The Eagle, the Wolf, and the Sun: Prologue

Prologue E

Where Eagles Soar:

Interbellum Aviation Developments

Reichsminister Goering visits the Lipetsk airfields, 1934. Undergoing flight testing there were the latest Messerschmitt Bf109Bs, the dominant fighter-interceptor and fighter-bomber through the first years of the war.

With Germany denied an air force after the conclusion of the Great War, much of the development on which the Luftwaffe would come to depend was theoretical, or carried out in great secrecy in the Soviet Union. By and large, the Germans laid out four principles which would guide the development of their aviation forces:

Destroy enemy aviation through offensive suppression of enemy air defenses.

Interdict the tactical and operational level movement of enemy ground forces.

Interdict, degrade and destroy enemy naval units.

Destroy the enemy's capability to produce war materiel.

These principles followed the dictum similar to that of the army: they would likely be fighting at a disadvantage in numbers. The recognition of the Weimar Reichswehr of such a problem was that they sought out new technologies with which to make up the deficiencies with as little cost in human lives and expensive machines as possible. That said, it wasn't until the late twenties when the Weimar founded the Heereswaffenamt or Army Weapons Office. A subsidiary of the Truppenamt, General von Seeckt recruited the best and brightest he could with a leavening of age and experience to guide those developments. By 1935, through some severe wrangling and even some outright obfuscation, the Peenemünde Army Research Center (Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde) was in operation.

The nature of the Versailles meant that creative accounting and secretive methods were needed to keep the developmental program out of the eyesight of the rest of Europe. Much was made of speed and carrying capacity of the aircraft developed by the German national airline, Deutsches Luft Hansa. Junkers had developed the W 33, a long range, single engine aircraft which could carry almost 1270 kg (almost 2800 pounds) of disposable stores, supplies or soldiers. By 1930, Junkers had also developed the Ju 52 "Tante Ju" or "Aunt Anne," one of the most successful aircraft designs to that point. "Tante Ju" could carry 1820 kilograms (4000 pounds) of freight or disposable stores. With a range of 1000 km, most of Continental Europe was within range to the 800 examples of which were organized into eight geschwaders. On the other side, Arado was developing the Ar64/65, called a "fast mail plane," of which nearly 100 examples were procured. These single seat aircraft provided some air defense capability with excellent handling characteristics and significant ammunition storage of nearly 500 rounds per gun. Those two fighter designs were rapidly succeeded by the Heinkel He 51; three hundred of the examples were in service with three geschwaders by the beginning of 1936. More advanced designs were also in the pipeline.

In Italy, CR.1 biplanes, little better than what had been deployed in the Great War, gave way to the CR.20, the CR.30 and finally the CR.42. Savoia-Marchetti had developed the SM.62 to patrol the Mediterranean before developing the SM.75 for the airlift command and the SM.79 to replace the SM.62. Caproni developed the Ca.111 as a light tactical attack aircraft, which also was replaced with the SM.79 by 1936.

The main concerns about the Regia Aeronautica was the inability of the private sector companies developing the aircraft to develop advanced airframes. Though some were capable, the airframes were not setting many records (or indeed, keeping up with any), unlike the German, British or American aerospace industry. Indeed, despite Il Duce's making the Regia Aeronautica a useful recruiting and propaganda tool, the force was ill suited to modern combat. It remained capable of operating against many of the air forces that it would likely be facing in the Mediterranean: long the dumping ground of old and obsolete aircraft of the other major powers.