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Col Richard "Zimbo" Lorentz - the creator of the Finnish Fighter Arm
Col Richard Lorentz served as commander of LeLv 24, Fighter Squadron 24 during the 1930's. With the information from some of the leading aviation powers of the time he developed and optimized the Finnish fighter training system and tactics in a way that would produce 94 Finnish aces during WWII and 129 victories with the Fokker D.XXIs, 477 with the Brewsters and 663 with the Messerschmitt Bf-109s. Exchange ratios were 16:1 with Fokkers, 34:1 with Brewsters and 25:1 with Messerschmitts during the war. Lorentz served as the commander of Flight Regiment 2, which had the Finnish wartime fighter squadrons. Together with his soul mate major G.E. Magnusson, who was the commander of Fighter Squadron 24, they run the Finnish fighter operations successfully for almost five years during the war.
From Army to Finnish Air Force
The roots of Richard Julius Lorentz originate at Viipuri (Vyborg) in Karelia. He was the son of professor Herman Lorentz and was born at Uusikirkko on 17 January 1900. Richard Lorentz took part in the 1918 war on the Karelian Isthmus as a volunteer in jaeger major Aarne Sihvo's troops. Lorentz was a member of the Venäjänsaari expedition, which saved encircled troops from the Russian and Finnish red forces.
The most fierce fighting took place at Ahvola, where the red troops tried to break into the city of Viipuri. Ahvola was in a way a part of WWI since troops from the Russian regular army took part in the fighting. Lorentz was wounded in his knee at Ahvola. He was paralyzed and dragged from the ditch to get medical treatment. As a result of his wound Lorentz had to use walking stick for the rest of his life. This didn't prevent his flying though.
After the war Lorentz returned to Viipuri gymnasium and graduated in 1919. He did his military service at Marine Battalion 19 and entered the Finnish Military Academy on 1 October 1919 joining the second Finnish Cadet Course, from which he graduated 31 March 1921. Lorentz served as a junior officer at Tampere Regiment 1921 - 1925. He didn't feel that it was his line of duty so he applied to Finnish Air Force.
Richard Lorentz entered flight training at Santahamina marine flying base and graduated as a military pilot. During his training he met his best pilot friends Eka Magnusson and Armas Eskola. They both were at the marine flying school at a time when the future site of the Finnish Air Force Academy at Kauhava was still in the planning stages.
Fighter training at Utti air base 1926 - 1935
Lorentz was transferred to Utti air base "the home of Finnish fighter aviation" in 1926. The Finnish Air Force entered an era of organized fighter pilot training. Jaeger captain Väinö F. Snellman and Lt Kyösti Pulkkinen had visited Royal Air Force 111 Sqn in 1926 and as a result the Finns realized the need for more structured training methods. Lorentz served as a flight commander at LLv 24 from 11 March 1930 to 30 Nov 1932. Lorentz didn't like to copy fighter tactics from abroad. He preferred home made tactics which suited the Finnish combat environment. Lorentz didn't like the way foreign air forces trained their pilots for an unlimited number of maneuvers in dogfight. The multitude prevented systematic analysis even when the gun cameras were used. Lorentz started to develop hit-and-runt tactics from the rear hemisphere. As a result the Finnish fighter training grew apart from the prevailing international training methods. The exact timing of evasive maneuvers and the phased approach to training were purely Finnish inventions.
In the early 1930's Lentolaivue 24, LeLv 24 (Fighter Squadron 24) received 15 new Gloster Gamecock aircraft which were considered to be high performance fighters during that time. Capt G.E. Magnusson joined Lorentz at Utti in 1934 from a maritime reconnaissance squadron and served as a flight commander in the squadron which was commanded by major Richard Lorentz from the 1st of March 1934. G.E. Magnusson started to study French and applied for a tour in the French L'Armée de L'Air. Since the times were hard in the 30's and money was tight in the service he had to pay the whole visit with his own money! Before his transfer Magnusson had served in a French fighter squadron close to Paris for some months. During exercises they came in 1934 to the conclusion that a pair of two aircraft was the most effective fighter unit offering more maneuverability than the traditional three-ship formation. Great emphasis was also put in live gunnery training and accurate evaluation of the individual shooting results. Another air power tactician., Kustaa Sihvo joined Magnusson at Utti in 1936. 
Major Richard "Zimbo" Lorentz at Utti as the commander of LLv 24 (Squadron 24). Lorentz took the command on the 1st of March 1934. Lorentz wrote air warfare articles to the Aero magazine in the 1930s and lectured about the command and control of air warfare to the officer courses.
Capt Eka Magnusson had served in the Finnish Air Force headquarters 1928 - 32 and he had worked together with major Kustaa Sihvo in writing a long-range development plan for Finnish military aviation forces. Kustaa Sihvo had written a booklet "Combat in the Air" (Taistelu Ilmassa) in 1929 and he was a strong proponent of fighter aviation.
