German Fighter Operations in the Spanish Civil War Part One 

This is episode 19 of the Record of Arms podcast.
The Spanish Civil War saw the intervention of the ambitious fascist powers on the side of the rebellious elements of the army. The Spanish themselves had few aircraft of any real combat power, so those supplied from the interventionist powers quickly came to dominate the war in the skies. The German effort to aid Franco in the air began quickly, but at a modest scale. This episode examines the first phase of the German effort there, the opponents they faced, and the difficulties they were forced to overcome in this first major test of the newly-created Luftwaffe's combat capability.