MD 410 Spirale: Wolf in sheep's clothing

[panzerknoef 695]

 

Welcome to another suggestion for what is, in my opinion, a very interesting french aircraft: the MD 410 Spirale.

 

As a result of the outbreak of war in Algeria, the French government issued a requirement for a twin engined aircraft capable of performing ground attack missions. The requirements for the aircraft were as follows: weight under 5 tonnes, range of 1,080 nm, cruising speed of 216 knots and weapons including two 30-mm cannons, bombs and rockets or air-to-ground missiles. Dassault responded to this request with the MD410 Spirale. The twin-turboprop aircraft had a weight of 5.5 tons, was capable of speeds up 500 kph and could carry a host of weaponry on its 4 underwing hardpoints as well as having twin 30mm DEFA cannons mounted at the bottom of the fuselage. Other competitors for this request also arose in the shape of the previously suggested Sud-Ouest Voltigeur, Sipa S1100, Potez 75 and Morane-Saulnier 1500. A few others were also suggested but didn't make it past the design table. The same airframe also resulted in the MD 415 Communauté. Primarily a liaison aircraft but with a secondary role of ground attack. What this meant is that the aircraft had the same hardpoints as the Spirale, but lacked the fuselage mounted guns that the Spirale did have. 

 

On May 26, 1959, seeing that their respective corporations were working on the same type of program (the Voltigeur and the Communauté) and for reasons of increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness, Marcel Dassault and Sud-Aviation CEO Georges Héreil decided to join forces to build a twin-engine aircraft for two different missions :

- liaison, training and ground attack. This aircraft was flown by GAMD under the name Communauté

- ground attack and multi-purpose missions along the lines of Sud Aviation’s Voltigeur, also produced as a model by GAMD under the name Spirale

 

Eventually in 1960, the French government decided to buy aircraft from the surplus the United states air force to perform these ground attack missions, thereby also rejecting all the French domestic proposals. Given the advanced stage of work, many of the manufacturers still involved decided to still press on with development of their aircraft and  achieved first flight. For the Spirale, this feat was achieved at Bordeaux-Mérignac on April 8, 1960, with Paul Boudier and Gilles Brecq at the controls. The air force nonetheless showed interest albeit in a slightly modified version, later named Spirale III. This would basically be the same design, but 1.3 times larger. However, this program too was shortly thereafter put to a hold because of a lack in funding. No further development was undertaken on this aircraft, despite interest from several other nations. The Spirale III remained a paper project. 

 

Now, as far as armament goes for this aircraft. The aircraft was by default armed with 2x 30mm DEFA cannons, mounted under the fuselage. In the main image, you can see the bulges extruding from the bottom, these are the gun housings. On top of that, the aircraft featured 6 wing hardpoints that could carry bombs: 2x 1000lb, 4x 500lb and 24x 100lb (50kg) bombs, rockets: up to 6x 37mm SNEB pods (as seen in image, matra 361), 68mm SNEBs in up to 6 pods containing 7 rockets each and finally 4x SS.11 or 4x SS.12. 

 

What this aircraft would bring to the game is a light and nimble ground attack platform with a unique look. The twin 30mm guns should allow it to do a good amount of gun damage vs lightly armored targets and provides a way for the aircraft to protect itself from other aircraft, to top it all off the nice array of suspended armament will allow you to successfully attack heavily armored targets as well. 

 

General  Characteristics: 

 

Engine: Turbomeca Bastan (930hp each, boosted to 1000hp with water injection)

Width: 16,40 m

Length: 13,00 m

Height: 4,30 m

Empty mass: 3.900 kg

Total Mass: up to 6.300 kg

Max cruise speed: 520 km/h at 1500m, 500km/h at sea level

Rate of climb at 0m: 11,5 m/s

Max altitude: 11.000 m

Range: 2.000 km

(Full flight performance characteristics can be found in the pdf linked in sources)

 

Armament:

2x 30mm DEFA (200rpg)

3 hardpoints on each wing, capable of carrying up to 1000lbs of combined mass, these could carry the following:

- 2x 1000lb bombs

- 4x 500lb bombs

- 24x 50kg (100lb) bombs

- 2x 450l Napalm bombs

- up to 6x36 37mm SNEBs (loadout with 4x36 37mm SNEBs shown in picture). Maximum loadout is achieved with the Matra type 361 pods, but a payload consisting of type 181 pods (capacity of 16 rockets) is likely also possible, since these pods were interchangeable.

