Airplane on Water

Many men drowned in front of mirrors. - Gaston Bachelard

photo: axiepics

Chicago's Annual Air and Water Show

Near water, light takes on a new tonality; it seems that light has more clarity when it meets clear water. - Gaston Bachelard

photo: Chaseism

Air and Water

To disappear into deep water or to disappear toward a far horizon, to become part of depth of infinity, such is the destiny of man that finds his image in the destiny of water. - Gaston Bachelard

photo: ms4jah

Drifting Toward Defeat - The French Air Force in Second World War

Amiot 143 and Potez 540 - Two Bomber-Combat-Reconnaissance

French aircrafts of Second World War.

Exploring counterfactual history is always a risky business. French soldiers and airmen did not expect to lose the war against Germany in 1940. Thus, Historians must view their preparations during the 1930s with an appreciation of the context that shaped their decisions. These decisions had a rational basis that passed the reasonability test among government leaders and military professionals alike. Nevertheless, at several points in the 1930s, French leaders could have chosen other options. The most important areas under direct Armee de l'Air control were technology, organization, and operations.

Technologically, the decision to procure the Bomber Combat Reconnaissance aircraft series to modernize the Armee de I'Air by 1936 proved fatal. Although the decision soothed interservice political concerns, it provided modern technology only briefly. Production problems and an ongoing technological revolution saddled the air service with useless materiel. But was this decision the only reasonable alternative at the time?

French aviation industry experts could have advised the Air Ministry to procure specialized bomber and fighter airplanes. By 1933-1934, it had become clear that fighter engine designs were well on their way to providing better performance than those for bombers. The advent of high-octane fuel, superchargers, and high-performance wing designs, increased the single-seat design advantages dramatically. So, why would Cot and Denain, French air ministers at that time, choose a design that was obviously on the wane? The answer lies in the pressure brought to bear by the economic and political crisis and by the army. Since Cot and his chief of staff had limited credits to spend on modernization, the army and navy could not allow the aggressive air leaders to procure pursuit of bomber airplanes that were not suited for observation or close air support missions.

Moreover, industry leaders wanted to produce airplanes that appealed to commercial as well as government customers. Investments in fighter designs would lock the industry into a narrow military market, and the 1920s 'politique des prototypes' had proved this to be fraught with uncertainty, as the government allowed firms to undertake research and development without ordering enough airframes to permit them to recoup their investments. Thus, leaders in the senior services and in industry held the Air Ministry hostage. Aircraft firms would not build planes unless the government ordered enough to ensure they turned a profit, and the army and navy would support credits only for airplanes that fit their notions of how airpower should perform on the battlefield.

In retrospect, the first generation of BCR aircraft (1934-1935) should have been the Iast. lnstead, French firms continued to make incremental improvements in the designs until 1938. Again, the reasons are obvious. The Armee de l'Air had created an entire organization and training system based on employing formations of BCR type battle planes. Abandoning the designs and the accompanying service structures probably would have spelled the end of the airforce as an institution. The airmen became caught in a trap that forced them to try to perfect a flawed system in the face of increasing evidence that their technological gamble was bankrupt. To recast the air service into one that was better able to meet the Luftwaffe on more or less equal terms would have required greater courage and large amount of political capital. The British managed to pull off such a feat when the minister for the coordination of defense forced RAF leaders to shift procurement emphasis from heavy bombers to fighters and radar. As late as 1938, the French could have attempted a similar technological shift, but the institutional battle lines had ossified to the point that all the Air Ministry could do was attempt an incremental solution to the problem. The result was the D-52O, a technological solution that the Armee de l'Air could have used to compete effectively against the Luftwaffe had the war occurred in 1941 or 1942, when sufficient numbers would have appeared in the squadrons.

A second, perhaps more telling turning point occurred in February 1940, when Air Minister La Chambre and Chief of Staff Vuillemin surrendered their service's organizational structure to the army. If there was a single area in which airmen were responsible for the defeat, this was it. French military aviation had operated since 1933 by attempting to follow the principle of concentration of forces. Air leaders had succeeded in gaining the army's acceptance of the necessity of having an air commander to advise army and navy commanders on the proper use of aviation assets. Since 1933, annual exercises and war games had reinforced the concept that only by concentrating scarce airpower resources could commanders expect to achieve maximum effect on the battlefield. Therefore, the decision to change how aviation command and control would function, occurring after the French declaration of war and three months before the Germans attacked, amounted to the air leaders' abandonment of their duty to employ air capabilities correctly.
This decision amplified the shortcomings that the airmen knew existed in their service. The weaknesses of the alerting networks, the poor readiness of the reserves, and the inadequacy of the logistical systems all came under greater stress as the reorganization and later the pressures of combat dismantled the geographic command structure. After seven years of doctrinal development and experimentation that emphasized the operational and strategic utility of airpower, French air leaders allowed the army to force it into a mold that, at best, gave the air service only a tactical role. In their country's hour of greater need, airmen chose to restrict their vision of the war to the cockpit. This loss of operational vision and the inability to present the unique aviation options to the supreme war council deprived France of one of its most potent weapons.

