Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Boulton Paul Defiant
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Wednesday, 7th November 2007
As a day fighter, it had had some success, until it was rumbled when the Germans realised it had no forward firing machine gun, but later it became the first night fighter to carry the A I Radar and was successful. So I have to ask. Who opperered the radar. The pilot, or the gunner. As far as I can tell, these planes where not uprarted to take a three man crew.
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Message 2
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Wednesday, 7th November 2007
It operated for a significant time as a nightfighter without radar. When it was installed in the Mk.IA, with little success, it was operated by the pilot. One of the problems was that looking at the screen affected the pilot's night vision.
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Message 3
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 8th November 2007
So what would have happened if the Defiant had also been fitted with wing guns. Would it have been a winner. The pilot doing the hunting while the gunner covered his back. Another What if.
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Message 4
Posted by Meles meles (U1765136) on Thursday, 8th November 2007
The rear facing gun in Defiants mounted four .303 Brownings in a powered housing, similar to that carried at the rear of Lancaster bombers. I believe this was so large and heavy, for such a relatively small plane, that it tended to unbalance the aircraft if swung too fast as well as significantly reducing the engine speed.
My father flew in Defiants. Strictly he was groud crew, a fitter, with 277 ASR (Air Sea Rescue) squadron but after working on an aircraft he usually went on the test flights, and in Defiants this meant sitting in the gunners seat. I'm pretty sure I recall my father saying that on such flights the pilot always said something along the lines of: "if we meet any enemy aircraft don't attempt to use the gun, just leave it to me and I'll try to evade them". Sadly the Defiant's speed (315 mph max) wasn't up to much either so it's a good job they never encountered any Me109s or FW190s on these test flights along the channel coast. -
Message 5
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 8th November 2007
When you describe the Defiant as a "relatively small plane" you may mislead some to think of it as similar in size to a Spit or a Hurricane. I've seen the replica in Wolverhampton, and it's a good bit bigger than that. Neither the BP Defiant not the Blackburn Roc were fit for purpose as day fighters, and the Defiant was only used, AIUI, as a night fighter because there was nothing better available at the time, but even the Blenheim, a converted bomber, was more effective in that role.
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Message 6
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 8th November 2007
Perhaps, I was thinking along the lines of Bomber destroyer. The firepower of the Spit or Hurricane. (Or even cannon) with the four guns to cover its rear. I know the the ME 110 failed in this role, but its one rear facing machine gun was of no real use at all.
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Message 7
Posted by merlin (U10448262) on Tuesday, 20th November 2007
Re: Boulton Paul Defiant.
Boulton Paul as a 'private venture' came up with a single seat version (no turret) with twelve 0.303" machine guns (P.94) - it flew in Aug 1940.
It doesn't seem implausible to me that this couldn't have happened earlier.
It could have been quickly built - from the same jigs & tools as per the 'Defiant', using many of the components, and have been available to complement the Spitfire - it had a max. speed of 360mph at 21,700 feet. -
Message 8
Posted by abrazier (U3915690) on Tuesday, 20th November 2007
I shudder to think how sluggish a Defiant fitted with wing guns and a turret might have been. If it would only do 315mph "as was" the extra weight of a fit of eight .303" Brownings would have knocked something off, don't even think about the rate of climb!
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Message 9
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007
Would a single seat Defiant have had any noticeable advantages over the Fulmar, another "half conversion" job?
The Battle of Britain more or less drew a line under the rifle calibre machine gun armament, so adding more (as in certain marks of Sea Hurricane) wasn't really the required answer. -
Message 10
Posted by merlin (U10448262) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007
Read again, I said single seater - therefore no, repeat no turret!
Hence, it would have made an excellent fighter. Stop-gap? Only in the sense of being able to be produced quickly. But not in the sense of being ineffective.
Yes, canons would be useful - No.19 Squadron in Battle Of Britain that had canon Hurricanes ( I think) had to revert to earlier aircraft with machine guns - because of too many stoppages. -
Message 11
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007
Again aircraft like the Westland Whirlwind had cannon. This type was ahead of the game. Bubble Cockpit, Four cannon in the nose, good turn of speed and twin engined. Had defects though. Took forever to do a wheel change. I believe it saw service on the Russian Front with R A F pilots.
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Message 12
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007
The Whirlwind's main problem was the engines, IIRC.
I thought it was the early cannon-armed Spitfires that had troubles - the thin wing meant that they were mounted on their sidess, hence the jams.
