Tit For Tat?

Peaceful, bomb-fearing Britons have for years been notably anxious to have Europe's air fleets limited by some kind of pact. Journalistic furor in London was therefore immense last week when unconfirmed rumors began buzzing that at Munich three weeks ago fat Field Marshal Hermann Goering genially told lean Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that an air pact not only is a good idea but ought to be signed on the basis that Germany can have three planes for every British one.

Often a jest by the ebullient Goering reflects what he knows to be in the mind of his friend Hitler, who seldom jokes. To the solemn Fuehrer it is an unanswerably simple proposition that Britain should be willing to give him tit for tat. Tat is the Treaty of 1935 by which the German Navy was limited to 35% of the size of the British Navy, plus the Treaty of 1937 by which qualitative limitation of the two navies with respect to each other was fixed. Tit would be the ratio at which, after diplomatic trading, the German Air Force would be quantitatively and qualitatively fixed in relation to the British Royal Air Force.

Almost certainly Hitler and Goering think air power will soon have made sea power obsolete, but they know the British Admiralty is full of crusty heroes ready to swear that "By gad, Sir, none of your dashed bombers has ever sunk a modern capital ship and they haven't taken Madrid. The Navy is still the Navy, Sir, and England is still England." In that atmosphere, which seems very favorable to modern Germans, an air pact conceivably may be signed. Its drafters will have to take into consideration first the quantitative air strengths of the great powers. These were estimated at Washington last week in quarters close to the Navy Department. Based on figures for all kinds of effective fighting craft (day & night bombers, fighting, reconnaissance, transport) they follow:

Soviet Union 5,000 to 6,500 planes

Germany 4,000 " 4,500 "

Italy 3,700 " 4,200 "

France 3,200 " 3,500 "

Britain 3,000 " 3,500 "

U.S.A. 2,700 " 3,000 "

Japan more than 2,500

Other Factors. Any quantitative estimate must be corrected not so much for qualitative factors--although these are important--as in the light of how rapidly each great power is increasing its yearly or monthly production of reasonably effective fighting aircraft. In acceleration of aircraft production Germany has pioneered, led the whole European field and may still be leading, despite frantic efforts to accelerate production by the other great powers, notably Britain. Goering has been to the European war plane what Ford was to the car, and Lord Nuffield is only now entering the air race as Britain's Big Builder.*

In technical opinion, Spain has been unsatisfactory, perhaps even misleading, as a war testing ground for aircraft. This war, despite all its unspeakable horrors, has not been "big stuff." A U.S. Navy-trained flier with the Leftists' Army last year wrote that the Russians had the best ships, the Germans the best-trained pilots. No man can be sure, however, to what extent Germany, Russia and Italy sent examples of their best ships to fight over Spain.

The leading French aviation weekly Aero, with many excellent contacts in both Rightist and Leftist Spain, recently made the best and broadest survey to date, but in effect it proved only the impossibility of qualitatively ranking the air fleets of the great powers. Aero's experts particularly noticed in Spain that the fighting power of even a particular type of plane is enormously affected by both the temperament and degree of training of the airmen who fly it. They observed, for example, that in Spain the German pilots fight a "standard battle" in standardized planes but are upset by enemy tricks; that the Italian pilots display great (but uncertain) virtuosity in Italian craft and are technically more brilliant; and the Russians take wild chances, sometimes most effectively.

The U.S.-designed, Soviet-built machines are believed by Aero to be about 30% inferior to craft built from the same designs in the U.S--although these latter have not been war-tested. The Russian-designed and Russian-built ship is apt to be so daringly advanced in design and so doubtful in construction that dazzled Aero was left gasping, declared that the 100% Soviet T.B. 6 is the most formidable bomber in Europe when it can be got properly tuned up.*

The possibility that English or Germans or Russians may not prove able to stand bombing from the air with the fortitude which Spaniards have shown introduces another factor into air warfare which has nothing to do with quantity or quality of machines, yet might quickly decide a war. In getting ready to draft an air pact, however, quantity is likely to be the main yardstick--because it is the only factor which lends itself to headlines, to diplomacy or even to fairly convenient estimate.

* In Paris last week Baron de la Grange, Senator and president of the French Aero-Club, estimated that France can produce fewer than 100 planes per month, Germany more than 1,000 per month. Added the Senator: ''The possible output of the German aeronautic industry so far exceeds that of France and Britain combined that they can solve the problem only if they are able to obtain the assistance of the American aviation industry. This means we must somehow settle certain difficulties"--i.e., the War Debts.

* This ship is propelled by four M34 motors, none of which has its own supercharger. The gas is shot into them by a single compressor driven by an M-100 Hispano-Suiza motor which does nothing else. Nothing so "mechanically outrageous" has been attempted by any other great power.

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