Lorentz and Magnusson also identified the need for air surveillance. If the fighters didn't get information about the enemy formations and their heading there would be no concentrated attacks against them. So the basic ideas were correct and now it was time to learn more from the large aviation countries. Magnusson brought the lessons from French fighter training to Finland in 1933. Richard Lorentz studied Magnusson's report from France thoroughly. Lorentz was critical about Magnusson's findings that fighters wouldn't need radios based on French training in 1933.When Magnusson arrived at Utti in 1934 the basic calculations for tactics and preparatory tests had already been done. Lorentz was in the middle of drafting a detailed fighter training syllabus. Magnusson respected the lessons he had learned in France and reassured Lorentz that the defensive armament of bombers was very effective in the great aviation countries and that their machine gun shooters very skillful so a lot of fighters would be needed to shoot down a bomber.
The draft combat and training manual that Magnusson sent to the FiAF HQ was basically a translation of the French syllabus. Lorentz countered this type of approach to fighter training because he was aiming for simple and unique solutions suitable for small formations fighting against a numerically superior opponent. Lorentz fought the "French approach" from 1934 to 1935 and wrote a letter in 1935 to FiAF HQ countering Magnusson's training syllabus. As a result the Commander of the Air Force cancelled Magnusson's French-oriented syllabus. Lorentz didn't want to start dogfight training with the Gamecock fighters because he thought that the aircraft was at the time so outdated that it would have given a wrong impression about dogfights. At Utti Magnusson changed his mind to support the ideas of Lorentz and together with his squadron commander took the best parts of the lessons and adapted them to the Finnish environment and eventually used them very effectively in two wars. The new syllabus was ready in 1936, but then Lorentz already served in the FiAF HQ. When the situation in Europe worsened after mid-30's Magnusson felt that he had to enlarge and update his fighter knowledge with the fighter corps in Germany.
The training level of the professional pilot force was very homogenous already in the 1930's. Everybody could perform reconnaissance, bombing, artillery surveillance, photo reconnaissance and air-to-ground missions. In 1940 the aviation fuel restrictions hit the training. Fighter pilots could train only 3,5 hours per month, which meant that training efforts had to be focused effectively. Air combat and gunnery became the most important training issues and even in this the Finns were forced to concentrate in a very peculiar air combat method and limit attack directions. Lorentz and Magnusson found out that 2 - 3 directions from the rear hemisphere were sufficient for different variations against bomber formations. After that they started to train the exact timing for a combined synchronized attack.
Lorentz was a sharp officer and he could put his theoretical ideas into test with Magnusson. Theoretical studies proved that the combat methods had to be simple and they had to lead to a proper shooting solution. Only a part of the attacking force could be used for a feint attack and the main force had to be concentrated in effective attack against the enemy force. Otherwise the small fighter force wouldn't be effective enough. The main feeling in Finland and abroad was that the bombers could defend themselves easily against all fighter attacks and especially against rear attacks. But these theories were to be proven wrong. The Finns kept their attack profiles secret. Their plan was to attack the bomber rear gunners first and then concentrate in the most vulnerable parts - engines and fuel tanks.
Air combat against other fighters was first studied on paper calculating the most effective evasion maneuvers. Then the theory was put into test during air-to-air missions. It was obvious that simple maneuvers were effective and that two evasive maneuvers worked against all rear attacks. There was a difference between the Finnish attack training and the approach abroad; Finns cut the maneuvers into pieces and trained them separately using the gun camera as opposed to the common view abroad to train all possible opening maneuvers as a whole. The other difference was that other air forces trained attack from all directions and the Finns focused only in rear attacks. The limiting factor for the Finns was the money allocated for aviation fuel. All this testing became official in an Air Warfare Manual dated 21 April 1939, but the tactics had been proven by LLv 24 at Utti ever since 1935.
In the spring of 1938 Magnusson worked hard to get a German Heinkel He-112 to Finland for the Malmi airport opening ceremonies in late summer 1938. After that the Finnish Air Force test flew the aircraft at Utti. The Germans offered the Finns 50 Heinkels, but the commander Lt Gen Lundqvist turned the offer down.
On the eve of the Winter War the Finnish fighter pilots had achieved a good level in air-to-air gunnery and single aircraft and formation attacks against bombers. Unfortunately there had been no resources to train for air combat against fighters and formation leadership. Luckily the Soviets planned to use large attack formations and didn't have radios in their fighters.
