In August 1936, Germany sent to aid the fascists in Spain, where the civil war began, the so-called Condor Legion, armed with Heinkels. By November, it became obvious that the He-51 was outperforming the new Soviet I-15 and I-16 fighters in all respects. The situation became so complicated that the fourth Bf-109 prototype did not get to the airfield of the research center in Rechlin, but directly to the front. And although the still "unfinished" aircraft had quite a few shortcomings, 7 weeks of successful battles convinced the German air headquarters that it was armed with the best fighter in the world.
Heinkel He-51, Legion Condor
Fighter aircraft I-15
Messerschmitt BF109
In February 1937, the first serial Bf-109B-1 left the assembly line in Augsburg, and since the summer of this year, the fighter units of the Condor legion have completely taken over the Spanish skies. Despite the fact that there were only a few "Messershmitov" then, the Republicans could not snatch victory even by numbers. So, Lieutenant of the Luftwaffe Wilhelm Balthasar once shot down four I-16s within 6 minutes. Like many other pilots who later became aces, he honed his skills here.
Fighter I-16 in the Spanish Civil War
Under the terms of the Versailles Peace Agreement, signed by Germany in 1919, it was completely forbidden to have any air fleet. But in a country with a ruined economy and indemnities imposed by the winners, the possibility of a new aviation boom was almost ruled out. Most of the fighter pilots who survived the First World War were out of work.
The heads of many European military at that time were occupied by the doctrine of the Italian general Giulio Douet, who believed that in a future war the industry and resources of the enemy would be the main goal, and the winner would be the one who was the first to destroy both. It was assumed that this should be done by heavy bombers, whose armada, dropping hundreds of bombs on enemy factories, would ensure the victory of the ground forces.
Such machines appeared at the end of the First World War and, continuously improving, now became the main striking power of states. The fighter aviation of all the warring countries after the Versailles Peace was greatly reduced. With high maneuverability and slightly increased speed, the appearance of fighters up to the early 30s was not much different from the machines of the First World War.
The bomber has changed beyond recognition. Having become a monoplane, it was made of duralumin, received two or three heavy, but powerful engines. Now a conventional fighter simply could not catch up with him. Time urgently demanded changes in the designs of machines, which, however, took place rather slowly.
In the mid-30s, the British flew on the Gladiator biplane of the Gloucester firm, their Soviet counterparts either on the I-15 biplane or on the small I-16 monoplane (both designed by Polikarpov). The Americans, and soon the Finns, began to master the Brewster Buffalo-like keg, reminiscent of the 7-year-old champion aircraft, created under the motto "Anything can fly with a powerful engine." And the Dutch piloted the Fokker, which looked more like a training aircraft.
In 1935, a German finally appeared in this company on the Heinkel-51. In an airplane designed and built as a sports plane, at first glance, one could guess a fighter in the cockpit of which was by no means a beginner. Despite the bans, the Reichswehr command began secretly training pilots abroad in 1924. Most of all, the young Land of Soviets helped him in this. A secret military base appeared in Lipetsk, which trained German military pilots. The cooperation was mutually beneficial: the Germans pledged to provide modern technology and specialists so necessary for the USSR, in exchange for places to train their personnel and develop new designs.
In the early 1930s, relations between Germany and the Soviet Union deteriorated, and in 1933 the base was closed. But who became Reich Chancellor, and then President, Hitler no longer needed help. He, ignoring the European community, built the most powerful military aircraft in Germany. By this time, the Nazi party had created several flight teams, the pilots for which were trained in the flying clubs and four flight schools of Lufthansa, where, along with the training of civil aviation specialists, the backbone of the future Air Force was created. Already in March 33rd, these disparate organizations merged into a single one, and on May 5 of the same year, the Reich Ministry of Aviation was created. It was headed by the former pilot of the First World War Hermann Goering. True, by that time, Goering, who joined the Nazi party in 1922, was more interested in politics than in the problems of fighter aircraft. In addition, he was soon appointed Minister of the Interior of Prussia and, having gained full control over the police, began organizing the Gestapo. New powers took a lot
time, and therefore, not being able to deal with "aircraft" affairs, the former ace entrusted the construction of military aviation to Erhard Milch, the former director of Lufthansa.
