Defiant turret firing forward

It is said that the weakness of the Defiant was its not carrying forward firing guns. Yet its turret was capable of being aligned dead ahead, but fire was disabled when in that position to prevent the propellor being shot off. Was there no way of synchronising to prevent this, and would it have given it a longer daylight role? http://www.pavaservices.com/cfs/P82.htm

"The distance between the guns and the propeller is rather long, which would have made such synchronisation complex and would have resulted in a large rate of fire reduction. Distance between the gun and the propeller is important because the propeller does not always rotate at the same speed, and the longer the distance between the gun and the propeller, the more variation of blade position must be taken into account.

In theory it could still have been done. But the Defiant would still have a been a fighter with poor performance and low firepower. The RAF was actually well aware of the limitations of the Defiant, even before fighting began."

Emmanuel

[Modeldad]

One other very small issue, of minor importance. The Defiant had four (4) guns in the turret. Do ya think that bullets from all four guns left the barrel at the same nano-second?

Didn't some Soviet fighters have 3 machine guns firing through the hub?

[Jon]

I think the simple truth is if they had wanted forward firing guns it would have been a simple matter of putting a couple of Brownings in the wings.

Unfortunately for the crews, it just was never intended that this aircraft could shoot the way it was going

Jon