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.
