French fighter aircrft

[FLYBOYJ]

According to this information the MS 406 and MB 152 didn't do too badly, but even with the D520 and the Curtiss Hawk 75A, the FAF couldn't gain air supremacy and had little effect on German ground forces. This article solidifies comments from another threat that the Hawk 75A, while a bit slower than it's contemporaries, was under rated and definitely a force to be reckoned with.

[WEISNER]

All french aircraft had the same top speed, approx. 650 mph just before hitting the ground in flames....

[Sal Monella]

Now that was funny.

[Gnomey]

[Glider]

FJ I may be setting myself up for a fall here, but I question some of the findings in the posting you made. Before everyone jumps on me, I should add that it only effects the MS406, which is the only French fighter that I have any real information on. I must say that it doesn't paint as good a picture that the bare facts included in the post would indicate.

On performance the figure of 302 as the max speed of the 406 is the same, but and its a big but, this was hardly ever reached in combat. To reach that speed you had to retract the radiator which gave you about 5 mins before the engine overheated. With the radiator open the max speed was around 280mph in a factory fresh aeroplane. Most Moranes would only reach around 260mph after any time with a squadron as hangers were in short supply due to the reasons quoted in the post.
In addition, a large proportion of the planes were fitted with the two pitch Chauviere airscrew which changed the pitch pneumatically invariably froze solid at altitude in cold weather which left the crews with two choices
a) chose fine pitch for the climb and lose more speed (down to around 186mph) when you reached altitude
b) chose coarse pitch to keep the speed but climb slowly with a heavy load on the engine.
Both options reduced your chances of intercepting anything to close to zero.

To make it worse the wing mg's also froze at approx 13,100ft leaving you with the 20mm which was very effective but only 60 rounds which gives you 2 maybe 3 bursts before your out of ammo. If the MG's did fire the mountings flexed giving a poor concentration of fire.
The sight was derided by a lot of the pilots as being poor. It was mounted in a cutout of the windscreen, was buffeted by the airflow and often flexed ruining the sighting. This is in addition to the lamp being weak and often vanishing if you were to within 60 degrees of the Sun.

As a final problem the radio was fairly good but the pilots had to use a Duplex radio procedure so they transmitted on one frequency and received on another. As a result there was no direct conversation between the pilots with an obvious effect on the ability of the pilots to work together.

With all the above and the lack of combat experience of the French airforce I find it hard to believe that the 406 outscored the German fighters in fighter vs fighter combat.
It should also be remembered that the French captured a 109E during the battle of France and tested it against the 406 and other aircraft declaring the 406 to be Superior. Any organisation who can make that claim must be suspect.

That wasn't the experience of the French fighter pilots who knew that the 109 was faster, had superior acceleration, climb and dive figures and that they only had a real chance against inexperienced German pilots and getting them in a turning combat.

My information gives different loss claim figures. They say that French figures say that 146 406's were lost in combat with 75 pilots losing their lives and that they claimed 171 kills plus 93 probables. There is a note in the paper that Luftwaffe Quartermaster General loss returns do not substantiate these figures. Unfortunately they don't say what the German figures were.

The information re the problems with flying the 406 in combat is from an article written by Colonel Pierre Boillot who was an experienced pilot who flew the 406 with the Groupe III of the 7th Escadre during the Battle of France.

I will now find a nice deep bunker and see what comes in.

[carpenoctem1689]

To me, those figures sound about right. I can highly doubt the the M.S406 could outscore the germans in a 109E. The 109E was a damn good fighter for the time, and the MS406, well, wasnt. The lack of gun heaters for the weak 7.5mm darne's reduced its altitude performance, giving the germans and much higher cieling of operation, and the ability to use theyre superiour diving and climbing characteristics to attack flights of the MS406's from above, and then climb up to altitudes where the Ms406 wouldnt be able to use its machine guns, run out of cannon ammo quickly with inferior sights, and be unable to reach, or even come too close to its maximum speed. The VG33 was the only major threat, besides maybe some hawks, that the 109E had to worry about. my opinion.