- up to 6x7 68mm SNEBs

- up to 4x6 T10 rockets

- up to 8x2 5" HVAR rockets (like on wing hardpoints of F-84G) 

- up to 4x SS.11

- up to 4x SS.12

 

 

 

Update:

The wonderful people at Dassault have replied to my questions and have sent over an entire pdf of documentation on the aircraft (will be linked in the sources tab, a member of the research discord has already linked a page of it in the comments as well) which allows me to get rid of all the speculation in this topic and replace it with hard facts, consider that done when you read this. If I've still missed something from documentation that needs fixing, feel free to comment and I shall correct it. 

 

Extra pictures:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Primary source: 

Spirale_dossier de présentation.pdf

Obtained directly from Dassault, many thanks to them for this! 

 

Other sources:

Spoiler

https://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/passion/aircraft/military-dassault-aircraft/md-410-spirale/

http://all-aero.com/index.php/45-planes-d-e-f/13816-dassault-md-415-communaute

https://aviationsmilitaires.net/v3/kb/aircraft/show/1627/dassault-md-415-communaute

https://aviationsmilitaires.net/v3/kb/aircraft/show/3427/dassault-md-410-spirale#tab:tab-armement

http://avions-de-la-guerre-d-algerie.over-blog.com/article-marcel-dassault-md-410-spirale-58941320.html

http://avions-de-la-guerre-d-algerie.over-blog.com/article-notice-technique-du-collimateur-sfom-83-83a-64560560.html (information on aircraft gunsight)

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by panzerknoef
Noted the Dassault provided pdf as primary source

[super_cacti 1,071]

Open for discussion 

[Arghail 1,220]

Certainly a great strike aircraft proposal, however it would be a bit difficult to balance, given the massive discrepancy between firepower and performance.

[Kawamura 72]

a beautiful plane, love to see it in game. Would fit very nicely at Br 5.0-6.0 as a Strike Aircraft . +1

Edited September 28, 2021 by Kawamura
typo .-.

[panzerknoef 695]

1 hour ago, Arghail said:

Certainly a great strike aircraft proposal, however it would be a bit difficult to balance, given the massive discrepancy between firepower and performance.

Yeah I understand the sentiment, but as the user above this comment said, should work at 5.0 to 6.0. I believe the firepower is more than capable of making up for the mediocre flight performance. In my mind it's gonna be somewhat like the AD-4, but with some flight performance lost in exchange for armament, would fit with the time period as well to put it at a similar br. 

[Milocat 4,848]

+1 from me, this would be a great new attack aircraft for the French tree.

[FouManchou 2,463]

3 hours ago, Arghail said:

Certainly a great strike aircraft proposal, however it would be a bit difficult to balance, given the massive discrepancy between firepower and performance.

Ever heard of the Sturmovik? 
Slow and heavy ground attack aircraft with basically no payload ; 5.0 in its IL-10 configuration.

[Cedjoe 5,482]

+1

I would love to see some low tier DEFAs

[Arghail 1,220]

4 hours ago, FouManchou said:

Ever heard of the Sturmovik? 
Slow and heavy ground attack aircraft with basically no payload ; 5.0 in its IL-10 configuration.

Well yes, the Il-10 certainly is a powerful CAS aircraft, for sure. But It's also heavily armored (something this plane is not), and its CAS capabilities are inferior in every way compared to this one, be it its rockets, its bombs or its canons. It's an aircraft coherent with its BR and the tanks it faces, because it was designed to fight them them.

This one is not. It's a colonial patrol aircraft. We're talking about an aircraft armed with DEFA canons, which performances would be far above anything flying at this tier, and which would be in ground RB throwing AP rounds with a good 30-40mm of pen at a much, much higher RoF. Same goes for the SNEB rockets and the bombs which (if added) would be far more efficient than anything the IL-10 could throw on the battlefield.

I'm not saying it's impossible to add. I'm saying to be careful where this thing gets put.

 

6 hours ago, panzerknoef said:

Yeah I understand the sentiment, but as the user above this comment said, should work at 5.0 to 6.0. I believe the firepower is more than capable of making up for the mediocre flight performance. In my mind it's gonna be somewhat like the AD-4, but with some flight performance lost in exchange for armament, would fit with the time period as well to put it at a similar br. 

It could fit in that bracket, yes. Though as you said, there's already the AD-4 here, not to mention the F4U-7. It would fit in the end more as a premium aircraft rather than a tech tree one I think. It's the only way Gaijin will bother even acknowledging its existence anyway, given that this one is absolutely not in any ways juicy enough.

