Boulton Paul Defiant

Wildcat · 03-24-2007, 09:24 PM

Gents, as I know very little about this a/c, I was wondering, when the limitations of the turrent fighter were painfully learnt when the Luftwaffe changed tactics to head on attacks, were any Defiants modified or fitted with forward facing guns for the pilot? I understand that a turrent-less prototype was designed (P.94) which was a pure fighter and armed with 12x.303 guns in the wings. Therefore my question is why weren't forward facing guns fitted when the Defiants started to take crippling losses? Was it a question of weight, loss of speed or because when finally employed in the NF role forward guns were deamed unnecessary?

Wildblue1972 · 03-25-2007, 04:49 AM

As far as I'm aware the turret on the Defiant could be rotated and set to fire forward, with the four .303 brownings firing either side of the pilot's cockpit. I believe that it that position the pilot may have had a remote button to fire the guns. However, it could hardly have been an ideal solution. The noise in the pilots ears must have been tremendous! Seriously though, having the ability to fire the guns in this way was surely an acceptance of the fact that the Defiant was never intended as a dogfighter. For that purpose it must have been too heavy with all that weight and drag of the second crew member and the turret itself. The sole design rationale was for the Defiant to formate on the blind spot of a stream of bombers and hack away with immunity. In that respect maybe it was such a bad idea... in theory. However the rifle calibre guns would barely have sufficient punch and range. Not the mention that the german bombers were bristling with guns (often more guns than they had crew members to man them). However, all said and done, the Defiant was a valiant attempt to address a potential comabat tactic that could have worked. For proof of this you only need to look at the suuccess the germans had with their upwards firing guns slicing away from underneath at the undefended bristish heavy bomber fleet. It does beg the question though, if the people who came up with the idea for the Defiant could see the hazards of a blindspot on a bomber's defences, why wasn't more done to provide bristish bombers with better all round defences?

pbfoot · 03-25-2007, 11:03 AM

What was used for the interupter gear so the 4 303's could fire through the propellor arc in the forward firing mode

merlin · 03-25-2007, 12:37 PM

It would have been too late to fit wing guns to the Defiant after its short comings were painfully demonstrated by the Me 109s.
In WW1 the RFC had the Bristol two-seat Fighter (Brisfit). It was successful because it was armed with guns fore & aft, and its large engine gave it a comparable speed with other fighters.
In the 30s the RAF had (if memory serves me correct) the two-seat Hawker Demon. As I recall, it was a fighter version of the revolutionary Hawker Hind (it was faster than most current fighters), and it to had guns fore & aft.
The RAF wanted a replacement for the Demon, but they didn't have a bigger engine that would give it the power/weight ratio of a Hurricane or Spitfire. In theory this wouldn't matter as it was only expected to meet bombers.
Yet that being the case, why was it stationed in range of the 109s - theory again said that they had the tactics to deal with them; in practise only once!
Dowding didn't believe the publicity of the potential effectiveness of the Defiant, others were more enthusiastic - Sholto Douglas.
To my mind, it seems quite plausible that the P94 (Defoe?) should have been ordered - with the jigs & tools readily available, aircraft could have been completed quite quickly. However I can't help but wonder, if it was a case of 'vested interest' i.e. to have the single seater version in service will show what fools we (those who championed the Defiant) are!!

Denniss · 03-25-2007, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pbfoot

What was used for the interupter gear so the 4 303's could fire through the propellor arc in the forward firing mode

Boulton Paul Defiant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :

Quote:

The turret was armed with four .303 Browning machine guns, which were electrically fired. Insulated cut-off points in the turret ring prevented the guns from being activated when they were pointing at the propeller disc or tailplane.

Anyone able to confirm this?

HealzDevo · 03-25-2007, 07:10 PM

No, but I know that they were used at the time of Dunkirk on missions when they got absolutely chopped to pieces. I play a game called Achtung Spitfire and I prefer to play the mission doomed Defiants as the Luftwaffe rather than the Allies because I think from memory the loss ratio ends up at 1:4 or something in the Luftwafe's favour.

Wildcat · 03-25-2007, 08:53 PM

Even if the guns could be fired when facing forward by the pilot, it seems he did not have a gun sight (wiki), so basically useless anyway. Maybe guns weren't fitted in the wings due to the simple fact that the fuel tanks were located there, and with the added guns comes smaller tanks and greater weight, which in turn lessens the range/endurance.

Civettone · 03-25-2007, 09:42 PM

I don't think the rebuild would have been worth it. Remember that the aircraft was designed around the turret. Once the turret proved to be inadequate, the entire aircraft followed suit. The aircraft wasn't designed as a conventional fighter.

On the other hand, it surely was a waste of so many aircraft. But England's bottleneck wasn't aircraft, it was pilots. So it was better to put the pilots in better Spitfires and Hurricanes instead of in a stopgap modified Defiant.

And in the end, those Defiants still served a purpose as nightfighters and glider tugs.

Kris

HealzDevo · 03-25-2007, 10:02 PM

Yes, they did serve a good purpose as nightfighters. Still would have been hard to aim the turret wouldn't it from the cockpit?

Glider · 03-26-2007, 05:10 PM

I always thought that the Defiant could have been turned into a decent GA plane.
Take the turret out save a huge amount of weight, put in a rear gunner. Couple of 20's in the wings and still have around 1,000lb for a payload.

Bingo a 300mph (clean), pretty agile GA plane. OK its no IL2 for taking damage but its a lot better than nothing which is basically what the RAF had for GA work.

Civettone · 03-26-2007, 06:04 PM

Could just as well use the Hurricane for that...

Kris

Thorlifter · 03-26-2007, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civettone

Could just as well use the Hurricane for that...

Kris

Exactly! Good point Kris.

HealzDevo · 03-27-2007, 10:02 PM

Yes, it made a good night-fighter while they were awaiting specialists aircraft to do the job...

Aggie08 · 03-29-2007, 10:40 AM

Being a Defiant pilot is like winning ten cents in the lottery. You're a fighter pilot sure enough but you don't get to shoot anything.

Tony Williams · 03-30-2007, 09:36 PM

The Defiant was designed on the assumption that it would only have to attack unescorted bombers. It was not envisaged that the Luftwaffe would have the use of French bases from which they could launch their fighter escorts.

In its intended role it would probably have been very effective. The Luftwaffe bombers of 1940 were actually very poorly armed, with only a small number of rifle-calibre guns, and they were hand-aimed, not mounted in powered turrets, which reduced their effectiveness quite considerably.

The Defiant was not a bad plane; it just had to fight a war for which it wasn't designed, and the addition of fighter escorts for the bombers destroyed its rationale. It provides a lesson in the dangers of designing armament which is specialised for one particular scenario, but not much good for anything else.