France attacked 25 October 1939

Stevep - think Your's this one - had my eye on it once but prior to Internet and easily looked up stuff so didn't buy it. Well if I go to Britain I take mine with me and we'd game both through!

The French Airforce – a compilation of information of several works of the May-June 1940 Campaign in France collected mainly from internet sources (papers) though the most recent is by a French Airforce Lt.Colonel.

The single most important issue facing the French Command was the reliance upon Telephone for transmitting of Orders and Signals. Luftwaffe during the initial phase of the Airwar targeted the system of Telephone Lines that would sewer most French possibility at the crucial moment of effecting Operational Control.
Here of course this will be of less magnitude but anyway some means to have French Command abandon the Telephone or at least make a dual communications system should be found – I'm not into this yet.

During the Polish Campaign the French Airforce had tried gathering information on where the German offensive would jump off and thus been quite active over Germany and as such losing a large number of old Reconnaisance Aircraft and a few Fighters. The Curtiss H-75 had proven its superiority to the MS 406. The RAF hadn't taken part in this as it was occupied with battling the Kriegsmarine in the North Sea.
The Reconnaisance Aircraft were hopelessly outdated but the Army insisted of operations carried out be given Fighter cover thus tying it to aircraft actually incapable of running away!
October had seen this continued with RAF building more Fighter Squadrons and having the upper hand over Luftwaffe in the North Sea and the French just struggling to build more units.
When the German offensive jumped off the opposing sides did see occasional combat – where the French encountered the Bf-109D the superior trained French would use fighters H-75 generally thought inferior to defeat the Germans.
With the WAllies giving as good as they took the Luftwaffe was even thought losses were not high forced to get Bf-109D's from the depots as deliveries didn't match up to losses.
The French Army wanted its and RAF to attack German lines of supply which was out of doctrine for RAF which it thus declined to do and of little help from the French Airforce as its controlling Armies didn't want its Airsupport squandered in airbattles over Germany.

Even the low Airactivity during the Phoney War was wearing down French Aircrew – the French Airgroups had each two Squadrons. As the military SOP would have one unit at alert/in the Air, one at ready and the third at rest well that third just didn't exist in the French Airforce so Aircrew's were worn down and sortie rate was going low – 1-2 a day for the French, 5-7 for RAF, up to 8 for Luftwaffe.
Also the French simply didn't train the number of required Fighter Pilots to a degree that had the French not been defeated by July 1940 the Pilot pool had been exhausted by September 1940.

Still the problems of the French Airforce hadn't been ironed out. The Air Force had been subjected to Army Command deploying the Airsquadrons in small pakets to various Armies leaving nothing to contest the Skies once the bad winter weather would clear.
RAF had used the time well. A forward Chain Home had been built in Northern France and Belgium to extend British defences further from the Home isles. The French didn't catch on what was going on as the British informed them that it was to increase joint airdefences once the skies cleared.
Actually RAF didn't expect the French to understand the needs and situation that would develop.

As part of the Air Defence France had also been able to develop its infant Radar system with British aid. This formed a line from Calais in the North behind the frontlines in Belgium to the Swiss border and again from the Swiss border in the Alpes to the Cote d'Azur with a few stations on Corsica to cover from Italian interference. A coupe of stations had also been set up in Tunesia again to cover from the Italians.
Besides this and procuring aircraft in the USA to supplement the home production France didn't do much to improve air defences. As there was literally no Airwar the French Army saw little need to increase the Airforce which would only serve to limit acquisations for the Army which also had lots of needs.
The early Radar however did make a difference as it supplemented the flimsy scattered French spotter service with data though still such had to be relayed to French Aircommand by telephone! And the reciever not being in the same room nor building as the Airofficer Commanding.

RAF had also tested a few Spitfire equipped Fighter Squadrons over the frontlines and these had found that the Germans used two marks of Messerschmitt Bf-109 one decided faster than what French Airforce had informed them.
It was also over the battlefield that RAF tested the Spitfire Mk.Ib armed with 20mm cannon and were able to iron out problems before using the cannon as standard armament.
Thus the Airwar did continue above the Ground operations though in much less intensity. The weather was just too bad for real flying.
As the German Army was left to itself and the frontline more or less stiffened the Germans began waiting for frost to get across the many waterobstacles and at their enemy.
March and April would see a slight increase in Airactivity though still not at the level the German Army wanted – nor the French for that matter.
The worst problem of the French Airforce was the low numbers of new Pilots and Crew turned out from training to supplement operational units.

Still with the limited flying weather which was a greater problem to the Germans than the WAllies the latter found that attacking German Ground Forces was just about suicide – the effect of light Flak employed. This should find its way to Allied HQ's at least the British should react to it and as I understand from Gorts despatches the British seemed to have a fair amount of AA and used it. The French

A specific French manufacturing issue was the greasing of moveable parts within especially the armaments of the French aircraft – MG's and Cannon just froze at altitude! 6 months of more flying than during the Phony War should have them rectify this problem.
Another solveable problem as in the Tanks was that of Radio in Aircraft for plane to plane comms but also from Ground Control to Planes which often made it impossible to direct to new targets once a mission had taken off. Better sigthing systems which to some extend was rectified by Ground Crew.
These specific French issues could be have been solved had the Aircraft not been rushed from Factory to User with final testing to avoid delay in delivery! Which left it the Ground Crews to do what Factory ought to have done. Perhaps a lower intensity in the starting Airwar will make it accepted to have Factories do the final testing as pressure won't be as bad as May 1940.
And establish as in US and UK a ferry pilot service that would fly the Aircraft from Factory to Airunit. Combat pilots had to be diverted for that.

One consoling point in the French Airforce mess is that the OTL February 1940 change of Command Structure might not take place or that the low intensity of Aircombat will make the Army Commander not insist on Operational Control of ALL Air Assets!
This might be the single one most important change.

Another the possible non-formation of the Assault Bomber Brigade which incurred huge losses in the few operations it participated in. Also that lowlevel attacks the French bombers were unsuited for due to lack of weak engines may not be initiated and those bombers used in high-level attack reducing losses significantly.
The prepared airfields with fuel and munitions depots would here survive the German onslaught that OTL drove the French Bombers away from them thus increasing sustained airoperations.
However in the end the French Airforce remained a coherent force. Against all odds it seems.

The RAF Component in France would also learn new tricks of the trade – that with so many enemy Fighters present escorting Bombers a shorter range for gun harmonisazion was necessary as the Dog-fight had been reintroduced and a less rigid formation than the Vic of three Aircraft needed. The obvious thing here being to copy the German Schwarm formation which in RAF parlance became the Finger-Four Formation.
Seeing the value of this the RAF informed the French of the new formation and advocated its use with Fighter units.

The long lowintensity Airwar had made the French able to do a number of things for their Airforce – more pilots were given more up to date training, radio operation was stressed and some Women, civil pilots that is, were hired as ferry crews to let operational combat pilots fight.
This latter was only possible with the British part of the Alliance pointing to as the French rejected the proposal that they during WWI had had to recruit large numbers of Women to keep industry running – this was essentially what they would also have to do here.
The Airforce had begun being supplied with new French Fighter Aircraft Bloch 152 and Dewoitine D520 to supplement the Curtiss H-75 and Morane Saulnier 406 just before the skies cleared in May 1940.
The Bloch 152 was better armed than any other Fighter with 2 20mm Cannon and 2 7,5mm Machineguns. The Dewoitine D520 was close to the Supermarine Spitfire and Messerschmitt Bf-109E and superior to the D. As with the British Fighters the Bloch was to take the role of Bomber killer while the Dewoitine would take on the Messerschmitt.