Single seat Defiant. No better than a Hurricane in performance - same engine, much more weight. Would have used resources which could be better invested in more Hurricanes, perhaps?
Might have been a good ground attack fighter.
I'd suggest that fixed forward firing armament, lose the turret, keep the "looker" and give him an AI set and you'd have had a much better night fighter than many of the stop-gap types. Give it 8 .5" to increase the hitting power rather than more rifle calibre mgs, perhaps? -
Message 13
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Wednesday, 21st November 2007
Hi Urmungal.
All the 20mm cannon equipped aircraft used magazine rather than belt feed. Some of the makers of the magaines were not up to the job resulting in some magazines miss feeding after one or two rounds. Mind you in some squadrons the magazines were in such short supply the cannon were hand loaded with one round in the chamber. Only the .303 brownings were fully loaded. -
Message 14
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 22nd November 2007
Could never understand our love of rifle cal. bullets even right to the end of the war. 50 Cal. would have been better. The experts agreed that it took more 303 bullets to knock down an A/C than 50 cal. Most U S A/Cs stuck with 50s right up to the Saber Jet.
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Message 15
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 22nd November 2007
Agreed, GF. Actually, it seems to me that by the end of the war, even the .50 was reaching the end of its life as offensive armament for A/C. Equally, I think we stuck with 20mm for too long - wasn't the Scimitar the first to move to 30mm in the mid 50's?
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Message 16
Posted by abrazier (U3915690) on Thursday, 22nd November 2007
20mm wasn't (isn't) necessarily ineffective. The 20mm Hispano was pretty lethal especially in batteries of four as fitted to the Meteor and Vampire. The US also continued to use 20mm both in Gatling form (Vulcan) and normal (Colt Mk12, a modified Hispano) through the Vietnam war and beyond.
The 30mm Aden was a whole different ballgame though, based on a German WWII design (Mauser MG213C) it was a "revolver" cannon. 1 barrel, several chambers and the battery of 4 fitted to the Hunter was possibly over-gunning!
There's an excellent site about aircraft armament from WW1 to the present here:
As for the Defiant, I doubt there was anything that could have been done to it that would have made it worth making more Defiants instead of more Hurricanes and Spitfires.
Being overweight and underpowered isn't a good starting point for a fighter design. -
Message 17
Posted by merlin (U10448262) on Friday, 23rd November 2007
Single-seat Defiant no better than Hurricane!?
How so? Hurricane 1 max speed 324 mph,As I mentioned before Defiant S/S (P.94) using Merlin 1,100 hp XX powerplant would do 360 mph. As I also wrote comparable with the Spitfire 1 i.e. 365 mph.
The Air Ministry didn't take it up - probably false pride - like admitting that the turreted Defiant concept was a 'dead end'. Result - they built more Defiants!
If you want more Hurricanes earlier, then reduce production of the Battle - they are of similar construction.
For an effective night-fighter you need twin-engines for endurance, safety and firepower. -
Message 18
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Friday, 23rd November 2007
You may have written that, but it isn't really accurate. At 21,000 ft the Hurricane, when fitted with that model of Merlin, was capable of 340 mph. Your figure of 324 relates to an earlier powerplant, in fact I think it relates to the fixed-pitch airscrew as well.
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Message 19
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Saturday, 24th November 2007
There wasn't much different in the climb rate between the early Hurricanes, and the Gladiators.
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Message 20
Posted by merlin (U10448262) on Saturday, 24th November 2007
My source was War Planes of the Second World War Fighters Volume 2, by William Green.
P.58
The first production Hurricane 1's were entirely fabric-covered and had no bullet-proof windscreen or armouring. Their Merlin 2 engines which were rated at 1,030 h.p. at 16,250 ft. drove Watts fixed -pitch twoblade airscrews and gave a maximun speed of 318 m.p.h. at 17,400 ft.
P.62
The following specifications relates to the standard Hurricane 1 with Rotol constant-speed airscrew. Performance: Max speed 324 m.p.h. at 16,250 ft., 254 m.p.h. at sea level.
It was the Hurricane 2 that had a max speed of 342 m.p.h. at 22,000ft. Although some of these 'reached the Squadrons from September4 1940' the Battle of Britain Hurricanes were in the main Mk 1's.
Source for the Defiant s/s (p.94) was British Secret Projects Fighters & bombers 1935 - 1950 by Tony Butler see page 55 & 56.
