soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:

(snip useful debunking of silly claims)

> I have no problems the Germans in
> the 1930's started thinking in terms of mass production of aircraft
> before other European powers, the Ju88 is another example. The
> reality was they were supplying a government determined to create
> a very large military, everyone else was hoping for business as usual,
> or at least a modest German armaments program.

Are you sure that's the main reason?

As far as I can tell, the British tried to set up for mass production
though the aircraft types that they were producing did not lend
themselves well to being mass-produced. Ditto the French. The latter
were initially aiming for shorter production series than the British
(in 1937-38, the air force wrote that batches of 1,000 were too large,
500 was just the right balance between economies of scale and the need
to introduce upgrades) though that soon changed.

Both countries, as far as I'm aware, tried to rationalize production
and by 1939 were doing their best. The problem was that they were late
starters compared to German projects like the Bf 109 and Ju 88 (though
note that a lot of the German aircraft were no easier to produce than
their Allied counterparts), and that aircraft designers weren't
thinking at all in terms of ease to produce. So the governments went
for the more promising design and tried to cope with the production
problems.

The above AFAIK of course.


LC