Finally, the French failed to operate their part of the national defense structure in ways that would lead to effective combat performance. The clear lack of trained, proficient aircrews limited the operational capability of the Armee de l'Air. This Stemmed, in part, from a willingness to accept the army's view that the pace and scope of warfare had not changed appreciably since the last war. Airmen chose to ignore lessons they could have learned about airpower from the various small wars of the interwar period. They underestimated the efficiency of fighter airplanes, they overestimated the effectiveness of ground-based air defenses, and, curiously, they overestimated the effectiveness of their own aerial striking capabilities while simultaneously under estimating the same capabilities of their adversaries. There were clear intellectual and operational shortcomings that professional aviators should have avoided.

In the final analysis, the Armee de l'Air deserves a considerable amount of the blame for the German conquest of France in 1940. Was the French air service the primary culprit in the defeat? Was it the subversive element that conspired to open the doors for Germany by purposely failing to do its duty? The answer is no on both counts. French airmen exhibited failings that were similar to those of their surface warfare counterparts in the army and navy. They served honorably in combat, and many of them died attempting to counter forces that were better suited in terms of technology, tactics, organization, and operations.

Analysts seeking to learn from the Armee de l'Air's interwar experience should recognize that political, interservice, and economic pressures; technological constraints; and organizational decisions came together to force hard decisions that military and civilian authorities did not necessarily want. Leaders, however, often have to make suboptimal choices to carry out their duties in the politically charged realm of national defense. Such decisions may reflect the only choices, and they may even be "right" choices. But when a number of suboptimal choices come together in a time of crisis, such as occurred in the 1940 Battle of France, institutions and individuals find themselves at a loss to explain how they could have been so blind.

from: Why air forces fail: the anatomy of defeat

photos: Airminded

Why Air Forces Fail - Anatomy of Defeat

Biggest test of government is whether or when war occur it is able to maintain a strategic reality on, through resources, manpower, etc, by understanding the nature and vulnerability of both the enemy and of itself.

Air Force is particularly vulnerable in this context, because of the relatively small part of the warrior section, because of the vulnerability of bases, and of course the high technology and the level of complexity. This creates a dependency of the Air Force and binds the whole civil defense system.

Air Force failures in history come from, as a result, not so much from due date, but due to circumstances. Not technology but foresight caused the failure. Understanding and managing air equation correctly, recognition of the importance of the factors that support, played a central role.

Despite that defeat of air forces may be fast, and instill the feeling that they are fragile, the simplicity of the ultimate end is only a tip of the iceberg of the many complex factors. Therefore two immediate questions arise: Is the loss of air superiority caused the loss of protection for the entire country, and whether it was the only reason.

So for the leaders of the war the question of what are the security margins of air superiority is critical. When the state in war felt that she was going to lose its air space superiority she certain will take every step possible to prevent it.

Air Force can hurt each and every place. At the same, the sense of flight is central to the human soul. As a result, a sense of vulnerability intensifies as a result of air superiority among the citizens, making them full partners to the leadership upheaval. The birds carrys the voice, and a slight change in the balance of air superiority immediately finds expression among the citizens.

Air historian described it this way: "The fact is that bombs from the sky has the unique power of terrorism. When bombs are dropped from a great height, it seems that, quite accidentally, they seem to fall on top of everyone ... exposed to uncontrolled destruction feeling soldeirs fear, as in natural holocaust, that they are tempted to feel that they are completely defenseless, though in reality, if someone is hiding in a trench or even lay on the ground, he is protected fair enough from explosions."

Nazi Germany had strategic failures in grand scale. You can connect the strategic blunders to the moral: The inability to understand the nature of war in the air, as well as incorrect management of the war economy, were bound with her inability to understand human nature, whuch led to the order of final solution and the Holocaust.

The main strategic failure of the Nazis was a lack of evaluation of the potential strategic bomber, born passionately during war, and causing shrinking German space so that every plant had become vulnerable, so the German air defense demanded unlimited resources of manpower and weapons.

Heavy bombing on German soil began some time before the order of final solution was signed. You can see that the trigger of strategic bomber was the last drive for Goering about it. Terminology of the imagination suggest that air bomber harbinger thick clouds of terrible storm, a powerful sense of vulnerability. No wonder Goering felt the need to defend himself in any way, including meanest way.

When the war was before his eyes in the context of rumors, some of which may be based, local Jews directed the Allied bombers at the important goals in Germany.

These days, attempts of al Qaeda to blow up airplanes are parallel to Nazi attempts to gain dictatorial power worldwide through air superiority.

Bibliography: Why Air Forces Fail - Anatomy of Defeat