You could argue that in the OTL the P.94 was more comparable with the Hurricane 2, yet I did suggest the TL could have been earlier. But it wasn't a question of single-seat Defiant (it would probably have a different name - Defoe or Dante perhaps) or more Hurricanes! It was single or two-seat.
And whether you use the Hurricane 1 or 2 data, its still slower than the Spitfire & Defiant s/s at 360 mph. -
Message 21
Posted by colonelblimp (U1705702) on Saturday, 24th November 2007
In fact, the Defiant wasn't much bigger than the Hurricane:
Defiant:
Span 39' 4"
Length 35' 4"
Wing area 250 sq ft
Height 12' 2"
Loaded weight 8350 lbs, of which the turret, ammo etc. accounted for 815 lbs.
Hurricane:
Span 40'
Length 31' 5"
Wing area 257.5 sq ft
Height 13' 1.5"
Loaded weight 6600 lbs
The protype Defiant, flown without a turret (but possibly with ballast in place to represent its weight?), was clocked at 320 mph, more or less comparable with a Hurricane 1. -
Message 22
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Sunday, 25th November 2007
Hmm. Maybe I need to rethink on this one. Mind you, I think I can suggest that another project Boulton Paul were engaged in - building Blackburn Skuas - really WAS a waste of time, effort and materials.
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Message 23
Posted by Ah-Mostin (U4093555) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007
"Boulton Paul as a 'private venture' came up with a single seat version (no turret) with twelve 0.303" machine guns (P.94) - it flew in Aug 1940. "
The Boulton Paul strikes me as a complete waste of a a perfectly good Merlin engine and four .3 machine guns. Given that early models of the awesome Beaufighter were deprived of their .3 machine guns which were prioritised for the Spit-fire and Hurricaines I don't think that using 12 on the Defiant would have gone down well. -
Message 24
Posted by Brevabloke (U1685837) on Thursday, 13th December 2007
I think guys...just a really bad idea. Fighter development is full of really bad ideas right from the beginning, with the few brilliant ones shining out. Here are some shockers just of the top of my head...
The BE12? Fighter
The 1960s US Navy "Missile Truck" idea
The Havocs that had no guns just a big searchlight
ME163 Komet
The WW1 Zeppelin Destroyer by (I think) Pemberton-Billing..
MiG 1. -
Message 25
Posted by AgProv2 (U538194) on Thursday, 13th December 2007
But nobody has mentioned the engine so far? If the same engine as used in the Hurricane (single-seater fighter) was used to power a larger aircraft with a two-man crew PLUS a very heavy gun turret, this might explain much about the slow speed, sluggish climb rate and poor performance? If the Defiant could have been hitched to a more powerful engine, then it might have been a different proposition? (Then again, the Battle bomber - two-man crew plus bomb load - was effectively a stretched Hurricane with the same engine power)
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Message 26
Posted by Brevabloke (U1685837) on Thursday, 13th December 2007
Except they were designed by two seprate teams/companies!!
The who turret fighter idea is bad no matter what engine is in there!! -
Message 27
Posted by clankylad (U1778100) on Friday, 14th December 2007
It’s lucky that Dowding thought the Defiant was useless and resisted its widespread introduction. I’m not even convinced of its supposed qualities as a night fighter. Are there any statistics on its successes?
Re: guns - I’ve seen a table which compares fighter gun-power in terms of weight of shot and the time taken to fire it. This really shows the quality of the USAF’s standard armament of six .50 cal guns, which is presumably why they stuck with it into the jet age. Among fighters, only the Me262 seriously outdoes it, and that had a battery of four 30mm cannon. -
Message 28
Posted by petes (U3344676) on Friday, 14th December 2007
Correct and here is the article with that table (actually tables - see table 3)
The Me 262 has more than double the firepower of the nearest allied fighter (Tempest). -
Message 29
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 15th December 2007
There is another one here:
With also some discussion. The Me 262 had the largest firepower by far, but its guns were weapons with a low muzzle velocity and short range, designed to destroy the US and British heavy bombers. There were less than ideal for fighter-vs-fighter combat.
For general purposes the best armament combination was probably four 20-mm cannon, as adopted before or at the end of the war by the RAF and US Navy (and even by the USAAF for nightfighters). Six .50 guns were inferior but would do well enough if the targets were mostly enemy fighters and there was enough opportunity to fire long bursts (so not at night). Eight .50 guns were nearly as good as four 20-mm cannon but could only be carried by a fighter as big as a P-47 (no way you could fit them in a Spitfire).
Retaining these weapons for the conflict in Korea was a mistake, which let many MiG's get away with damage:
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