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 about making the MB-152 into a fighter-bomber? It would be faster than a ground attack aircraft, just need one engine and pilot, and be the type of aircraft that later most everyone decided was the best ground attack option in a hostile air environment.
 

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The MB-157 might be a good start, with the superior power of the 14R instead of the 14N. Except that gnome Rhone had their share of issues...
 

Deleted member 1487

The MB-157 might be a good start, with the superior power of the 14R instead of the 14N. Except that gnome Rhone had their share of issues...
I'd agree, it would have been the French Fw190, but it was just an early incomplete prototype in 1940. I'm thinking of what would have been widespread operational in 1940, which would have been the 152.
 
Maybe I missed it, but does anyone have the numbers for what the French spent on each service during the 1930s?

According to French wikipedia's stats (sadly not by year for much of the period, and it doesn't list where it came from):

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"Malgré la crise de 1929, le budget officiel de la marine de guerre est passé de 2,66 milliards de francs en 1929 à 3,22 milliards en 1932, ce qui, même en déflatant, fait une augmentation en francs constants de 35,3 %. Son budget en 1930 de 2,618 millions de francs représente 5,3 % du budget national (en dessous des 3 autres principales marines à ce niveau et inférieur au budget de 1914, seule cas dans ce cas des 5 participants de la conférence de Londres)."

So really some quite heavy spending, even though it is inferior to that of 1914. One thing to be aware of though for those who are hoping that it would do something to help the air force in its relationships to the rest of the services, is that despite this civil-naval relations actually got steadily worse, despite parliament approving essentially every naval budget and having a concrete plan of naval construction. One of the more amusing examples of this dysfunctional relationships was when a French naval officer reprimanded a naval archivist for commenting favorably on the Norwegian rendition of la Marseillaise, as he, a royalist, believed that it was unpatriotic... But then of course, la royale isn't just nicknamed for where her headquarters are located.... As always in France, just money alone is not guaranteed to produce results.

That said, that's a lot of money, and while of course not everything can be stopped with spending, if we cut that to the bone and invested in the French aeronautical industry and some form of outlet for the production (more civil aviation would be the most logical), it might actually achieve some important achievements for the French air force. Since it won't be last minute the build up of production can be much more rational and efficient without the need for (in my opinion necessary and ultimately productive, but certainly disruptive in the short term) nationalizations, as well as enabling better pilot training infrastructure and various other aspects of the French air force to be built up.

Naturally this would do much to harm French shipbuilding, unless if commercial ship production could be substituted for with merchant ship construction.
 
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Merci and thanks for that. It certainly does not look as if anything could be taken from the army budget. This was the era when training of new conscripts was at 18 months. If the army budget includes the CORF expense then it is yet worse. As you say, politics is everything in this, which affects what might be change in aircraft production in this decade.
 
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