Most Beautiful Aircraft of WW2?

[yulzari]

1940-41 covers a great deal of time and my own suspicion is that the Defiant's combat history has been 'tweaked' to keep the idiots who ordered/kept it in production from even further criticism/ridicule.
It appears that the Defiant didn't get radar (at least in squadron service) until Sept 1941? well after the Night blitz was over. Some accounts claim one radar assisted interception by the Defiant?
A lot of Defiant accounts say things like "best at time" without ever saying what the kill rate was or total kills or any way of actually evaluating the results achieved.
The British night fighter force got very dismal results during 1940 and very early 1941. When they are only shooting down 0-4 German planes per month by ALL night fighters combined declaring one type the best due to ability to chase Ju-88s (which were not the majority of night bombers) seems a bit of artistic shading.
The British night fighter successes increased dramatically in the late winter/early spring.
A little perspective.
In the first 2 month of the night blitz the RAF shot down 8 German aircraft out of 12,000 sorties.
The next 3 months were even worse. Just about all intercepts were visual.
It was only in March where the RAF shot down 22 planes in one month, mostly Beaufighters (with radar) due to much practice by both aircrew and ground controllers, and better weather and shorter nights. April saw 48 Germans shot down and the first 2 weeks of May saw 96 shot down. The Defiants were lucky if they scored 1/4 of the kills. By this time the Blenheim's had been pulled from most units. Germans flew off to attack Russia and German activity over Britain decreased substantially.

Defiant was the best night fighter in the fall of 1941 when they got radar at squadron level? I don't think so.
Without radar in 1940 or early 1941 was it the best night fighter? I think again the answer is no. even with two sets of eyes the Defiant was not as good as Beaufighter even with crappy radar. In Defiant accounts much is made of the "superiority" of the Defiant over the Blenheim, Blenheims were being replaced by Beaufighters in the fall of 1940, pretty much as fast as the Beaufighters could be built. However there were not very many Defiants in service in late summer or fall of 1940.

We get stuff like this "By August 1940 it was withdrawn from daylight combat operations but as a A.I. radar equipped night fighter it done extremely well shooting down more raiders per interception than any other night fighter of 1940-1941. *NARROW MARGIN Wood & Dempster p432"

Now seeing as how the Defiant didn't even get radar until Aug/sept of 1941 how did it have a higher success rate that another night fighter of those two years?
Clever wording? more raiders per interception than any other night fighter? Define interception please.
Some accounts claim that the Beaufighters scored over 1/2 the kills of May 1940.

Now if two Defiants actually spot (visually) two German bombers and and count that as interception and shoot down both that is 100%. If we are counting being vectored onto a bogie and failing to make contact is that an "intersection"? If Beaufighters (from several squadrons) are vectored onto over 100 boogies over two weeks time converted 1/2 of them to visuals and manage to shoot down 1/2 of the visuals (25%) of the Vectors) how does that count as to kills per intercept?

The problem is finding all of these supposed Defiant Kills.
The Next problem is sorting out which planes were in Service when. That is actually serving in night fighter squadrons.

There seems to be some misconception that I was claiming the Defiant to have been in command of the night skies. Merely that, during it's service in a period which includes 1940 and 1941, it performed better than the available alternatives until the radar equipped Blenheims came into full service and were still useful until both were overtaken by the Beaufighter. BTW and in daylight use, the team of Flight Lieutenant Cooke and Corporal Lippet shot down 5 Ju87s in one day. That, for a short while, it was the best at night tells one more about the weakness of nightfighters at the time before airborne radar and in the earliest days with the first primitive sets when the Defiant got them and moved from ground controlled radar backed up by four peering eyes to a short range radar on board.

 

[GregP]

Here's Defiant I drew:

Not a bad-looking airplane, but likely not a thoroughbred, either. Would have been a great plane to strafe a beach with, though.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Shortround6]

That, for a short while, it was the best at night tells one more about the weakness of nightfighters at the time before airborne radar and in the earliest days with the first primitive sets when the Defiant got them and moved from ground controlled radar backed up by four peering eyes to a short range radar on board.

My problem with the Defiant is that the time lines and claims to how effective it was don't seem to line up.

it performed better than the available alternatives until the radar equipped Blenheims came into full service and were still useful until both were overtaken by the Beaufighter.
I don't know when/if the Radar Equipped Blenheim's came into full service for example. We know they were using some Blenheims with radar in the summer of 1940.

According to one source(book) in Sept of 1940 the RAF had, for all practical purposes, 6 squadrons of Blenheims and 3 of Defiants for night fighting. They were trying to put up Hurricanes and Spitfires at night at times. 1/3 of the Blenheims had AI III and there were some AI II installations. Defiants were one year away from getting radar at all.

As noted by others, without improvements in ground radar, IFF and control airborne radar itself wasn't going to be very effective. The 4th thing was VHF radio instead of HF radio which allowed for vastly better communications between the pilots/planes and ground control.
Beaufighters start showing up in squadrons in Sept, in 2s and 3s in Blenheim squadrons. They either have or are soon fitted with AI IV radar. Radar production doesn't always keep pace with airframe construction.
The 2nd radar "kill" (Nov 7th, 1940) was by a Blenheim from a FIU squadron that had been reequipped with a MK IV set. It was done by Flying Officer G. Ashfield who had also scored the first radar 'kill' back in July. 1940 was pretty much just getting all the pieces on the board.
By the end of Dec 1940 they had built about 100 Beaufighters and most of the original Blenheim squadrons had converted. A few squadrons had converted from other aircraft to used Blenheims. Some Squadrons that flew Blenheims over the winter of 1940/41 were converted from Hurricanes.