The Finnish Air Warfare Manual
Major Richard Lorentz was transferred from his beloved Utti base to Finnish Air Force Headquarters at Helsinki in 1935 as a result of his articles to aviation magazines and the critical papers he had sent to the Finnish Air Force HQ. In the headquarters Lorentz was confronted by a majority of offensive aviation proponents who didn't trust the capabilities of small fighters against bombers. These officers had no fighter aviation background. Many of the FiAF HQ branch chiefs were marine aviation navigators and Lorentz called them "marine aviation mummies". He became the chief of the Air Force Training Department. There the chief of the Air Staff activated a project to develop a new Air Warfare Manual for the Air Force. Lorentz wasn't initially too enthusiastic about the program. The reason was that there was a transformation going on in aerial warfare and Lorentz saw that it was impossible to predict the technical development within ten years. He also wanted to keep the Finnish tactics in strict secrecy as the Soviets did with theirs. Eventually he invited 1st Lt Urho Abraham Nieminen (changed his name later to Aapo Mattelmäki) to join in in the writing process that was done overtime as was the tradition at the time. Lorentz wrote the chapters dealing with fighter operations and aerial combat. At the same time he acted as the aerial tactics instructor for the captain courses so tactics was his main hobby. Lorentz was a great lecturer stating his points in a calm and logical manner. He used the "Socrates method" of countering a question by another question, which revealed the level of knowledge of the other person. This method didn't make life any easier for Lorentz in the FiAF HQ.
Lorentz thought that the manual should have been secret, but since the Finnish Air Force wasn't in the shape to execute the tactics as they were planned the lesser classifications didn't hurt. The key points in the manual were the superiority of own fighter aircraft, the continuity of missions during daylight hours and surprise attacks. The continuity was to be guaranteed by dividing the squadrons into three alert shifts and having two pilots per aircraft. Surprise attacks were to performed over own ground troops utilizing fighter control radio stations. Own fighters were dispersed as flights or even four aircraft divisions and they could converge to form a larger attack force in a few minutes. This tactics utilized the fact that the Soviet I-16 and I-153 didn't have radios.
The Air Warfare Manual was published on 21 April 1939. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to properly finish the new manual before the Winter War broke out and there wasn't enough aviation fuel to practice the tactics. To make things worse the quality of the first-line Finnish fighters wasn't high enough for the planned tactics and the aerial surveillance network didn't cover the area in a way that was needed to execute the tactics. Finnish bomber tactics didn't rely on the capability of the bombers to protect themselves. The Finns planned to escort the bombers with fighters. All the niceties of the manual were not understood by the Commander of the Air Force since he was an army artillery officer. It took several boring tactics lectures to stress the fine points to him and he abhorred the process as an "anti-tactician". In addition to this the Commander wasn't a proponent of forward operational defence planning - "nicht vorausdisponieren" was his motto which was surprising since he was an apt administrative planner.
In the 1930's the Finnish Air Force consisted of several specialized branches; reconnaissance, bomber, maritime and fighter units operated independently. The fighter units were the minority. Lorentz and the other fighter pilots from Utti air base foresaw the meaning of quality over quantity and stressed the importance of a robust fighter force which would enable the operations of the other branches. As unbelievable as it may sound the Commander of Field Artillery Regiment 3, Col Jarl F. Lundqvist was selected as the commander of the Finnish Air Force on 19 September 1932, which meant that an artillery officer without any flying background would be running the air force during World War 2. Lundqvist was a millionaire who owned real estate in central Helsinki. There was an air force development plan for 1934 - 38 made in 1933, but the plan didn't stress the importance of fighters - there was no focus. The worst thing was that the procurement plan was too slow. A reasonable combat capability would have been achieved only after an additional development plan. The implementation of the plan changed in 1935 - 36 to stress bombers and Bristol Blenheims even more at the expense of fighter capability.
Lorentz tried his best in the Air Force HQ to get more modern fighters purchased for the fighting units. Already in 1936 he tried to shift funds from the Blenheim bomber procurement to the fighters. Unfortunately Douhetism and the proponents of bomber aviation got their way and Finland purchased some Blenheim bombers, but was eventually left with only one squadron of 31 slow Dutch Fokker D.XXI fighters that were developed for air-to-ground operations in Indonesia. The 1937 selection to buy the Fokkers was and obvious mistake made even worse by the domestic license production with the Bristol Mercury VIII 840 hp engine that was 200 hp underpowered, but the driving factor was engine commonality with the Blenheims. The license-built Fokkers didn't make it to the Winter War and had even poorer performance than the original Dutch-built Fokkers. Technical factors were more important than operational performance in decision-making. Even Field Marshall Mannerheim was a proponent of shifting the procurement money from the Blenheims to the fighters, but the Commander of the Air Force didn't want to cancel the Blenheim contract. He brought the decision to the table of Lorentz and the latter had no other choose than to take the 17 Fokkers over only eight Severskys. In addition to the Fokkers Finland had only 10 Bristol Bulldog biplanes. Later Lorentz thought that he should have chosen the Severskys, which would have opened the door to further procurement from the U.S.A.
