Luftwaffe operational in 1938?

I don't assume that the Luftwaffe was fully ready for battle but they
Their industry was more spread out than Czechoslovakia. Czecholsovakia would have been vulnerable to bombing raids that would have crippled the aircraft industry.
Yep sure, the industrial base was much better for Germany. Question is if this would matter in such a war. Germany would probably get more replacement planes, their problem would be logistic (get them all assembled and battle ready, switching to new models with different engines won't help there) and shortage of pilots. They were already spread thin there and won't be able to replace losses at all (in a short war). Czechoslovakia would struggle replacing planes, not so sure if the aircraft industry would be an immediate target by Germans (they would for sure try to save the industrial base, that was clearly a goal, you can't take the German propaganda too serious there), so perhaps there would still be a stream of new planes coming. The planes from other countries are dubious, but I still have a batch of I-16 and SB-2 from USSR as a wildcard, that would help tremendously.

I don't believe there would be a blitzkrieg. The forts would have slowed the German army and it would have become a battle of attrition.

Agree. Also the heavy casualities at the fortress lines (unless Germany really miraculously found a way through them without much damage to their troops, which is totally unlikely) would lower the morale, that was not that high to begin with. German generals thought they were not ready for war, and lots of blood at the border line would justify that point. Think this was easily the biggest problem for Hitler.
Not sure if Luftwaffe would be much help there in the initial phase (first couple of weeks) - they would be busy with raids and fighting Czechoslovak Air Force.

That said I do believe the Luftwaffe was superior to the Czech air force. This is how I would imagine a war would have gone.

Yes, of course. But I really believe the gap would be smaller than what most people think when they talk about Luftwaffe. It is neither 1939 Poland nor 1940 France/UK. Early versions of Bf-109 were underpowered and underarmed, and relatively new to pilots, so there would be a lots of casualties both from doghfight (I assume close to 1:1, no turkey shooting) and from crashes of green pilots (weather won't help either). These losses of pilots will be very difficult to replace in a short war. Luftwaffe also can't leave the other borders (Poland, France) unprotected, further lowering the gap in numbers...Czechoslovak Air Force was not that small.

Rather than blitzkrieg the airwar would be rather similar to the Battle of Britain with the Luftwaffe trying to eliminate the Czech air force.

Yes. They will have a harder time to fight against so many field airfields, compared what RAF had in 1940. I repeat it again, LW was not the 1940 version either.

I imagine that this phase of the war would take a month to 6 weeks while the ground armies fought a battle of attrition on the ground. The Germans would be unable to break through the Czech lines but they would be winning artillery duels and breaking through Czech fortresses. No blitzkrieg style attack would be launched until the Luftwaffe has won the air war and is free to assist.

Quite possible. This bring us to the start of the real winter. Once again, important aspect of the timing.

After that air war woukd be finished the Luftwaffe would take time to reconstitute itself from significant losses while maintaining harassment of the shattered Czech air force.

Lack of trained pilots would be a key limiting factor there.

At this point 2-3 months into the war the Luftwaffe and the Heer would commit to a maximum effort attack against Czech defense which have been worn down by 2-3 months of attrition and punch through the lines leading to a Czech surrender within a month of this maximum effort.
Total war length 3-4 months.

Not sure about this. After 2-3 months without much progress the chance of the OKW looking for the end of war would be higher than finding the way to do a massive offensive. The economy would be on its last leg and lack of any sort of supplies (ammo, petrol, parts...) would be really felt hard. Plus 3 months is not enough time to replace the expected heavy casualties the army and LW had. There won't be enough trained soldiers ready. Once again, timing is the key. Not sure if Germany can mount a massive attack in 12/1938 or 1/1939 if they are slowed down initially. They would be more ready for any attack in 4/1939 IMO. But then the economy would be ready to explode, if it hadn't already. I think it would really go to two possible outcomes : either quick success campaign with finding the way through (which we agreed is far from given thing) or or the war extending to more like 6+ months and Germans looking for the way to end it without a military victory.

Also, France and UK is still there. The public opinion will go through the development as well, this is another aspect that never gets too much attention. It might be well possible that at some point France would enter and launch their own offensive. How that would play out with the Germans?

That said an early Air Force success that takes out a couple of big German plane concentrations on the ground could strech out the Air war by another 2-3 months.

Another aspect. If we don't assume Czechoslovak Air Force is immediately destroyed, they can do a couple of counter attacks. Not sure if the eventuality of some of major Germans airfield getting bombed was really covered. Did they have enough defense given they were equally close to the battle line? Even more devastating would be raid over Linz or Nuernberg that would destroy transport infrastructure. While Czechoslovakia was relatively compact, Germans, with their north and south wings of the attack would have some logistic to do. Any disruption to this would be a massive problem.
 
Top