Pictures of French planes in AXIS service

David Lehmann · #1

Bloch MB.155

Bloch 174

Breguet 691

Dewoitine D.520

Lioré et Olivier LeO.451

Morane Saulnier MS.406

Potez 63.11

Rommel8 · #2

potez...such an ugly plane...eww

great pics btw

David Lehmann · #3

yes on this pic the Potez 63.11 is not very nice

with its rear armament howewer ...

The Bloch MB.174 was more modern than the Po 63.11 in its recon task. The Po 63.11 was the plane flown by Antoine de Saint Exupéry (see his book "pilote de guerre" = "flight to Arras"). 106 has been destroyed mainly due to Flak and only 4 Bloch MB.174 have been destroyed but in air combat.

There are also the Potez 631 (fighter) and Potez 633 (light bomber/attack) that have a better look

LeO451 and its 20mm rear defensive cannon

LOIRE
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.co.uk/loire.html

PAYEN
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.co.uk/payen.html

SALMSON
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.co.uk/salmson.html

SUD-EST
http://www.luftwaffe-experten.co.uk/sud.html

Regards,

David

Ike_FI · #4

Germans apparently had more French war booty aircraft than they needed and sold some dozens of them to Finland:

Curtiss Hawk 75A-4

Morane Saulnier 406, MS-327

Sources:
http://www.sodatkuvina.cjb.net/images/J ... wk75A.html
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/finace04.htm

David Lehmann · #5

Already before the war France supplied Finland with several aircrafts and we used a few Suomi SMG.
Beside MS.406/410 and French H-75s, Finland also used a few Caudron C.714 and Hanriot/Nord H.232 in a training task.
I am surprised it is said the MS.406 was a bad plane, it destructed many Me109 in the French skies.
According to Karl Heinz Frieser and Patrick Facon, the Luftwaffe lost 1236 planes + 323 damaged ones during the western campaign. 800 to 850 were destroyed alone by the French Air Force (733 in air combat). The main fighters were MS.406, Bloch MB.151/152 and H-75 ... there were very few D.520s. France lost 892 planes (306 in air combat and the remaining due to the dense Flak). Data also found in :
- Harvey "French Armée de l'Air" p.455
- Kirkland "French Air Force" p.117 remarque 4
- Luftwaffe BA-MA, RL 2 III/1173 and 1174

Operationnal aircrafts on 10th May 1940 on the western front :
France : 879
UK : 384
Belgium : 118
Netherlands : 72
Reich : 2589

The Hispano Suiza 20mm cannon was also present on numerous allied planes during the whole war. It was perhaps better than the contemporary Oerlikon, with a higher rate of fire and higher muzzle velocity, but the Oerlikon had the large advantage that it was already in full production when the HS was introduced. But I have red that there could be issues with several kind of ammunition and that there was also an "oiling" issues of the cases before they could be loaded. Perhaps was it badly adapted to harsh winter conditions ?

David

Robert Hurst · #6

Hi Panzermayer

Some more pics of French aircraft in German colours.

Regards

Bob

Juha Hujanen · #7

IIRC Finns were less than satisfield with 20mm cannon of MS.406.Problem was the ammunition which was too "sensitive".It exploted on surface of target plane and caused little damage.

Cheers/Juha

David Lehmann · #8

Thanks for the pics Robert !

... the MS.406/HS.404 nevertheless worked very well in France ... not the same ammo ?

Here a He.111 downed in France ... don't know if the damages here are due to a 20mm cannon :

The HS404 worked very well in many airforces but about the ammo I have already heard problems like these ... and much later, during the Algerian war. The Mistral (Vampire produced in France) had sometimes problems with several kind of ammo. The 20mm shell exploded sometimes when it met the smallest tree, before hitting the ground target, and once there was one ammo exploding in the plane itself ! This ammo batch was then often fired inert, after disarming the fuze.

The Hispano Suiza 20mm cannon was also present on numerous allied planes during the whole war ( Spitfire, Typhoon, Tempest, P38, Corsair F4U1C, Mosquito etc... and still in use in the 60s ... but I suppose there have been different gun generations). I found no interesting comment except US Air Force disliking the gun which nevertheless was very widely used in the RAF and with success ...