During autumn 1938 the United States offered 30 Curtiss CW-21 fighters for Finland with a six month delivery time and later Seversky fighters, but the purchase wasn't activated since the Finns could get four Fokkers at the price of one Seversky. Field marshal Mannerheim supported the Seversky deal, but the Commander of FiAF didn't want to change his bomber procurement plan. During early spring 1939 the Utti fighter pilots were very disappointed with the FiAF HQ decisions, but succeeded in getting 13 additional fighters with their official complaints. In late 1938 and early 1939 the Finnish ambassador to the U.S.A. (Procopé) tried to arrange a billion mark loan from the U.S.A. and the negotiations ended favourably, but the Finnish government didn't activate the deal. FiAF would have received 300 million marks and could have bought 80 first line U.S. fighters with that money.
Flight Regiment 2 was poorly organized at Utti on the eve of the war. There was a great deal of mistrust between the troops and the commander of the regiment. Eka Magnusson was now the commander of LLv 24 and his boss was a former marine aviator without fighter experience or knowledge. The budgetary cuts hurt training because funds for fuel and cartridges were scarce. The minimum monthly flight time to keep combat qualification was eight hours and this wasn't met. Unfortunately all the way from 1934 to the Winter War the bomber force got the lion's share of the flight hours while the fighter pilots were left to manage with the few hours they got. To make things worse the AAA Regiment was subordinated to the Commander of FiAF in 1937 after which the Commander decided to subordinate aerial surveillance to the AAA forces, which derailed the development to support the more limited and local orientation of AAA compared to fighter operations. The development was based on peace time telephone network structure - no on operational needs. This was revealed immediately when the war began, when the slow response time allowed the Soviet aircraft to attack Finnish fighter bases before they were alarmed. To the merit of the Commander of FiAF the air base network developed fast and the government aircraft factory was activated at Tampere.
The level of air warfare instruction on the general staff courses was poor during the 1930's. The instructors were not aware of the latest developments in aerial warfare and didn't have any visions for development. The level of air operation knowledge wasn't much better in the Finnish Air Force HQ. There was no single operational plan for the air force because no tasks had been ordered from the General Staff at Helsinki. FiAF plans were outdated and the truth of the matter was that the FiAF Development Plan had been done without an operational plan meaning that there was no clear idea of what the air force really wanted to accomplish in times of crisis. Developments abroad were monitored, but the "monitoring mode" still kept going on during times when decisions were needed. The Commander of FiAF didn't trust the fighters to have a chance against bombers and was hoping to achieve a lot by bombing enemy airfields. During the latter part of the 1930's it became obvious that the medium-heavy bombers were losing a majority of their planned armament. This meant that only a couple of fighters would be able to attack the bomber formations. Still the majority of FiAF HQ staff officers supported their commander. This mindset went bankrupt in 1938 when the war in Spain showed that fighters turned out to be the defining force in aerial warfare. In early 1939 the Commander of the Finnish Air Force finally gave up and abandoned his long-range aviation program i.e. prioritizing bombers over fighters.
Lt Col Lorentz kept in touch with Eka Magnusson. Lorentz shared his fighter tactics ideas with Magnusson, who put them immediately in effect at Utti in Magnusson's fighter squadron. Magnusson developed new fighter training syllabi and Lorentz got them approved at the Air Force HQ. The regiment commander at Utti didn't have a lot to do in the middle when these two fighter tacticians moved forward with their ideas.
In early 1939 there was some kind of an awakening; FiAF HQ was tasked to come up with an operational plan taking fighters into account as a force providing the "schwerpunkt". In the summer of 1939 the political situation got worse and worse. Finnish Defence Forces activated large additional military exercises on, but the commander of Flight Regiment 2 didn't even call Eka Magnusson, who commanded the only credible fighter squadron in Finland - the situation was really bad.
The large additional military exercise period (YH) came as a blessing to the fighter force since it freed the fighters from the difficult mission of protecting the mobilization of the field army and the transports to the front. All this was now done in peace time. The Finnish fighting force consisted of only 54 reconnaissance aircraft, 31 fighters and 17 bombers, a total of 102 aircraft. During the additional military exercises the Commander of the Finnish Air Force finally changed his mind to support the fighter force. Unfortunately the procurement plan was late and had to be done within budget allocations that were strictly enforced all the way to the war. It is hard to understand the unbreakable optimism of the Finnish government and all the grievance about unplanned defence expenditure on the eve of the war when Poland had already been attacked. The purchase of one bomber squadron was changed to buy 25 Fiat G.50 fighters from Italy. The deal was signed on 23 Oct 1939 and the delivery was to be done by 15 Nov 1939 via Germany to Sweden, but only two fighters got through Germany and the rest were returned to Italy and got to Finland at the end of the Winter War.
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