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Arghail

[Abaddon75 460]

1 hour ago, Arghail said:

It could fit in that bracket, yes. Though as you said, there's already the AD-4 here, not to mention the F4U-7. It would fit in the end more as a premium aircraft rather than a tech tree one I think. It's the only way Gaijin will bother even acknowledging its existence anyway, given that this one is absolutely not in any ways juicy enough.

Well I'm not going against your opinion just reminds you that the more juicy stuff have better chance to get premium, and the less one have more chance to end up in the tree

[panzerknoef 695]

12 hours ago, Arghail said:

It could fit in that bracket, yes. Though as you said, there's already the AD-4 here, not to mention the F4U-7. It would fit in the end more as a premium aircraft rather than a tech tree one I think. It's the only way Gaijin will bother even acknowledging its existence anyway, given that this one is absolutely not in any ways juicy enough.

You're right about that, there's already other aircraft at that br fulfilling that role. However, I would very much like an actual French design to be there as well, just to add a bit more uniqueness to the tree. 

Whether or not Gaijin will bother acknowledging it is another matter ofc... You're right that it's not a famous vehicle in any way, which also doesn't make it a good premium candidate. In the end that's Gaijin's call against our opinions anyway, so it's useless to discuss it, but I get your point. 

[OsO73 491]

+1 i love COIN aircraft !!!

[CaID 8,992]

from Dassault report, the top speed was 530 km/h at 3000m and 520 km/h at 1500m

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by CaID

[panzerknoef 695]

Post updated with new information obtained from Dassault. The full pdf that they have provided, which features complete data on flight performances, suspended armament and much more can be found in the sources tab.

[CaID 8,992]

7 hours ago, panzerknoef said:

Post updated with new information obtained from Dassault. The full pdf that they have provided, which features complete data on flight performances, suspended armament and much more can be found in the sources tab.

as the PDF was provided by the builder and show details of the test from the first hand, that should be considered as primary source.

 

you should point it would to be a primary source and put it in his own part of the source so people AND the developer could refer to it directly in priority over the other source.

with this single source, all other source become unneeded and useless.

 

also on optional specification details, i would show the speed of 520 km/h at 1500m reported in the PDF. that show the different speed variation on the different altitude indicating the speed shall be around 500km/h at sea level

Edited October 2, 2021 by CaID

[Arghail 1,220]

4 x SS12, Now that's interesting, without a doubt. These are big, mean anti-ship missiles with slightly less explosive filler than a Nord Missile, it would certainly be quite... aggressive in ground battles.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Arghail

[CubicSquare 156]

This seem like alot of fun!~ +1

[Drasleon 226]

+1 for this planes and news informations here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5323425d.r=MD 415 Communauté?rk=21459;2

Theses informations mainly concern the MD 415 Communauté. However Communauté and Spirale have 90% of common parts. At the page 26 you can see this:

In summary for non french speaker, the plane can carry  under the fuselage 2x30 mm guns or 4x12,7 (separated in pairs) with ammo in the cabin on the side floors.

PS I will translate other part of the main article when i have time but not right away.

[Drasleon 226]

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5323425d.r=MD 415 Communauté?rk=21459;2

Here we go for the translation

 

First, 3 interesting things:

 

1: The plans for the plane were drawn in just one afternoon and 8 months later the plane was finished.

 

2 I have already said it but it is important so I repeat myself, the MD410 spiral shares 90% of common part with the MD 415 Communauté:

For Dassault and his team, the idea was to save money by offering a military aircraft that would have 90% of common parts with its business aircraft.

So don't be surprised, if I'm talking more about the MD 415 Communauté than the MD 410 Spiral, but it's the same plane and what applies to one also applies to the other.

 

3 Notice to developers : to create this plane, Marcel Dassault and this team used the  accumulated experience acquired during the construction of their jets.

Usually the aviations companies have used the experience acquired on propeller planes to create jets, there it is the reverse. Also the MD415 / 410 borrows several elements of jets manufactured by Dassault aviation which are ALREADY in the game.

 

Then, plane dissection:

Spoiler

 