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/US404.htm

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/ideal.htm

"The RAF made very limited use of the heavy machine gun and went straight to the 20mm cannon as a .303" replacement, choosing the high-velocity Hispano-Suiza HS 404. This gun first joined the FAA aboard the Sea Hurricane in 1941, the Mk IC and IIC versions carrying four of them. The next cannon-armed carrier fighters were the Seafire, operational in the autumn of 1942, and the two-seat Fairey Firefly which first went into action in 1944. The Firefly and later marks of Seafire had four cannon; earlier Seafires had a mixture of two cannon and four .303"s (or sometimes two .50"s).
The 20mm Hispano was a formidable weapon in its day, combining high muzzle velocity with long range, excellent armour penetration and explosive shells. It was therefore carried forward (in the lighter, faster firing Mk 5 form) into the jet aircraft era as the RAF's and FAA's standard gun."

from : http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/FAAguns.html

Regards,

David

Ike_FI · #9

Juha Hujanen wrote:IIRC Finns were less than satisfield with 20mm cannon of MS.406.Problem was the ammunition which was too "sensitive".
Cheers/Juha

Probably there was some such reason for replacing them:

Armament: Winter War: 1 between the cylinder rows in the engine and 2 wing mounted 7.5 mm Chatellerault MAC 1934 MGs; RMS racks for 12.5 to 25 kg bombs were under the wings

Continuation War: At first the mid-MG was replaced by 20 mm Hispano-Suiza HS 404 Cannon, but was in the Fall of 1942 again replaced by 12.7 mm Berezina UB MG; also the 12,7 mm Colt and LKK/42 MGs were tested. The Type 410 may also had 7.7 mm Browning MGs in the wings.

...tells http://www.sci.fi/~ambush/faf/fighters.html#morane

Panzermeyer: The Moranes had nevertheless some quite successful moments in FAF too, see the second link in my previous post.

David Lehmann · #10

They would probably have done miracles if they had received Dewoitine D.520s from the Germans instead of the old MS.406s

Only few D.520s were operationnal in 1940 at the beginning of the war, it just entered in service and the more modern Arsenal VG.33 and Dewoitine D.551 came too late to participate.
It was the single French fighter that was not outclassed by the German fighters. Though some 20 mph slower than the dreaded 109s, it was capable of turning inside the German fighter, it was not devoid of armor and had a relatively heavy armament, enough to deal with any German plane of the period. The most numerous fighters were older MS.406 and Bloch MB.152 but the Armée de l'Air came out enjoying consistently positive kill-loss ratios against the Luftwaffe.
Vichy continued to provide D.520s to its Air Force and in 1942 the Germans seized most of them and several were given to Italy, Roumania and Bulgaria.
Some of these seized D.520s were transferred to two Luftwaffe fighter training units (JG103 and JG105). They were highly praised by Luftwaffe crews for their exceptional maneuverability. However, the accident rate was fairly high owing to the great differences between it and the German aircraft to which the pilots were accustomed.
60 D.520s were transferred to the Regia Aeronautica, and were operated primarily as fighter trainers by Gruppi 13, 22, 24, and 167. About a hundred D.520s were issued to the Bulgarian Air Force, which used them operationally against the US 9th Air Force. Most of these were lost in combat. The Rumanian Air Force operated a small batch of D.520s in combat on the Eastern Front, flying them alongside that air force's Bf 109s.

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... /d520.html

David

Dan Reinbold · #11

Panzermeyer, Ike and Robert...thanks for sharing the pictures. I found them very fascinating!

Thanks again for sharing.

Dan

David Lehmann · #12

Apprently the Polish Air Force has also several MS.406 (perhaps only when several pilots used MS.406 and C.714 in France ?) :

And here a Finn one :

A French crashed one but in color please

:

I have no pictures of MS.406/D.520 under Italian, Rumanian, Bulgarian or Croatian Air Forces colors unfortunately

David

Ike_FI · #13

Yet a few more:

Curtiss (from the same source as the previous one):

Morane:

- http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/w ... ms406.html

Caudron:

- http://www.sci.fi/~fta/ca-fin-1.htm contains also a summary of these planes short history in Finnish service.

David Lehmann · #14

On 1st March 1943 the italian pilot Maggiore Minguzzi downed a B-24 while flying a D.520. This was probably the first Italian claim using this aircraft.
I also noticed that 13 Breguet 693/695 attack planes were used by the italians, but probably in training units.

Here a photo of a Potez 633B2 (light bomber / Attack) in Romanian colors :

from : http://www.arr.go.ro/potez633.htm (if image does not appear)

They even participated to the battle of Stalingrad.

The Potez 631 was a heavy fighter like the Me110 (it was sometimes fired at by the French DCA ! because it looked like the Me110 or opposite perhaps) and the Potez 633 a light bomber, this model had a bombbay.

The Romanian Airforce used many other French planes (and the Romanian Army many French artillerie and tanks) already before the war :

Potez 560 (private plane of Prince GV Bibescu)
Potez 62
Potez 650/651
Potez 25
Bloch MB.210
Potez 633B2
Potez 631C3
Potez 63.11 A3
several MS.406 given by the Germans later

David

David Lehmann · #15

Two Bulgarian D.520 drawings :

David