There were 3 forms of "night fighting" going on in the RAF at this time. This confuses some of the kill totals. There were Hurricanes and Spitfires (and some others) flying around at night and perhaps getting instruction from the ground but target acquisition was pretty much luck, moon beams and enemy plane flying over searchlights and fires on the ground.

The 2nd is night fighting as we think of it. With radar equipped (or not) fighters being controlled by the ground and "patrolling"(flying patterns) certain areas. Final acquisition of target was by the same visual methods.

The 3rd, which was rather effective in terms of kills was operating intruders. Blenheims, Havocs and Beaufighters Flew to France and orbited German bomber bases waiting for returning German bombers to switch on navigation/landing lights or be silhouetted/illuminated by landing flares/illumination. Radar equipped night fighters were rarely (never?) used for this in 1940-41 to avoid possible loss of radar equipment.

The Defiant's 'superiority' over the Blenhiem seems to be this somewhat twist path of the Blenheim going out of night fighter service by Dec/Jan while Defiant squadrons were increasing in number. The Ground controllers got better over the winter, getting more planes, off whatever type, in closer proximity to the targets. The Defiants did score kills in March, April and May but by that time the Blenheims were out of service (a few hangers on?) with better weather and shorter nights as mentioned earlier.

 

[EwenS]

There is much information about the 1940/41 night campaign in the Official History - ADGB vol III

The Second World War: Campaign Narratives

The Second World War: Campaign Narratives

www.raf.mod.uk

In particular Appendix 18 has Orders of Battle for the night fighter force at various points in the period (Sept & Nov 1940, Feb, May & Dec 1941). See p171 (of 199) of the .pdf file.

 

[Lucky13]

I'm just gonna leave it somewhere around here....or there!

 

[Salmon88]

I attended four reunions of the 434th medium bomb squadron in the late 90s and they thought their B 25s looked beautifully deadly with its negative dihedral and twin tail. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

 

[Venomstick121]

Re. 2000 looks beautiful. Italians know how to make a plane look real nice

 

[The Stannum Crusader]

Re. 2000 looks beautiful. Italians know how to make a plane look real nice

Italians didn't design it though. It's a knock off of the P35 haha.

 

[Venomstick121]

Italians didn't design it though. It's a knock off of the P35 haha. View attachment 777471

Haha I just think Italian camo looks really good on it too lol

 

[Venomstick121]

 

[The Stannum Crusader]

View attachment 777473

The Swedes used them pretty well as air space defense fighters during the war. Theres some neat photos of Swedish J20s escorting American Heavy Bombers.

 

[buffnut453]

Italians didn't design it though. It's a knock off of the P35 haha. View attachment 777471

Is there any established proof that the Re2000 was a copy of the P-35 (other than it being visually similar)? The Re2000 was 40mph faster and had a ceiling 5000ft higher than the P-35.

 

[The Stannum Crusader]

Is there any established proof that the Re2000 was a copy of the P-35 (other than it being visually similar)? The Re2000 was 40mph faster and had a ceiling 5000ft higher than the P-35.

I cant imagine they aren't related since practically every source labels the RE2000 as being inspired or derived from the P35

 

[buffnut453]

I cant imagine they aren't related since practically every source labels the RE2000 as being inspired or derived from the P35

It rather depends on the quality of the source. There are plenty of sources that state the Zero was derived from an American design which, patently, is untrue.

I struggle to see how the Italians managed to achieve such a significant increase in performance if the 2 types are closely related. It's also unclear why Italy would copy a design from 1935...or how they could rewicker it to achieve such a substantive increase in performance.

For me to believe that the Re2000 was derived from the P-35, I'd like to see proof of a licence production agreement, correlation of major design factors (e.g. wing aerofoil section, fuselage cross-section correlations etc), or evidence of Italy obtaining a P-35 to copy. Absent such evidence, any resemblance is purely superficial (IMHO).

 

[Venomstick121]

I cant imagine they aren't related since practically every source labels the RE2000 as being inspired or derived from the P35

I think they just took inspiration, at least that's what I am reading but who knows who is cross sourcing who

 

[buffnut453]

I think they just took inspiration, at least that's what I am reading but who knows who is cross sourcing who

But why take inspiration from a 4 year-old design? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Aircraft performance advanced rapidly from 1935 onwards so I struggle to see the benefits of copying something that, by 1939, was pretty much obsolete.

 

[The Stannum Crusader]

I'm going to look into it today and get back to you guys, but also I don't know if you guys should think the italians would do the best and brightest in regards to aeronautics. Example: The Ca313.

 

[The Stannum Crusader]

But why take inspiration from a 4 year-old design? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Aircraft performance advanced rapidly from 1935 onwards so I struggle to see the benefits of copying something that, by 1939, was pretty much obsolete.

Well, they didn't use them very long, they were shipped off to Sweden.

 

[Lucky13]