1 Glazed front nose	21 Reverse flight accumulator	41 Balance ailerons (fins)	61 Battery	81 Fin defroster
2 ILS flat ice antenna	22 Propeller Racier Figeac	42 Aileron bearing	62 HF Tunning box	82 VHF Antenna
3 Landing gear front wheel cylinder	23 Turboprop « Turbomeca « Bastan » » 850 horsepower	43 Spoiler cylinder	63 Control Box	83 Direction return
4 Landing gear front wheel strut	24 Turboprop mounting bracket	44 Spoiler	64 SFENA Gyrometer	84 Relay command
5 Front landing gear cylinder	25 Extinguisher	45 Flaps	65 Converter	85 Horizontal plane guide compass
6 Front landing gear strut	26 Hydraulic cover	46 Flaps guide rail	66 Recorders	86 Electric cylinder of the horizontal plane
7 Front landing gear	27 Main landing gear cylinder	47 Fuel tank	67 VHF antenna	87 Direction return
8 Trap door	28 Landing gear leg	48 Main gear hatch and housing	68 Adjustable horizontal plane	88 Steering Depth Control Relay
9 Steering pedal assembly	29 Landing gear Shock absorber	49 Exhauster	69 Flaps Balance	89 Valve and cabin pressure regulator
10 Half steering wheel pilote	30 Diabolo	50 Fuel tank central plan	70 Shutters of depths	90 Drywall
11 Broomstick base housing	31 Electrical armament box	51 Airbrake control cylinders and wheelhouse	71 Return of Depths	91 Passenger door
12 Main landing gear trap door cylinder	32 Valve box (venting the tanks)	52 Airbrakes	72 Depht bellcrank	92 Cargo door
13 Main trap door of landing gear	33 Defrost solenoid valve	53 Rear wing attachment	73 Horizontal plane joint	93 Antenna HF
14 Pilot's left side console	34 Spoiler command return	54 Elevator and rudder connecting rod	74 Artificial reaction direction	94 Primary exchangers
15 Flying command connecting rod	35 Warping connecting rod	55 Command return	75 Linear steering cylinders	95 Mixer tap
16 Warping return	36 Warping return	56 Ladder incorporated	76 Direction connecting rod	96 Silencer kit
17 Front wing attachment	37 « Goodrick » Defroster	57 Waterproof relay box for controls	77 Steering servo control	97 Refrigirator group
18 Propeller feathering capsule	38 Ailerons attack connecting rod	58 Control connecting rod	78 Direction bearings	98 Electro hydraulic pump
19 Main wing attachment	39 Ailerons (fins)	59 Electrical box	79 Rudder	99 Steering antenna
20 Left fuel jerrycan	40 Automatic tab	60 VHF Station	80 UHF Antenna	100 Compas radio frame (Automatic Direction Finder)
				101 Tab control (trim tab)
				102 Electric trim tab motor
				103 Seat mounting rail
				104 Radio navigation cabinet
				105 Electrical cabinet
				106 Crew emergency evacuation
				107 Oil radiator (cooler)
				108 Turbine cowling

 Then: turboprop installation and main gear kinematics

Spoiler

1 Turboprop « Turbomeca « Bastan » »

2 Firewall

3 Fasteners (or clips) Turboprop

4 thermal insulation

5 exhauster

6 Ventilation inlet (for the pipe)

7 Ventilation outlet

8 Flaps ( note the value of 35°)

9 Main landing gear lift cylinders

10 Landing gear strut

11 Steering bar (or rod)

12 Landing gear leg

13 Shock absorber

14 Landing gear box in high position

15 Landing gear rod

I will translate the rest a little later.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Drasleon

[hienapunk 1,064]

This and the Flamant would be fascinating prop atgm ground attackers. They'd also lean into the theme of the French bring the atgm pioneers.

[Fireraid233 4,274]

+1 pretty cool they gave you a PDF straight from the manufacturer nice!

Edited June 25, 2022 by Fireraid233

[panzerknoef 695]

On 25/06/2022 at 03:59, Fireraid233 said:

+1 pretty cool they gave you a PDF straight from the manufacturer nice!

Yeah it was so nice of them! Imagine my excitement when that mail came in! It should also have pretty much all the info in it that Gaijin needs to implement the aircraft. 

[Drasleon 226]

Ladies and gentlemen, the spiral has port machine guns, I repeat it has port machine guns YES YES

 

So for information here is the photo of a mock up used during the first tests. The first tests took place on flight 76 but the first real ammunition tests took place during flight 92 on December 16, 1960 with a 20 mm MG 151 cannon. The tests proved to be uncomfortable for the shooter but he would have hit several times his target. Source Le Fana de l'aviation 206 & 207

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Drasleon

[Drasleon 226]

Here the cokpit:

 

 

Can we take a moment to discuss the position of the observer?

Source: Le fana de l'aviation 206 p 25

[AspandaIV 375]

16 hours ago, Drasleon said:

Here the cokpit:

 

 

Can we take a moment to discuss the position of the observer?

Source: Le fana de l'aviation 206 p 25

Nice find, if this aircraft does get added i hope it get's a fully detailed cockpit and maybe some other deets behind the cockpit

Also posts like this just reminds me that a lot of frontline bombers and even some ground attack vehicles still have their placeholder cockpits