The Germans deployed about 750,000 men, three times the strength of the Dutch army; some 1,100 planes (Dutch Army Air Service: 125) and six armored trains; they destroyed 80% of the Dutch military aircraft on the ground in one morning, mostly by bombing. The Dutch army, a so-called cadre-militia consisting of professional officers and conscript NCOs and ranks, was inferior to the German Army in many respects: it was poorly equipped and had poor communications, it was poorly led [evidence? source?]. In spite of all this, the Germans lost some 400 planes in the three days of the attack, 230 of them Junkers 52/3, the strategically essential transport for airborne infantry and paratroopers, a loss they would never replenish and which thwarted German plans for attacking England, Gibraltar and Malta with airborne forces.