Having fully coped with the task, Milch, with the support of Goering, created the Luftwaffe - an armed force unlike any other air force in the world, in which the military considered aviation only as a means of supporting ground forces. The Luftwaffe did not depend on the army and were completely independent. In addition to equipment, they also included air defense forces, radar units, air surveillance, warning and communications services, as well as airborne formations and even their own ground divisions that fought ground battles.
The main tactical unit of the new air force was a squadron, which consisted of about 100 aircraft and was subdivided into three, less often four air groups of about 35 aircraft each, which, in turn, consisted of 3 squadrons - from 12 to 15 aircraft. Throughout Germany, the construction of new aircraft factories, airfields and training bases began. The law on the creation of military aviation, signed by Hitler on March 1, 1935, de jure approved the Luftwaffe, which by that time had 1,888 aircraft of various types and about 20 thousand personnel.
The theorists of the Luftwaffe, who were also adherents of Douai's ideas, relied on bomber aviation, treating fighter aircraft, as, indeed, experts from other countries, with obvious disdain. Therefore, when Professor Willy Messerschmitt proposed to the military an initiative project of a new fighter, some commanders of the German Air Force were sure that such a machine would not be put into service. After all, the apparatus, the contours of which at the beginning of 1934 appeared on the drawing board of Walter Rechtel, the chief designer of the Bavarian Aviation Plants company, was completely different from the others. Rechtel and Messerschmitt, risking their name and capital, despite the opinion of the military, not only created a new aircraft - they opened a new era in the history of aviation.
In August 1935, the first Messerschmitt-109 was ready for flight. The Bf-109 used all of the most advanced aerodynamic developments at the time. It was completely out of line with traditional fighter views, but it was he who was destined to become one of the best aircraft of the next decade. The tests of the new machine went off brilliantly and left the selection committee no doubt about its superiority over all fighters in the world in speed, climb rate and combat effectiveness. Colonel Ernst Udet, appointed fighter aircraft inspector and previously skeptical of the Messerschmit-109, after several flights changed his mind abruptly. Soon he showed Goering and Defense Minister von Blomberg a thrilling "battle", first "shooting down" four He-51s, and then the bomber formation they were accompanying.
Now the highest ranks of the Luftwaffe looked at the plane with different eyes. And soon the first opportunity to test it in action appeared: the Condor legion fighting in Spain, where new Bf-109-B1s were sent directly from the assembly shop, achieved complete air supremacy.
The Luftwaffe command, based on the analysis of military operations in the air, made the conclusion that instead of the traditional tactics of waging a flight in a link - three aircraft each, it would be advisable to switch to a new, much more effective one. The Germans began to fly in pairs - the leader attacked, and the wingman covered his tail. The two pairs formed a formation called the "four fingers", which combined concentrated firepower and freedom of movement of machines.
Both the appearance of the Messerschmit and the birth of new tactics in the skies of Spain led the Germans to a radical change in the entire strategy of the air war: the fighter should become not a defensive, but an offensive weapon designed to “clear” the air before a raid by bombers, and not fight off the latter during a battle. Now the fighter was to become a means of gaining air supremacy. This concept required not just good planes and excellent pilots, but literally the very best pilots and machines. It was Germany that was the first to realize that the most important thing in an airplane is the pilot, on whose skill the outcome of the battle will depend. And such pilots began to appear. And after the all-round development of aviation turned almost into a national policy, the enthusiasm for flying in the country became widespread. Even a proverb was born: "Pilots mean winners." From the selected pilots, it was required for three years of training, during which they had to fly more than 400 hours, to learn to perfectly own the plane, merging with it into a single whole. By September 1939, the Luftwaffe was armed with 3,350 combat vehicles, which were to begin active hostilities in the near future.
