Small airforces going to war: what would you do.

[Airbone Bunny]

Great ideas, Airbone Bunny, and welcome.

Thanks for the welcome

Regarding what small countries could do to get their their air forces ready for WWII, I must say that Netherlands has always been a historical sore point for me. Kind of a bitter pill to swallow.

Yep, Netherlands was a small country, but my impression is that it could have made a lot more to improve its air power.

While most small european countries didn't even have a rudimentary aircraft industry, Netherlands had the Fokker and Koolhoven companies, which created some decent products. The Fokker D XXI was not a bad fighter at all, and the Gs1 fighter was a real innovation. Both planes put a short but decent fight against the Luftwaffe. As far as I know, the Koolhoven 58 fighter was not bad too.

So it seems than Netherlands had the necessary tools to build a decent fighting force. However, on May 1940 Netherlands only had available perhaps 30 Fokker DXXI, 20 G1, and no Koolhoven at all. It is still hard to believe how small the dutch air force was considering that they were a country with a decent aicraft industry.

Why Netherlands didn't build a stronger fighter force between 1936-1939?. Why was that? utter stupidity? lack of funds? not enough time? fear of upsetting Germany? political machinations? greedy companies giving priority to foreign customers? fatalism? pacifism taken to the extreme? living in denial?

 

[Marcel]

Thanks for the welcome

Regarding what small countries could do to get their their air forces ready for WWII, I must say that Netherlands has always been a historical sore point for me. Kind of a bitter pill to swallow.

Yep, Netherlands was a small country, but my impression is that it could have made a lot more to improve its air power.

While most small european countries didn't even have a rudimentary aircraft industry, Netherlands had the Fokker and Koolhoven companies, which created some decent products. The Fokker D XXI was not a bad fighter at all, and the Gs1 fighter was a real innovation. Both planes put a short but decent fight against the Luftwaffe. As far as I know, the Koolhoven 58 fighter was not bad too.

So it seems than Netherlands had the necessary tools to build a decent fighting force. However, on May 1940 Netherlands only had available perhaps 30 Fokker DXXI, 20 G1, and no Koolhoven at all. It is still hard to believe how small the dutch air force was considering that they were a country with a decent aicraft industry.

Why Netherlands didn't build a stronger fighter force between 1936-1939?. Why was that? utter stupidity? lack of funds? not enough time? fear of upsetting Germany? political machinations? greedy companies giving priority to foreign customers? fatalism? pacifism taken to the extreme? living in denial?

Hi Airborne bunny,

There are many reasons for that, but one of the main reasons were the two ministers of defence who were not willing to spend all money available to them and quite often ignored advise from their military. As you can see, the Dutch military were planning on having 144 fighters/jachtkruisers. Apart from the incompetence of the two ministers, there was also the problem that both, Kollhoven and Fokker were not very well suited for mass production. So the output of a/c was very slow.
A third problem was that it became increasingly difficult to get equipment like engines, instruments etc, as the Dutch had no industry to build those kind of equipment. A bitter example is that the Dutch had 24 Koolhoven 58's availaeble, but without the engine

BTW the Koolhoven fighter was not a very good fighter. It's been tested extensively by the LVA. The found that it never met the requirements, not even the factory specs (for instance, 510 km/h claimed, 280 km/h in reality). Further more, it was very lightly build and not rugged and strong enough (reported max 3g tuns ). According to the report, the performance would have been like the D.XXI at best, but probably much worse with military equipment. It climbed at lot worse than the D.XXI for sure.
Thus the FK58 was denied by the military (still the minister bought them) in favour of foreign a/c, which came too late.

 

[Airbone Bunny]

Hi Airborne bunny,

There are many reasons for that, but one of the main reasons were the two ministers of defence who were not willing to spend all money available to them and quite often ignored advise from their military. As you can see, the Dutch military were planning on having 144 fighters/jachtkruisers. Apart from the incompetence of the two ministers, there was also the problem that both, Kollhoven and Fokker were not very well suited for mass production. So the output of a/c was very slow.
A third problem was that it became increasingly difficult to get equipment like engines, instruments etc, as the Dutch had no industry to build those kind of equipment. A bitter example is that the Dutch had 24 Koolhoven 58's availaeble, but without the engine

What you say makes sense. But one can but wonder what could have been if circunstances had been different.

The luftwaffe lost 300-400 planes in just 4 days of air fight while invading the Netherlands (truly most of those losses were to ground fire). Had those 144 dutch fighters been available and WWII could have been way different... surely Germany had defeated Netherlands all the same, but perhaps the Luftwaffe's losses had been so high that it wouldn't had been able to handle the RAF and the Armee De L'Air.

Anyway, something that puzzles me regarding the Koolhoven 58 is that the french put an order for 50 of those planes, so the Koolhoven couldn't be that bad. Admittedly, the french were in a hurry and also, they asked to use Gnome Rhone engines instead of the original ones, so perhaps the main problem with the Koolhoven was the lack of power. Sometimes the engine is all the difference between a bad and a good plane

 

[Marcel]

What you say makes sense. But one can but wonder what could have been if circunstances had been different.

The luftwaffe lost 300-400 planes in just 4 days of air fight while invading the Netherlands (truly most of those losses were to ground fire). Had those 144 dutch fighters been available and WWII could have been way different... surely Germany had defeated Netherlands all the same, but perhaps the Luftwaffe's losses had been so high that it wouldn't had been able to handle the RAF and the Armee De L'Air.

Anyway, something that puzzles me regarding the Koolhoven 58 is that the french put an order for 50 of those planes, so the Koolhoven couldn't be that bad. Admittedly, the french were in a hurry and also, they asked to use Gnome Rhone engines instead of the original ones, so perhaps the main problem with the Koolhoven was the lack of power. Sometimes the engine is all the difference between a bad and a good plane

Telling is that the French offered the FK58 to the Dutch government, as they "didn't need it that much". The Dutch military declined. I have much info on the matter, When I have time, I'll post it.