Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

LESSONS BEFORE WORLD WAR I1
for a French response by 1935. Despite the nationalization of selected armaments
firms and Air Ministry expropriation of 28 firms in 1936, as well
as dislocation resulting from dispersal of engine and airframe factories from
the Paris region to Southwest France out of German range, annual aircraft
production surged beyond the 2,000 mark by 1940. Some 32,000 aircraft
workers in 1935 increased to 82,000 by 1939. Despite the fluctuations in
politically charged rearmament programs of Air Ministers Pierre Cot and
his successor Guy la Chambre, and the criticism that all programs took
place with too little too late, at least one historian has concluded that by
the summer of 1940, when France and Germany once more locked in
deadly land and air battle, the French had sufficient combat aircraft to command
the air over the country against a numerically inferior German
Luftwaffe. 37
The actual French aircraft inventory underwent transition typical of all
air forces of the world in the interwar period. But, a crisis in technical
capabilities surfaced by 1936, (in effect awarding air materiel superiority to
Germany and Great Britain). French airplanes continued to display disturbing
weaknesses in engine compression and lack of motorcannon, retractable
landing gear, night-flying instruments, and radio-equipped cockpits. A
rush to catch up with foreign competition led to some improvement by the
end of the decade. Still, the bomber force consisted of what one commentator
has termed “aesthetic monstrosities” for the most part and reflected
indecision as to the spectrum of duties required of it, from tactical to strategic
in nature. The cumbersome Farman 220 (often called the world’s first
four-engine bomber) and aging Breguet 19s, Amiot 143s, Potez 540s, and
LiorC et Olivier 20s were supplemented by newer medium aircraft, including
Martin and Douglas bombers from the United States. More promising,
perhaps, were French pursuit or fighter aircraft including the Bloch
MB-152, Dewoitine D-500 series, Morane-Saulnier MS-406, and American
import Curtiss Hawk 72A series. Whether or not the French aircraft industry
could properly surge in production to meet battle losses or even opening
day requirements for war remained unclear.)*
Effectiveness of the French air arm as an air superiority force hinged
largely upon the issue of employment, not technology or doctrine. The
political and psychological atmosphere in which the Arm& de 1’Air evolved
in the interwar years affected its ability to actually achieve air superiority
in 1939-40. The Air Force was part of a century-old struggle between the
military and government in France, as well as typical interservice rivalries.
Army generals retained so much power that, at the time of the independence
of the French Air Force, they literally retained operational control of
some 118 of 134 combat squadrons. While both services came closer
together in thinking about utilization of combat aviation during the next
five years, the Air Ministry dismantled its strategic strike force, which it
had laboriously developed, and parceled it out once more among the infan-
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