Potez 63
The Potez 63 was a family of twin-engined multi-role aircraft designed by Potez for the French Air Force and built by the nationalised SNCAN, into which the Potez company was absorbed in December 1936. The first prototype flew on 25 April 1936. From one airframe came the Hispano-Suiza-powered 630 and Gnome-Rhône-powered 631 fighters, the 633 light bomber built only for export, the 637 reconnaissance aircraft and the 63.11 army co-operation variant, which made up about three quarters of production: of the 1,115 aircraft of the family accepted before the fall of France, 725 were 63.11s. Underpowered and verging on obsolescence by 1940, the family still fought through the Battle of France, then served Vichy and Free French forces and the Luftwaffe, and ended its career in training units.
Why It Mattered
The Potez 63 was a family of aircraft rather than a single type, and taken together its members were the most numerous aircraft in French service during the Second World War. One basic design was expected to do nearly everything: lead formations of single-seat fighters, escort and attack by day, fight at night, bomb lightly, scout and cooperate with the army. The breadth came at a price fixed before the first flight: the 1934 specification's weight limits excluded any more powerful engines, so by 1940 the whole family was verging on obsolescence. History of War credits its impressive manoeuvrability with helping to reduce its losses to enemy action. Replacements were slow to arrive, so when Germany attacked in May 1940, large numbers of French aircrew had to fight in the Potez 63 anyway.
Design Notes
Potez designed the family to a French Air Ministry specification issued on 31 October 1934, which called for a twin-engined two- or three-seat multi-purpose fighter. The specification set three roles for one aircraft: the three-seat C3 was to control formations of single-seat fighters, the two-seat C2 was a bomber escort and day attack aircraft, and the two-seat CN2 was a night fighter. Potez answered with two versions of the same design: the 630, powered by Hispano-Suiza engines, and the 631, powered by Gnome-Rhône engines. The result was a low-wing twin-engined monoplane of all-metal stressed-skin construction, with a twin tail and an undercarriage that retracted into the engine nacelles. Its armament followed the specification: two fixed forward-firing 20 mm cannon and a flexibly mounted machine gun at the rear. Reconnaissance reshaped the nose: the 637 put its observer in a glazed gondola under the fuselage, while the 63.11 replaced the slim nose with a much larger glazed one and moved the pilot's cockpit back and upwards. The 633 B2, the family's light bomber, carried its bombs internally.
Operational History
The first prototype, the Potez 630-01, was begun in April 1935 and made its maiden flight on 25 April 1936. Potez had meanwhile been nationalised into SNCAN; production began in May 1937, and the type entered service late in 1938. Production was counted variant by variant: 88 Potez 630s were built in total, 85 of them accepted by the Armée de l'Air; 206 Potez 631s had been accepted by August 1939, completing that variant's production; and 60 Potez 637s were built. The 63.11 dwarfed the rest: of the 1,115 aircraft of the family the Armée de l'Air accepted before France fell, 725 were of this single variant. The 630's front-line career was short, because its Hispano-Suiza engines were troublesome: it was withdrawn early in 1940, and its remaining aircraft became dual-control trainers. The 631 was France's main night fighter of the Battle of France, but the country had no usable system for intercepting night raiders, and the type saw little combat at night. History of War calls the navy's Flotille F1C the most successful Potez 631 unit of the battle, crediting it with shooting down twelve German aircraft between 10 and 21 May 1940 at a cost of eight of its own. Only the 631, the 637 and the 63.11 saw significant action in the Battle of France. The 63.11 bore the army co-operation burden: 238 were available to front-line units on 10 May 1940, yet 70 per cent of those with the observation groups were unserviceable, many were destroyed on the ground, and most lost in the air fell to flak. The 633 bomber, its French orders cancelled, fought only abroad: Greece's nine aircraft bombed Italian supply lines after Italy invaded in October 1940, and two Romanian squadrons supported their army's advance towards Odessa in 1941.
Afterlife
The June 1940 armistice split the family between France's two rival air forces, and because Vichy and Free French units both kept it, the Potez 63 was operated by the two sides against each other in the North African theatre. Vichy night-fighter units held on to the 631: eighty-two were on strength on 1 November 1941, and sixty-four a year later. After the Allied landings in North Africa, the 631s of E.C.N. 3/13 changed sides with the French forces there and defended the Gabès area against German attack, before more modern aircraft replaced them later that month. Germany also flew the type: some 120 63.11s were completed for the Luftwaffe during 1941, and about 100 captured aircraft were sent to German flying schools. When the war ended only a handful of aircraft remained in use, as trainers; among them were the three 631s that had flown reconnaissance over the German Atlantic pockets for Groupe de Reconnaissance II/33, which were used as trainers after the war.