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Re: 8 gun Defiant
There are a number of problems with this suggestion.
Where in the wing would you put 8 Brownings and their ammunition supply? The Defiant's wing is smaller than the Hurricane and Spitfire.
Removing the turret still leaves the structure optimised to that shape and cockpit. The resulting aircraft might (I suggest probably would) still have a heavier empty weight than either "competitor".
The smaller wing would result in poorer manoeuvrability, wich any weight penalty would accentuate. This would also reduce climb rate and ceiling.
Then there is the time taken, and production lost, to design and tool for this modification. The Defiant only just made it to the BoB as it was.
You could reasonably argue that had BP started without the turret, they could have produced a design without these penalties. But they didn't, the same claims could be made for any other producer, and it is unlikely that any third fighter would have been recommended for production. After all, BP came into the fighter business to sell their turrets - the entire design philosophy was to satisfy the turret fighter concept.
There have been suggestions that the Defiant would have made a good ground-attack aircraft - possibly true, but any better than the Hurricane?
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