For the $h$-finite-element method ($h$-FEM) applied to the Helmholtz equation, the question of how quickly the meshwidth $h$ must decrease with the frequency $k$ to maintain accuracy as $k$ increases has been studied since the mid 80s. Nevertheless, there still do not exist in the literature any $k$-explicit bounds on the relative error of the FEM solution (the measure of the FEM error most often used in practical applications), apart from in one dimension. The main result of this paper is the sharp result that, for the lowest fixed-order conforming FEM (with polynomial degree, $p$, equal one), the condition $h^2 k^3$ sufficiently small is sufficient for the relative error of the FEM solution in 2 or 3 dimensions to be controllably small (independent of $k$) for scattering of a plane wave by a nontrapping obstacle and/or a nontrapping inhomogeneous medium. We also prove relative-error bounds on the FEM solution for arbitrary fixed-order methods applied to scattering by a nontrapping obstacle, but these bounds are not sharp for $pgeq 2$. A key ingredient in our proofs is a result describing the oscillatory behaviour of the solution of the plane-wave scattering problem, which we prove using semiclassical defect measures.
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