[chronicle] 05 - Amiot 350

[Waroch 2,008]

GB II/34, May 17, 1940.

Lieutenant Frémond

 

The mission is a low altitude night armed reconnaissance flight. This kind of mission was called “bombardement par jalonnement” (marker bombing). The concept was taken over in mid-1942 by the “pathfinders” of the RAF.

 

 

The mission is a reconnaissance of the enemy advance, to seek and destroy its columns in the sector of Chimay and eventually to locate Flak positions. We take off from Nangis in the night of 17 May with the maximum fuel load and 1200kg of bombs. [...] We are soon in sight of fires on the front line. We head on the right to the town of Guise, and see it burning. I leave it on my left and try to spot enemy convoys on the banks of the Oise river. We are casually talking on the intercom. As requested by colonel Dagnaux [who took the dorsal gunner position], I am flying at 600m only, as long as the Flak does not react. In previous missions we could escape their projectors relatively easily, and we believe it will happen once more, thanks to our speed and manoeuvrability.

 

A battery of projectors lights up suddenly on our right. They catch us immediately, without searching for us. Strings of tracers meander towards us. I break left full engines, dive down in zigzags. In vain, we’re stuck in. It is for good this time, and everything happens very quickly. After the first burst, a voice in the intercom signals fire under the right wing. I see it spreading to the fuselage. I am now heading more or less to the south, but there is only a meagre hope to ever reach our lines. A second burst settles it and cripples us. A shell goes trough [radio-gunner] Regnault’station, without exploding. I ask if he’s injured, hear no answer. I repeat the bail-out order several times and receive no answer. To make it easier, I cut the throttle and pitch up to slow down the aircraft. The second burst blasted the relay fuel tank in my back and hits are multiplying.

The whole centre fuselage is now a torrent of flames. They get in through the rear dorsal position, going around colonel Dagnaux’s neck and shoulders. He lies motionless in his seat facing the rear. Adjudant Lavolley [bombardier] seems mortally hit as well. He collapsed on the floor of the nose station. The chandelle ends, I can feel the aircraft irresistibly attracted backwards in a vertical stall. I resolve myself to open the canopy and try to bail out.

 

I start to extract myself; the relative wind of the dive reaps me off. I wonder for a second if I will pass above or below the tail, which was cutting through the trail of flames. I never knew but did not hit it. I immediately pull the release handle since the ground cannot be far. I feel the shock of the opening parachute. The fiery explosion of the aircraft on the ground fills the sky with flames. I come close to a gutter and land in a small garden, my parachute caught in telephone lines. I hear outcries in the night, words in German. Soldiers come to me from a convoy stopped all lights out on the road. They rush in, pull on the parachute to rise me up before I could detach the harness. They take me for an Englishman, think I was wounded. I tell them wrong. My first question is to ask if they saw another parachute before mine. Their contradictory answers give me as much hope as torment.

 

[Driven to the crash site] I am standing alone at the edge of the smoking crater where my comrades disintegrated, crying silently. [...] I cannot forget the sight of the only remain of the aircraft: the cross made by two spars of the stabiliser and the fin, naked, lying across the crater, like a symbol of eternity. Now I know no human remains shall ever be found. A few days later however, I will meet with sergent-chef Regnault, safe and sound in a group of prisoners. On the first evacuation order he had managed to bail out through the flames and the belly hatch. [...] He had hidden for two days before being captured.

 

This was the last mission of lieutenant-colonel Dagnaux, the “wooden-leg ace”, a famous aviator who had lost a leg in the skies of Verdun during the Great War. He can be considered as the real initiator of Pathfinder tactics.

 

 

 

 

The Amiot 350 was a promising four-crew medium bomber. Its long and painful development outlines the many difficulties of the aeronautical industry during the interwar.

In the 1920s, Félix Amiot was one of the early supporters of the all-metal cantilever monoplane formula.  The Amiot 143 is the best known aircraft of the first generation. It left a lot to be desire, with its short, excessively thick and heavy wing. The study of the second generation began as early as 1931-32, first with an ultra modern wing design. Longer, lighter, thinner, it was also simplified and thought for an easy production. Various long range aircraft of all types, known as the E-series, were studied with this wing. One of them, the 1933 E7, can be considered as the direct ancestor of our A.350.

 

In 1933 a program of a “retaliation bomber” was published for the air force, fast cruising machines designed for precise strikes, deep into enemy territory. Amiot answered with the model 340. It featured very pure lines, with a streamlined fuselage of circular section. Several factors then combined to delay the aircraft year after year.

The first was evolution of the requirements of the air force. When the A.340 was first presented, the retaliation bomber was practically abandoned in favour of the 1934 B4 medium bomber. Among the proposed variants, one was the A.341 with a deeply modified fuselage to respect the B4 specifications (although still a three-seater). The  341 was accepted in 1936, but about at the same time a technical revision of the B4 program was issued. Back to the drawing board once again.

