GERMAN AIR FORCE

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 258, 13 November 1939, Page 4

GERMAN AIR FORCE

"modern machines PLANES AND THEIR, JM LUTS A PRODUCTION, . HALT' At the ‘ time of the Czech crisis reports of the strength of the Ucrjimn air force reached tlfe total of 10,000 planes, with the aircraft factories of the Reich turning out from 0000 to 4000 planes a month. That was the higli-water mark of the' estimates of the new air force..which • Herr Hitler has called the best arid the biggest in Europe • from last September there has been a return to critical realism, an elf estimates have been revised downward. ' • To-day all the air forces, of Europe are surrounded in secrecy, and sojne examples-from Britain will show how purely speculative all writing about them must bo. From April last the monthly list of the British Air Force suppressed a consider a bio amount of information which hitherto had. been published, and the stations and functions of .squadrons on home duty were not disclosed. This >vas followed by a- decision to * stop the displays ..which had been held on Empire Air Day, because of the: fear of intelligence' officers that foreign agents might obtain information which bad been supr pressed on the lists. New .machines have long been on

the secret list; and it was only the recent mass flights which revealed to j.tlie public how many bombers of new !■ types were on squadron establishment. : In Germany there is even greater see- ’ fecy, 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 1 such inasses of planes at Iii s command there is no sign of them. This' is largely because German airfields have been carefully laid out with an eye to concealment in pine woods, equipped with barracks liiddlen in the trees, with hiiiigars of a peculiar; sejiii-cylindrical type said to cast no shadows, silencers, drainage troubles, and few long runways. . W;;. [ - Six Thousand Planes | Latterly experts who previously vatj ed the German air force at a fairly * high figure, have come to believe thatit consists of,’’at most, 6000 planes. Some set the figurS*' lower. There are many stories of the high crash rate on ' the trailing fields, of the poverty of the planes which are; built, and the rabidity with which they are worn out, , the substitute materials used in conj struction, and the drain of the demand for training • planes on an economy ' which is compelled! to elce out material, 5 wliero it can. Some reports are of 10 j deaths at week on the testing-grounds, t and only a. few months ago .Marshal •Gcoring 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 v.oJ-

unteers for the air force 1 Certainly the known crash rate amcng ‘German commercial . aircraft is unduly high.- For instance, a Gerjnan commercial plane crashed in the South Atlantic on October 1 last,- another airliner with 10 passengers .crashed in the Swiss Alp.s next day, a plane lost a wing in mid-air ana crashedl at Soest on October <lO, tlie Lufthansa Perlin-Bagdad airliner crashed into a Vienna forest on December 2, and a good-will plane from Germany crashed in Manila Bay on its way back to Berlin from Tokio. These" batches of accidents tire typical, and in mid-Jnlv, Hanson Baldwin, defence Correspondent ol' .-.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 'lie received. Americans discounted German speed .records, which, lie said, were gained in isolated “suped” up machines, and it was believed that even it Germany had 7000 to 10,000 planes she did nothave 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 Hying fields to teach the pilots of the Reich how to handle some of the 1200 planes which were said to have been obtained by the annexation of Czechoslovakia-. Types in Prodiflctiaaii 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 up to the beginning of this year has been the Hornier. Heinkclf arid Junkers bombers and the Heinkel and M asserschmidt fighters. The bombers are all twin-motored types capable of speeds of up to ’3OO miles an hour; a Hornier bomber with two!''liquid-cooled engines each of 1200 horse-power has been timed at 212c 1 miles an hour, it is reported. All three bombers have approximately the same range—-about- 1000 miles—and can carry a- bomb load of one and a half tons. The Junkers motors supply between 000 and 1100 horse-power tor a take off. Like the _ Daimler-Benz engines in the Hornier bomber, the Junkers engines are liquid cooled. r l he main fighter types, the Ull2 Henikel and/ the Ale-IOP AEessersehmidt the same engines as those of the bombers. The Jieinkel, with a Daimler-Benz engine of ■ about 1300 liorse-power, is claimed to have a maximum speed .of 440 miles an hour. The Alesserschniidt; 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 Build 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 fias been Used against Austria, against the -Czechs, ancli against the Powers who for a time seemed likely to defend the Czechs. Hut 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 necessary strength. It,is reported that 6(j 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 he set a task of great difficulty

unless, which is unlikely, sufficient reserves of the necessary nli&eyials,, and of the oil without wliiek--anv_macliine is useless, are available. Until recently, the . Germans were definitely, outstripped! in; the field of en-gine-building, ‘Till# possibly, in the ef- - .fort to remove this weakness it is reported that German factories have now been retooled, with the result- that their production rate has latterly been lower than usual. The wastage oi'i machines in air warfaro 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 1,OCO machines a month, plus half' as much again for home defence and training was neded. A French estimate at the same time was that to maintain a strength of 4000 planes the monthly output should bo 2400' airframes and! 4.000 engines. Not even a Nazi leader would say Germany has attainedl the.se figures; and not even a Nazi leader can say with.certainty that, cut off from essential suplies of war materials, of which her own production,is quite inadequate, she will ever do so.