Removing Dassault

[Lascaris]

In 1944 Marcel Bloch was arrested by the Germans and carried off to the Buchenwald concentration plan, from which he was freed in April 1944. At the time he was barely 70 pounds and it's hardly inconceivable that he would have died in the camp. So say that he actually does die.

What are the effects on French and by extensuon European aviation industry after 1945?

 

[hesham]

Hi Lascaris,


the Aviation in France will drop hard.

 

[Lascaris]

Was Dassault personally involved in the design of Ouragan, Mystere and early Mirage or by this point he was having more of an organizational role?

 

[Michel Van]

Was Dassault personally involved in the design of Ouragan, Mystere and early Mirage or by this point he was having more of an organizational role?

He was deeply involved in design and motivated his engineers and worker on those projects.
some called him the "Mozart of Aircraft construction" !
and he had the right connections to government to push his projects to completion and sell it to foreign countries.

with no Dassault, the French aerospace would look completely different.
It's likely that Nord Aviation would dominating the french aerospace business.

 

[royabulgaf]

The other design bureaus of the era were offering similar products to the Dassault lines. What would happen? Somewhat different shapes, probably called Breguet or Nord.

 

[alertken]

Non-French folk cannot answer this. 7/44: although (to be)AMD was not/almost everything else was Nationalised, almost all the money came from the State (just like in UK). Working folk in France and UK knew that Mother Russia had defeated the Boche. Parties with the word Communist in their name long remained electorally significant (though only French citizens then active may comment on their orientation - to France or to Moscow: Italians will say that, 1950s, if you objected to Parties with the word "Christian", you voted "communist", but PCI was firstly Italian).


Although a plethora of jet combat projects (no prospective enemy other than USSR) was funded in the Nationalised sector after 1945, AMD won almost everything except Vautour. A reason might be that communist influence on the production shop floor was less than in the Nords and Suds. Remember that in 1938 AdlA chose to fund Consolidated to do the Baku Bomber (to be B-24) rather than place it with seething Red beds.


By outbreak of Korea, France was already facing (apparently Sino-Soviet inspired/funded) pain in Cochin China: shop floor workforces seemed happy to build US-funded combat types under licence (Sud Aquilon - no other purpose than to bombard Uncle Ho; Sud Mistral, ditto Uncle Joe). If D'assault had not been there…I presume the Bordeaux site would have been, within an SN, would have bid, and won something. AMD had a fair share of Communautes: would tubby Mirage have become Mirage III without him (then Serge)? Qui ne le sait?

 

[Stargazer2006]

Qui sait, indeed?


I could be wrong, but I believe that Marcel Dassault's winning most military bids at the time had more to do with his influence and connections than because of the political leanings of the nationalized companies' workforce.

 

[pathology_doc]

In 1944 Marcel Bloch... So say that he actually does die. What are the effects on French and by extension European aviation industry after 1945?

I'll have to go back and re-read the "X-planes of Europe" book, but it would be tempting to posit the entry into military service of some of France's more oddball projects, e.g. ramjet and rocket-based fighters.


Also, with Dassault out of the picture, Anglo-French co-operation takes on a whole new face, with the possibility of the British leading. IMO the French were able to exert their muscle in such things as AFVG because Dassault had a proven track record of building good airplanes and had built credibility. Take that away, and the game changes radically. Hypothetically it could open the field for the entry to service of some British projects that never made it IRL. At the very least, those aircraft which actually started down a physical production line before they got canned (e.g. thin-wing Javelin, SR.177, P.1121) might have got a guernsey in some form or other, and maybe even TSR.2???