French Armed Forces 1941......

It might just be my ignorance, but I thought they only did well against the Italian navy, which probably choked even worse than their army, and German ships like Bismarck that lacked air cover. That's a window of usefulness, but kind of a narrow one.

And against the Bismark. It was a stable platform and that made it ideal as torpedo Bomber and in ASW role.
As for the snipe against the Italian navy, that was actually a very competent force which was only really hampered by the fact that it had to operate almost exclusively in range of hostile air power.
 
There's nothing in this thread to indicate how French forces stopped the German onslaught. You can't build on French strengths if they haven't shown any. If they beat the Germans, they can beat them again. But how? Quicker reaction in defense, and more initiative in offense would be nice, but such doctrine, training and infrastructure was not in place.
 
It might just be my ignorance, but I thought they only did well against the Italian navy, which probably choked even worse than their army, and German ships like Bismarck that lacked air cover. That's a window of usefulness, but kind of a narrow one.

Just as the Douglas Devastator would have done well in a Fighter Free environment. It's overlooked it was successful in the raids from after PH to Midway.
The Swordfish had performance very similar to the aircraft that the TBD replaced, the Great Lakes TG-2 Biplane in 1937. There were only three advantages the Swordfish had, besides absence of Fighters, was it had a 40 mph landing speed vs 60, working torpedoes and the availability of ASV Radar that the USN didn't get till late 1942

Note Swordfish didn't allow Admiral Somerville to sweep the Indian Ocean free of the IJN units when they raided.
 
Just as the Douglas Devastator would have done well in a Fighter Free environment. It's overlooked it was successful in the raids from after PH to Midway.
The Swordfish had performance very similar to the aircraft that the TBD replaced, the Great Lakes TG-2 Biplane in 1937. There were only three advantages the Swordfish had, besides absence of Fighters, was it had a 40 mph landing speed vs 60, working torpedoes and the availability of ASV Radar that the USN didn't get till late 1942

Note Swordfish didn't allow Admiral Somerville to sweep the Indian Ocean free of the IJN units when they raided.

The Swordfish did an outstanding job in an ASW role flying off of escort carriers through the end of the war. There were still several operational squadrons in May 1945. That was probably its biggest contribution to the war effort.
 
It might just be my ignorance, but I thought they only did well against the Italian navy, which probably choked even worse than their army, and German ships like Bismarck that lacked air cover. That's a window of usefulness, but kind of a narrow one.

You just described every single engine light attack aircraft in the war. Unescorted they took it on the chin - Swordfish, Albacore, Battle, Stuka, Kate, Val, Dauntless/A-24, Avenger, Devastator. The USAAF took its A-24s out of frontline service in New Guinea in July 1942 after one particularly bad mission. This is why as the war progressed that mission increasingly went to bomb (and rocket) toting fighters instead of specialized attack aircraft.
 
Been told they were accquired strictly as a training machine. Another source had them as intended for the Maritime units of the French air arm. The later leaves me with a picture of them diving onto Italian battleships.

A USMC dive bomber squadron on Samoa operated SBCs into 1943...
 
hs123code33.jpg

from the wiki
The greatest tribute to the Hs 123 usefulness came in January 1943 when Generaloberst Wolfram von Richthofen, then commander-in-chief of Luftflotte 4, asked whether production of the Hs 123 could be restarted because the Hs 123 performed well in a theater where mud, snow, rain and ice took a heavy toll on the serviceability of more advanced aircraft. However, the Henschel factory had already dismantled all tools and jigs in 1940

Now the SBC was probably even more rugged than the 123, and 20mph faster with a gunner: same approximate range and bombload.

Sometimes rugged and serviceable is better than higher performance. In one of Barrett Tillman's books about the Dauntless, he said that the Cactus Air Force was lucky to have SBDs instead more advanced Helldivers (not yet operational) because the Helldiver was so much more maintenance intensive they would not have done well in the lousy operating conditions on Guadalcanal in 1942.

Also, the RAF and RAAF Spitfire squadrons deployed to Darwin had serviceability problems and always suffered lower in commission rates than the P-40 squadrons.
 
On the artillery side the French were committed to 'guns' vs howitzers. In reverse of US and German weapons doctrine the higher velocity/range gun was the standard & the howitzer a specialty weapon. The bulk of the mew models were characterized by significantly longer range than comparable caliber howitzer models. While there were some trade offs in terrain problems, ROF, tube life, weight, ect the French sought a tactical advantage from the combination of greater range and their techniques for massing artillery fires. By 1940 this existed in terms of the technique, and the weapons were in production and distribution.

While the aging 75mm gun could not be replaced in bulk in 1941-42 About everything else in the corps & army artillery groupement would be a modern long ranged cannon, consistently out ranging the comparable German 10.5cm & 15 cm howitzers. If any of the production goals of the French I've seen are accurate then at the end of 1941 the German corps & army echelon artillery is going to be overmatched both in numbers and technical capability.

On a seperate level the French had complete design and prototypes of purpose built armored artillery. Limited production of test equipment had begain in early 1940. These were not armored 'assault guns' like the StuG, but fully armored self propelled indirect fire weapons More akin to the post WWII tracked & enclosed artillery weapons. Despite the identification of the need for a protected tracked SP cannon the German provision was slow, with only some cobbled models built in 1940 & nothing purpose built yet tested. To compound French foresight in this they were also testing armored & tracked command and observation post vehicles. Intended to act as mobile CP for the cannon Groups these vehicles carried range finding, direction finding, & general survey equipment; along with radio and telephonic communications.

My research on this is nowhere complete, but suggests a really deadly artillery arm as 1940 spins off into 1941.
 
For the French the best use of the SBCs is against the Italian Navy, which has no "organic" air support, and in an ASW/antishipping role supplementing coastal command &/or Aeronavale forces keeping the U-boats off of shipping coming to French ports.
 
Yup, as I see it the French are more likely to have effective fighter escorts in any specific air action with the SBC than the Italians to have effective defense. That is sometimes the Italians will, tho it wont be common.
 
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