On September 1, 1939, about 1,600 combat vehicles of the 1st and 4th German air fleets invaded Polish airspace. At 6.30 in the morning, a pair of Polish R.11s fighters took off from the Balice field airfield on alarm. The leader was Captain Mechislav Medvetsky, the wingman was Second Lieutenant Vladislav Gnysh. Barely taking off, both cars were directly in front of a bomber piloted by Sergeant Frank Neubert. Seeing two Polish fighters straight ahead, he fired a long burst at the leader's plane. Fighter Medvetskiy disappeared in a fiery cloud of explosion. The Junkers turned the car over to the wingman, but he escaped the blow. Some time later, the Polish pilot saw two more German bombers. This time the ending was different: after Gnysh's attack, both German cars were left to burn out on the ground …
Thus began the Second World War in the air. The Polish fighter brigades, possessing neither machines comparable to the German ones, nor experience, entered into a knowingly losing battle. But they fought desperately: already at noon on September 1, the pilots chalked up four Messerschmitts Bf-109. On September 5, two Messerschmitts Bf-110 were shot down. During the first 6 days of the war, the Polish fighter brigade shot down 38 enemy bombers, and yet the forces were too unequal, besides, on September 17, units of the Belarusian and Kiev special military districts, which had up to 500 combat aircraft of various types, entered the battle against Poland. The surrender and partition of Poland was now a matter of days. And yet the Polish campaign cost the Luftwaffe dearly: Germany lost 285 aircraft, and the German aircraft industry was able to compensate for these losses only in the spring of 1940.
Despite the successes of Germany, the French command was in a good mood. It believed that if the Poles were able to inflict such tangible damage on the Germans, then the French pilots on their MS and "Knowk-75" would be able to repel any attack.
By May 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe had concentrated about 4,050 aircraft for an offensive to the West. Never before or after did the Germans use so many machines at the same time. Even against the USSR, a little over a year later, the Ministry of Aviation was able to deploy 3,509 aircraft.
With powerful strikes on enemy airfields, the Germans tried to "withdraw" French aviation from the fight in the very first days of the war, but the attempts were unsuccessful. The French Air Force and the British fighters that came to their aid were constantly engaged in stubborn battles with the Luftwaffe, which on the first day of the fighting lost more aircraft than ever during the Second World War. Already 16 days after the invasion, the commander of the second air fleet A. Kesselring wrote: "Continuous fighting has worn out our people and military equipment, our combat power has dropped to 30-50%." During 42 days of hostilities, French pilots shot down 935 German aircraft. The beginning of the "Lightning War" cost Germany 2,073 total aircraft losses and the lives of 6,611 pilots.
In this battle "Messerschmit" for the first time had to meet an opponent equal to itself. It was the new British Spitfire MK-1 designed by Reginald Mitchell, which entered service with the RAF in 1939. This is how one of the best pilots of the Luftwaffe, Captain Werner Melders, who tested the captured Spitfire, later described this aircraft: "It obeys the helm well, is light, maneuverable and practically does not yield to our Bf-109 in flight characteristics."
And yet the stubborn onslaught of the ground forces forced the French to abandon their airfields. Their strength was quickly dwindling. The British army, being defeated on the mainland, abandoned heavy weapons and almost all equipment and was evacuated at the end of May to the islands from the port of Dunkirk. France surrendered on July 3.
Britain was next in Hitler's plans. Now special hopes were pinned on the Luftwaffe: before the start of Operation Sea Lion, the German Air Force had to gain dominance in the skies of Britain so that nothing would interfere with the landing. One of Hitler's directives in the summer of 1940 stated that the British air force should be weakened to such an extent that it could not offer any significant resistance to the advancing troops …
On July 10, 1940, a group of German Do-17 bombers, accompanied by some 50 fighters under the command of Spanish veteran Hannes Trautloft, took to the air to bomb a British naval convoy near Dover. To intercept, 30 British fighters took off, covering the ships, and attacked the Germans. Thus began the "Battle of England".
