GERMAN AIR FORCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23913, 14 September 1939, Page 10

GERMAN AIR FORCE

WHAT IS ITS STRENGTH? ESTIMATES RECENTLY REDUCED A PRODUCTION HALT Al the time of the Czech crisis reports of the strength of the German Air Force reached. the total of 10,000 planes, with the aircraft factories of the Reich turning out from 3000 to 4000 planes a month. That was the high-water mark of the estimates of the new air force which Herr Hitler has called the best and the biggest in Europe (states the Evening Post); from last September there has been a return to critical realism, and estimates have been revised downward. To-day all the air forces of Europe are surrounded in secrecy, and some examples from Britain will show how purely speculative all writing about them must be. From April last the monthly list of the British Air Force suppressed a considerable amount of information which hitherto had been published, and the stations and functions of squadrons on home duty were not disclosed. This was followed by a decision to stop the displays which had been held on Empire Air Day, because of the fear of intelligence officers tnat foreign agents might obtain information which had been suppressed on the lists. New machines have long been on the secret list; and it was only the recent mass flights which revealed to the public how many bombers of new types were on squadron establishment. In Germany there is even greater secrecy, and some foreign travellers who have heard much of the strength of the Reich Air Force have returned to report that, if Herr Hitler really has such masses of planes at his command. there is no sign of them. This is largely because German air fields have been carefully laid out with an eye to concealment in pine woods, equipped with barracks hidden in the trees, with hangars of a peculiar semicylindrical type said to cast no shadows. Six Thousand Planes Latterly experts who previously rated the German Air Force at a fairly high figure have come to believe that it consists of, at most, 6000 planes. Some set the figure lower. There are many stories of the high crash rate on tne training fields, of the .poverty of the planes which are built, and the rapidity with which they are worn out, the substitute materials used in construction, and the drain of the demand for training planes on an economy which is compelled to eke out materials where it can. Some reports are of 10 deaths a week on the testing grounds, and only a few months ago Marshal Goering had to make a radio address in which he deplored the stories of a high death rate among new pilots which were causing a shortage of volunteers for the air force! Certainly the known crash rate among German commercial aircraft is unduly high. For instance, a German commercial plane crashed in the South Atlantic on October 1 last, another airliner with 10 passengers crashed in the Swiss Alps next day, a plane lost a wing in mid-air and crashed at Soest on October 10. the Lufthansa Berlin-Bagdad airliner crashed into a Vienna forest on December 2 and a goodwill plane from Germany crashed in Manila Bay on its way back to Berlin from Tokio These batches of accidents are typical, and in mid-July, Hanson Baldwin, defence correspondent of the New York Times, declared that American sources believed that German engines were still of short life “ while reports of heavy casualties figures incurred in training continue to be received.” Americans discounted German speed records, which, he said, were gained in isolated “suped” up machines, and it was believed that even if Germany had 7000 to 10,000 planes she did not have the pilots to fly them Other evidence of the German pilot troubles was given by the London Daily Telegraph, which recently reported that Czech airmen were being drafted to German flying fields to teach the pilots of the Reich how to handle some of the 1200 planes which were said to have been obtained bv the annexation of Czechoslovakia

Types in Production

The advantage of the German air force is its modernity. Virtually every ship in it is new and able to serve with a first-line force. Production types up to the beginning of this year have been the Dornier. Heinkel, and Junkers bombers and the Heinkel and Messerschmidt fighters. The bombers are all twin-motored types capable of speeds of up to 300 miles an hour; a Dornier bomber with two liquid-cooled engines each of 1200 horse-power has been timed at 320 miles an hour it is reported. all three bombers have approximately the same range—about 1900 miles—and can carry a bomb load of one ton and a-half. The Junkers motors supply between 600 and 1100 horse-power for a take-off. Like the Daimler-Benz engines in the Dornier bomber the Junkers engines are iiquid cooled.

The main fighter types, the Ull2 Heinkel and the Me-109 Messerschmidt, use the same engines as those in the bombers. The Heinkel. with a DaimlerBenz engine of about 1300 horse-power, is claimed to have a maximum speed of 440 miles an hour. The Messerschmidt plane is the one which made the world’s record at an average speed of 479 miles an hour over a measured course, up and down wind

Can They BuiJd Enough?

No Nazi leader has made any secret of the fact that it is largely to the air force (undoubtedly a fine one) that Germany looks for a knock-out blow which will give her a quick victory in any war. The threat of that air power has been used against Austria, against the Czechs, and against the Powers who for a time seemed likely to defend the Czechs But the ability of the Nazi air force to win that, victory, if it is possible at all, will depend very largely on the ability of the German aircraft industry to build the planes necessary to keep the force at the required strength. It is reported that 60 per cent of the Reich machines are bombers, and it would appear that in the work of maintaining a bombing offensive to the extent visualised by the High Command the German aircraft industry would be set a task of great difficulty unless, which is unlikely, sufficient reserves of the necessary materials, and of the oil without which anv machine is useless ire available. Until recently the Germans were definitely outstripped in the field of engine-building, but nossibly in the effort to remove this weakness if is reported that German factories have now been retooled, with the result that their production rat" has latterly been lower than usual

The wastage of machines in air warfare is enormous In “ The War in the Air” (the British official history of the World War) it is demonstrated from a memorandum of Lord Weir that to maintain 100 squadrons of 18 aeroplanes in the line, a production of 1000 machines a month, plus half as much again for home defence and training, was needed A French estimate at the same time was that to maintain a strength of 4000 planes the monthly output should be 2400 airframes and 4000 engines Not even a Nazi leader would say Germany has attained these figures: and not even a Nazi leader can say with certainty that, cut off from essential supplies of war materials. • f which her own production is quite inadequate. she will ever do so.