[plan_D]

The Hawk-75 was the only threat to the Luftwaffe, in numbers, that came from the French Air Force. And a real threat it was too! The RAF lost half of it's strength aiding the French during Fall Gelb, luckily the RAF never wasted any Spitfire squadrons in France.

I can, but don't want to, believe that the French blame the air force for it's army failures. The loss of that campaign was solely down to the slow reaction and out-dated tactical thinking of Army command, and nothing else.

It's a shame that France collapsed so quickly ...because, although I strain to say it...the French had some really good equipment in their army and air force!

[carpenoctem1689]

Yeah they did, but there tanks had the commander/gunner scheme, and the one man in the turret is enough mentality, and that simply wouldnt work. They had good equipment, but were victims of times past. They used theyre superior tanks (in armor, range sometimes, and armament) in a horrible fashion, spreading a little everywhere hoping that it would stem the tide, instead of having a strong, coordinated fast reaction group to stop an armoured thrust directly. The airforce, wasnt suited especially to ground attack and support of land forces. French bombers, though in my opinion cool looking, were slow, under-defended, lumbering beasts that made a great target for the luftwaffe. The french fighters, especially the Hawk, and VG33 were the only real contenders for air superiority, but again, the pilots didnt have experience like those of the luftwaffe. And then theres the maginot line, while a decent concept, the defense budget of the french could have been much better spent in local defense of towns, using maybe half the budget, and putting the rest into aircraft puchase/production and tank production/modernization of ideas and tactics.

[FLYBOYJ]

The way I read that report, the Hawk 75A had the best showing against the Germans....

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It was the best fighter in there fleets but the best way to see the French airforce was on the ground because the pilots had all surrendured. No I should not say that. The French airforce fought more than likely with great valor in a lost cause, just like the Polish airforce.

[mosquitoman]

Hows about the D.520?

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by mosquitoman

Hows about the D.520?

I think the 520 was a good aircraft and probably had the potential to grow as the Spitfire and -109 did, but for the most part it seems the most effective fighter the French had was the Hawk 75A. The 520 was used effectively by several other axis airforces....

[carpenoctem1689]

The D.520 was a decent aircraft, and had some room to grow, but i dont know if the french would have been able to develop an engine in time with the reliability, altitude performance, and power to be competitive with the germans. They would have been able to keep up against the Italians most likely, since they were still flying Biplanes and very poor monoplanes for the most part at that time. Though the Cr.42 had a top speed near enough the french fighters to make it not too much of an advantage, except against the VG33.

[Jabberwocky]

Originally Posted by carpenoctem1689

To me, those figures sound about right. I can highly doubt the the M.S406 could outscore the germans in a 109E. The 109E was a damn good fighter for the time, and the MS406, well, wasnt. The lack of gun heaters for the weak 7.5mm darne's reduced its altitude performance, giving the germans and much higher cieling of operation, and the ability to use theyre superiour diving and climbing characteristics to attack flights of the MS406's from above, and then climb up to altitudes where the Ms406 wouldnt be able to use its machine guns, run out of cannon ammo quickly with inferior sights, and be unable to reach, or even come too close to its maximum speed. The VG33 was the only major threat, besides maybe some hawks, that the 109E had to worry about. my opinion.

I think that you are mis-reading the information posted Carp.

Couple of important sentences;

>>The Morane-Saulnier MS 406 equipped eighteen squadrons in France on 10 May 1940. The kill-loss ratio for units flying the MS 406 was 191 to 89. The shortcomings of the Morane fighter compared to the Bf 109E have been the topic of many memoirs, but in the reported battles in which Messerschmitts faced Moranes alone, the French posted a record of thirty-one kills and five losses.<<

i.e. despite its shortcomings the MS 406, when flying combat missions, posted a kill ratio close to 2:1, when flying just against the Bf-109E, it had a 6:1 K/L ratio. Even if kills claims are double actual kills, that is still a very good showing.

Similarly, the article posted lists quite favourable kill/loss ratios for the MB 152 and D 520, at least in terms of enemy planes shot down to pilots lost.

[d_bader]

In my opinion if you are looking for the best French built fighter it has got to be the D520.
If you are looking for the best fighter in French service then it would have to be the Hawk 75a