8 gun Defiant

[alex crawford]

Hi,

Just been reading about the Defiants and came up with the following thought.

If the turret had been removed and 8 guns fitted in the wings, would it have made it a better fighter?

Would it have been more comparable to the Hurricane and Spitfire?

Alex

[Graham Boak]

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?

[Primoz]

I found this in RAF Fighters Part One (by William Green ans Gordon Swanborough; published in 1978 by Macdonald and Jane's Publishers Limited):

"In the search for further applications for the Defiant, Boulton Paul proposed a single-seat "rapid production" (or "panic fighter") version during 1940, as the P.94. This was basically a Defiant II without the turret, with an estimated top speed of 380 mph (611 km/h) at 23,500 ft (7 162 m). Production would have been rapid, using existing jigs and tools, and to test the concept the prototype K8310 was flown again during 1940 without the turret (as it had been on the first flight). On the basis of these tests, the estimated speed of a Merlin XX version with twelve 0.303 in (7,7 mm) machine guns in the wings, at a weight of 7,150 lb (3 244 kg), was reduced to 364 mph (586 km/h) at 23,500 ft (7 162 m). Also projected was a version of the P.94 with four Brownings in the wings plus four 20-mm cannon that could be selected manually from straight ahead to 17 deg down, for use against the expected German invasion force. None of these proposals proceeded, however."

It seems that the wing was big enough for all kinds of armament (but the center of gravity is another matter).

[alex crawford]

Hi,


Very interesting indeed. Are there any drawings of this proposal?

It would make a good conversion for a model.

Alex

[Primoz]

Originally Posted by alex crawford

Hi,


Very interesting indeed. Are there any drawings of this proposal?

It would make a good conversion for a model.

Alex

Unfurtunately not. There's just an in flight photo of the prototype.

[alex crawford]

Hi,

I ran a 'google' search for this 12 gun version. All I found image wise were a couple of combat flight sim screen shots.

One of the screen shots was good enough for me to have a go and produce a model of it. This will be a future model project for me.

Alex

[Graham Boak]

There are a number of more recent books that cover Boulton Paul and their turret fighter projects: I suggest a quick survey of Midland Counties lists and the name Alec Brew. (I can check for titles at home, later). I suspect some are in the British Secret Projects series.

However, it is a lot easier to produce paper projects than actually achieve the aim in engineering practice.