Bloch MB.152
The Bloch MB.152 was a French single-seat fighter, the main production version of the MB.150 family designed by the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch and built by the nationalised SNCASO consortium. The prototype flew on 15 December 1938 and the first production aircraft was delivered the following March; 482 MB.152s were built, alongside 144 MB.151s. It was tough and a steady gun platform but underpowered and short-ranged beside the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, and in the final weeks before the June 1940 armistice it was the most numerous type remaining in French service, its pilots credited with at least 188 enemy aircraft. It served on with the Vichy air force until December 1942, and none of the family survive today.
Why It Mattered
The Bloch MB.152 was the main production version of the MB.150 fighter family, and in the final weeks before the armistice of June 1940 it was the most numerous aircraft type remaining in French service. It existed because France's pre-war rearmament could not wait for perfect designs: the MB.150 had lost the 1934 fighter competition to the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, yet the unfinished design was still ordered into production under the Plan V expansion programme. In the Battle of France the MB.152 proved tough and steady as a gun platform, but it was slower than the Messerschmitt Bf 109E and outmatched by it. After the armistice, six fighter groups kept the type in service with the Vichy air force until that force was disbanded in December 1942.
Design Notes
The MB.150 was an all-metal, low-wing monoplane with a retractable undercarriage and an enclosed cockpit, designed and built by the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch. Its first prototype could not even leave the ground in 1936; given a strengthened wing of greater area and a Gnome-Rhône 14N engine, it finally made its maiden flight on 29 September 1937. Redesigning the airframe for mass production produced two models in parallel: the MB.151 with the 920 hp 14N-35, and the MB.152 with the 1,050 hp 14N-25, whose prototype flew on 15 December 1938. Production was divided among the factories of SNCASO, the nationalised consortium that had absorbed Bloch. Engine overheating dogged the design, and the production fix — a wide cowling — cured the cooling at the cost of drag, so later aircraft used a narrower cowling and the more powerful 14N-49. Armament was two 20 mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon and two 7.5 mm MAC 1934 machine guns.
Operational History
Deliveries began slowly: the first production MB.152 reached the Armée de l'Air on 7 March 1939, but by the outbreak of war close to 120 Bloch fighters had been delivered and most were not sufficiently equipped to be considered operational. When Germany attacked on 10 May 1940, the French Air Force had 363 MB.152s on strength, yet only 93 were operational and another 53 were held in reserve. The MB.151 and MB.152 together equipped nine Groupes de Chasse during the Battle of France, and another 200 MB.152s joined operational units as the fighting went on. In combat the type disappointed: it was too slow, climbed too slowly and had too short a range, and its unheated guns could freeze at altitude. What it had was toughness — it could absorb heavy damage and still get home — and steadiness as a gun platform. MB.152 pilots were credited with at least 188 enemy aircraft, for the loss of about 86 Blochs; History of War's narrower accounting credits the MB.152 alone with 146 confirmed victories. The losses were severe enough that in the third week of May the Bloch units were withdrawn to the Paris area to reform. Aviation author Michel Cristesco judged the MB.152 the least successful of France's 1940 fighters in combat, and the one that suffered the heaviest losses.
Afterlife
After the armistice, six fighter squadrons kept the MB.152 with the Vichy air force, each flying twenty-four aircraft. Three MB.152s that Polish pilots flew to England were taken on briefly by the RAF for local air defence and evaluation work, then grounded when spares ran out. In April 1941 it was agreed to standardise the Vichy force on the Dewoitine D.520, and the changeover was almost complete when Germany occupied the unoccupied zone at the end of 1942. The Germans seized around 173 Bloch fighters, 83 of them reportedly serviceable, and pressed them into Luftwaffe service. When the Vichy air force was disbanded on 1 December 1942, its surviving aircraft were handed over by the Germans to the Royal Romanian Air Force. No aircraft of the Bloch fighter family is known to survive today.