't think any of this will produce a different end result. More German aircraft will be shot down hampering German plans afterwards, but I don't think France is going to be saved.
 
I don't see how improving the air force, but neglecting the army would turn out better for the French. Having an even worse French army fight the Wehrmacht doesn't sound good to me even if their air force is more on parity with the Luftwaffe. Neglecting the navy though would turn out to be a good bet as in the end the French Navy didn't contribute anything to the war effort. However, French neglect here is going to rub the British the wrong way since they expected the French navy to be vital against the Italian navy in the Mediterranean in case of war.
Ironically the British would turn out to be very happy if France neglected her navy. That said Dunkuerque and Strassburg were considered poor ships for the Mediterranean theater, more designed towards hunting cruisers.

Eliminate them and replace their construction by refitting some of the older battleships and you may end up with a French navy that is better suited to the countering Italy in ww2 for less.

That said I agree you can't get a better result by weakening the French army. The resources dedicated to the French airforce historically were sufficient. Further investment would have been wasted, just like the historical investment.
 
The French needed a Command, Control and Communications system. They needed plans, doctrines and strategy that would work. They needed an organization that worked, political, military and industrial. They needed it and money can't buy it. The British spent extra money on air forces, but only had one organization that worked, following the fall of France.
 
I have always been dubious of the wisdom of France having a dedicated airforce. During the German blitz, what the French really needed was effective aircraft scouting and ground attack aircraft (as well as aircraft to contest the skies with the Luftwaffe, thus inhibiting its ability to act). That was exactly the sort of airforce the French Army was building before everything got shaken up and the planes handed over to a dedicated airforce whose first priority was to preserve itself and whose main interest was in long range bombing which really wasn't all that useful when they had German armies to deal with.

If France had preserved the OTL force structure, then more money might, MIGHT have resulted in an airforce more willing to fight the Germans, but mostly I fear they'd have wasted money on bombers.

fasquardon
 

Deleted member 1487

I have always been dubious of the wisdom of France having a dedicated airforce. During the German blitz, what the French really needed was effective aircraft scouting and ground attack aircraft (as well as aircraft to contest the skies with the Luftwaffe, thus inhibiting its ability to act). That was exactly the sort of airforce the French Army was building before everything got shaken up and the planes handed over to a dedicated airforce whose first priority was to preserve itself and whose main interest was in long range bombing which really wasn't all that useful when they had German armies to deal with.

If France had preserved the OTL force structure, then more money might, MIGHT have resulted in an airforce more willing to fight the Germans, but mostly I fear they'd have wasted money on bombers.

fasquardon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_693
 
Best approach for France is to choose their best designs and force production on only those. As it was, design and production resources were wasted across duplication.

Six single-seat fighters; all low-wing, retractable undercarriage monoplanes, all developed and produced into 1940.
  • Arsenal VG-33
  • Bloch MB.150 series
  • Caudron C.714
  • Dewoitine D.520
  • SNCAO 200
  • Morane-Saulnier M.S.406
Pick the Dewoitine D.520, produce only that fighter. Nationalize the plants if needed.


And then there's six, modern, fast, twin engined strike aircraft, all designed and produced into 1940.
  • Amiot 354
  • Bloch MB.170
  • Breguet 693
  • Latécoère 570
  • Lioré et Olivier LeO 45
  • Potez 630
Pick the best one, or two if one all purpose can't do it. Produce only those. I suggest the Breguet 693 and one more if you need a second larger aircraft.

latest


3e1ae85f3ec812a94fa8a348fb4f2808.jpg


Lastly, four multi-engine transports designed and produced concurrently into 1940. Just choose one FGS!
  • Bloch MB.220
  • Caudron C.440 Goéland
  • Dewoitine D.338
  • Potez 662
Bloch MB.220 is the best pick by far.

mb-220.jpg
 
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