Boulton Paul Defiant, single-seat fighter in the BoB ?

Boulton Paul offered several turret-less single-seat versions of the Defiant to the R.A.F. during the Battle of Britain. The single seater offered greater pontential than the Hurricane according to the Boulton Paul Association, especially as a naval fighter, but nothing was done

Would Boulton Paul have managed to get a single-seat version of the Defiant ready ready for service before the end of the BoB, even if the R.A.F. had approved of it ?

I can imagine that a single-seat Defiant could have more potential than the Hurricane as a naval fighter, but would it offer any significant advantage over the Hurricane, if any at all, in any other respect ?

 

Probably wouldn't have been worth the bother.

There are only so many factories to go round and better to be making a slightly inferior plane than messing around retooling to produce something a bit better.

I know we all have our favorites but in practice its better to have something reasonable in useful numbers than one or two of something great. See Tiger verus Sherman / T34 or Messerschmitt Me 262 verus Mustang for details.

 

I agree with Ebar probably not worth the effort, it probably would have offered comparable-ish performance to the Hurricane.

As for being a better naval fighter, I doubt it would offer any significant advantage over the Sea-Hurricane.

A better alternative would have been the Miles emergency fighter, can't remember its designation off the top of my head, but it had performance comparable to a Hurricane with greater firepower, range and ammunition capacity. In addition it would have been slightly easier to service thanks to its fixed undercarriage.

 

The Defiant would need some serious revamping, since as far as I know it didn't have any armament apart from the turret. Having that removed, wouldn;t the wing structure have to be considerably changed to be able to install some MGs?

 

I doubt it, and the fact that Boulton Paul suggested single seater Defiants seems to indicate that they didn't consider the problem of adding wing guns to be too difficult to overcome. In the unlikely situation that the wing structure could not be modified, they could always have been added as underwing blisters like the wing guns on the Gladiator.

 

I've heard that some of the defiats' victories were results of mistakes of German pilots who thought they were Hurricanes and didn't expect side-fire

 

At a distance the defiants looked like a hurricane. 109's came swooping down from above and got a nasty supprise when 4 .303 brownings started rattling away at them. A little later on the Germans figured out that if you got below a defiant it couldn't manuver fast enough to stop you riddling it full of holes.

 

Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to concentrate on increasing the Spitfire production, rather than introducing a new aircraft?

 

At what stage are you refering to?

 

Any stage, really. The production of Spitfires was already in progress, and starting a new project would only have diverted industrial capacity away from this.

Christian

 

If we go for the start of the war the Spitfire suffers one really massive problem. It is very cutting edge.

Stressed metal skinning and aluiminum frames were a big departure on what had gone before. This means the guys producing and maintaining these planes really have to learn how to do their jobs again. The Hurricane however was a far more gental switch over. Making it easier to build and maintain.

The Spitfire was a great plane of that there is no doubt, but it needed the Hurricane to basically make up numbers.

Back to the subject of the Defiant I believe it was an attempt to reuse a concept that had worked reasonably well in WW1, the Bristol fighter.

 

Perhaps. But the Brisfit had forward firing guns. If your theory is correct, then it was an incredibly bad blunder to have left those out of the design. And the Bristol wasn't successful until pilots learned to fly it like a single seater, and not like a two seater.

 

I would imagine that a half ton power operated turret didn't leave them with enough spare lift capacity to put guns in the wings.

As a bomber destroyer it would have the advantage that it could get a lot closer before is opened up.

Really the defiant comes into the same category as the German 110 someone's pet theory that didn't stand up to the practical realities of war.

 

I´ve just discovered that, while the Boulton Paul Association suggests that the Defiant showed more potential than the Hurricane, my source on the Hawker Hotspur turret fighter ( Hawkers contender to the Defiant ) claims that this aircraft showed more pontential than the Defiant.

 

Must admit I'd never heard tell of the Hotspur but having Googled it I found the following. For comparison I put up the Defiant details from the same site.


Hotspur: Max speed, 316 mph (508 kmlh) at 15,800ft (4,816 m). Gross weight, 7,650 Ib (3,473 kg). Span, 40ft 6 in (12.34 m). Length, 32ft 10'/2 m (10.02m). Armament - single fixed Vickers machine gun and four Browning machine gun gun-turret


Defiant: Max speed, 250 mph (402 km/h) at sea level 304 mph (489 km/h) at 17,000ft (5,182 m). Initial climb, 1,900 ftlmin (9.65 m/sec). Service ceiling, 28,100 ft (8,565 m). Range 465 mis (748 km). Loaded weight, 8,318 Ib (3,773 kg). Span, 39 ft 4 in (11.99 m). Length, 35ft 4 in (10. 77 m). Armament, four Browning machine gun gun-turret

 

Boulton Paul fighters

Its a pity Boulton Paul did get the Defiant contract as if they hadn't then they might have had the production capacity to build the P88. This was BP's submission for the F37/35 spec that the Whirlwind eventually won - the spec was for 4 x 20mm cannon, the number of engines was not specified. This information is from 'Interceptor' by James Goulding - he suggests one reason why the BP design wasn't chosen was because BP were tied up with Defiant production.




The Hercules version had a wingspan of 39ft 6", a length of 32ft 8" and a height of 10ft 2". It had a maximum speed of 337mph at 15,000ft, a maximum climb of 3.000ft/minute and a ceiling of 39,500ft




The Vulture version had a wingspan of 44ft, a length of 36ft 3" and a height of 10ft 2". It had a maximum speed of3 58mph at 15,000ft and 362mph at 30,000ft. It had a maximum climb of 3.400ft/minute and a ceiling of 38,000ft

The Vulture version would have suffered from the loss of the Vulture but the design looks like it could take a Sabre (at this time the problems with the sabre hadn't really surfaced) and the Hercules version would have been a useful bridge between the Spitfire/Hurricane and the Typhoon/Tempest, it may have been able to accept a Centaurus - could have made a good naval fighter as well???

 

Re: Boulton Paul fighters

Much would depend on its landing speed and the strength of the airframe, given carrier landing conditions. Also whether or not it could be adapted to folding wings, a necessity on a carrier.

 

I received "The Turret Fighters, Defiant and Roc" by Alec Brew in the mail today. I´ve only browsed through it, but it seems as the single seat Defiant was turned down, partly because of no serious shortage of fighters, but mainly because it was felt that it would be wrong to disrupt the production of standard Defiants.

Apparently, more turret-fighters were needed.

 

I'd be interested to hear when that decision was made.

 

At a conference in September, 1940. According to the aforementioned book.