Germany built a number of low-performance aircraft (i.e., liaison and trainer) types in French factories after France fell. Additionally, the Luftwaffe had to leave many German built planes behind when France was liberated.

So, in late 1944-45, and in the immediate post-war period, France operated a lot of captured German planes or French-built versions of German designs.

From 1940 on, the Free French Air Force used British and American types. After the war, they retained the best of the lot (e.g., F6F, P-51, Spitfire, Gloster Meteor, A-26 Invader).

So, the Armee de l'Air order of battle for 1945 or for the battles in Vietnam is a very interesting mix of planes, few of them French.

Prior to 1940, France was attempting to use just French-built planes, but when it became obvious that the French aircraft industry wasn't up to the task, they started purchasing from British and American sources. There are so many missing from the IL2 order of battle, that you'd almost need to design a whole new simulation to properly represent them.

To be fair to the French, the Armee de l'Air held its own against the Luftwaffe, but ultimately was defeated because the French Army and the BEF couldn't stand against the Blitzkrieg.

There's plenty of fun flight simming to be had with "what if" campaigns where the German advance hadn't been quite so swift or well-managed, and/or where the French had sorted out their logistical and labor relations problems sooner. That would allow for longer campaigns, or campaigns where players can fly French aircraft that were only produced in limited numbers or which were still on the drawing board in early 1940.

What's wrong with that? IL2 is a great "sandbox sim" which you can enjoy in many different ways.

Given the popularity of arcade games like World of Planes, there's certainly a fan base for dogfights.

And, even if you're a hard core rivet-counting historical campaigner, there are still times when you want to fly the best plane in the sky.

But, like you said, being able to simulate any sort of historical mission allows us to appreciate the difficulties and heroism of combat pilots who flew the less glamorous missions.

Personally, I'd love to see a flyable Ju-52, Fw-189, or Fi-156, and would happily fly campaigns based around those planes. In some cases, the ability to deliver supplies or paratroopers, or to bring back information, was as important as delivering bombs and just as harrowing.

I didn't want to be unfair. I just wanted to record that there's relatively little room for French planes so far as we consider new planes and maps under the pretext of their historical relevance to the outcome of WWII. For this is what we generally do. Our other approach is to resurrect promising projects which historically failed or entered production too late to have influence. The D.520 would qualify for both categories, but the rest of French aircrafts hardly. Yet, all this is pure speculation on our side -- we can get any French plane provided someone models it according to TD's standards. :)

As to me, this has nothing to do with 'rivet-counting'. I'm a minor nations geek, and minor nations typically had second-rank fighters. These are seriously outmatched by the first-rank fighters of major nations. Still, most fighter units of most minor nations had a positive kill/loss ratio (even the Polish in 1939!), as major nations too had obsolate planes. Now if you take out obsolate planes from the game (luckily we have quite a lot of such Russian types), then flying a Finnish, or Hungarian, or Romanian campaign becomes completely pathetic and, therefore, pointless. The tuna can live on mackerel, even if defenseless against the few sharks.

They were both tri-motor transport, and had similar wingspan, but the similarities ends here. The S82 was much bigger, faster and heavier, its empty weight being more than Ju’s max take off weight. Payload was accordingly higher, more than twice, and there’s no comparison in range.
That said, I would prefer Marauder, Whirlwind and Helldiver…

The wrong thing, is favoring one type of plane against others, those ones that are not first class fighters.

The better approach would be to fulfill the principal aircraft available on a scenery. Not just the fighters in it.

People say, the battle of France lasted only four weeks, but the battle of Kursk, employed more tanks and aircraft, and lasted only 10 days. I really don't like that kind of biased argument. The battle of France is one of the best scenerys to be played, and the only fighter missing is the D520, that was actually rare to be seen. But the french got no bombers, and no recon to employ in the game. The british are also in the same situation.

People complain about missing planes to fully fill the pacific scenery, and I must agree. There are no torpedo lunchers on the american side, and few late war japanese bombers. Trying to win a campaign from the japanese side is very difficult. Bombs are less powerfull, and torpedo launchers are really sitting ducks.

Fair enough.

For any WW2 aircraft sim to really do justice to all nations and all theaters, and to accurately cover events from 1939-45, I've figured that it would take at least 13 "focused" simulations - each covering a specific theater and/or type of operations.

So far, we've got just two theaters of the air war covered more or less adequately - Eastern Front and Pacific Carrier Ops. Even then, there are some gaps in the Order of Battle and some mistakes and omissions on the maps.

We're birds of a feather then. I love my obscure planes and minor air forces, in particular the Finns. I'm thrilled to have rare birds like the Avia B.534 or Rogozarski IK-3 in the game.

And, its not that the minor nations necessarily had bad designs, they just didn't have the economic and industrial base to develop their designs fast enough or in sufficient quantities. I'd love to know how doomed planes like the PZL.50 Jastrzab, Weiss-Manfred WM.23 Ezüst Nyíl, Fokker G.1, Fokker D.XXIII, or the PZL.62 Kanya would have fared, even though it makes no sense to include them into a historical simulation.

I love them too. They are my favourite. 'Did you give up drinking?' -- Raikönnen: 'No'. :-P