 

A single prototype was ready in February 1937. It would allow evaluating the flight characteristics but had of course little in common with the final operational definition.

Then came the engine problem. Officials were pushing for the Hispano-Suiza 14Ha, a radial engine developed under a Wright license. Its disastrous debut confirmed that there was a long way to go before reliable 1200hp “Cyclones” could enter production. The alternative Gnome & Rhône 14P had barely started factory trials. For lack of a better choice, it was finally decided to use 14N 0/1 radials, a simple evolution of the existing 14K. The engine was less powerful and its installation a makeshift : propeller of the Bloch MB.210 and simplistic cowls taken from the A.143 production line. The long and ungrateful job of motorisation testing began. It was interrupted in august 1938. General Vuillemin, head of the air force, paid a diplomatic visit to Germany, and requested the A.340-01 for propaganda purposes. The Villacoublay-Berlin journey was covered without trouble, at an average 440km/h. While certainly good to show off, the 340-01 was the only prototype available; the propaganda flight created a serious delay to the engine problem.

 

Politics had an influence as well. In December 1937, a small production order was placed for 50 A.340, supposed to serve as high-performance liaison aircraft. The real reason though was to help Amiot initiate the production of its new bomber. Then a change of government took place, and it is only six months later that the new minister confirmed the order... But for a preseries of Amiot 350, a much different aircraft designed according to the 1936 revision of the B4 program. The international situation degenerated quickly and production orders piled up, in a most unrealistic manner.

Indeed, Félix Amiot was facing a very harsh industrial and financial challenge. He had lost one of his two factories in the 1936 nationalisations, the one responsible for the production of the A.143. His personnel was pillaged to create the new SNCAs. On top of that, the refund for the expropriation did not arrive before 1938, and having become a relatively small private company did not help with the banks. Amiot was struggling for the mere survival of his company when the ministry of the air was counting on them to forge a new backbone for the bomber force!

 

They managed somehow. From 1937 to 1940, the production surface was increased by 470%. Like for other industrials, shortly after the declaration of war the remarkable action of men such as Raoul Dautry made production rate grow exponentially. From initial studies to the first deliveries to the air force, the second generation of Amiot bombers had taken nearly an entire decade of gestation. It was much too late. Few aircraft could ever reach operational units, even less were used actively during the battle, and none of them was really finished.

 

For this reason, and because superficial performance résumés in general litterature make it look somewhat inferior to the LeO.45, it is often overshadowed by its rival. It is not doing justice. It was perhaps less daring, but more efficient; a pilot’s aircraft rather than an engineer’s delirium. It was considered easier to fly and considerably safer. It was also cheaper and offered a better payload. For long range missions, the Leo.45 was limited to 500kg of bombs over 2300km, while the Amiot could carry 1,35 ton over 2500km. The Leo.45 was a remarkable aircraft, but the truth is that for most missions the A.350 was probably the better bomber.

 

The most promising variant was without a doubt the A.356, motorised with Rolls-Royce Merlin X. For a change, the engine installation gave entire satisfaction, so much in fact that the British requested the prototype to be lent to Rolls-Royce for evaluation, since it was thought to be better than on the aircraft of the RAF. Performance-wise the powerful and reliable British engine did wonder on the sleek French airframe. The best of both worlds. The new bomber would have been the fastest of its generation. In fact, it cruised faster than most medium bombers could fly, except the Junkers 88 and LeO.45. It may have been one of the most brilliant bombers of the war.

 

The qualities of the design did not escape the attention of the air force. They had the production schedule changed to give maximum priority to the A.350. No less than eight bomber groups were to be converted from the LeO to the Amiot in the course of the year 1940! It does not mean however that the LeO would have disappeared. The two aircraft were actually very complementary. The immediate future for the LeO implied a weight-saving structural revision as well as powerful radial engines (1600hp-class G&R 14R and Bristol Hercules). It would have remained the superior tactical bomber to go in the middle of heat zones and survive. For the other roles, the well-liked and versatile A.350 may have been the weapon of choice. A duality which is not without reminding the B-25/26 duo of the USAAF.

[Umbriellan 2,986]

Voici un bon cru Monsieur !

 

(*Alcohol abuse is harmful to health*)

 

Thank you for this story and presentation ! :salute:

[Waroch 2,008]

True, every machine requires some fuel to keep working isn't it? :ph34r:

 

 

Glad you appreciate. To be honnest, it takes quite a bit of work to have those articles online, more than I expected initially. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of documentation on those birds in English, and they're really worth a bit of love!

[Xenecrite 899]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJx5HdbZueU

[ScoAtao 325]

Excellent !

[Querulous1 3,276]

Very good. Hope for all these planes in game. One day.