# Bristol Beaufighter



## Andrew (May 13, 2004)

There is another job which the Bristol Beaufighter excelled at, and this was the shooting down of German Bombers which carried the V1 Flying Bomb, the Bombers would fly low below Radar Detection, and just before launch they would increase height, and at that point they would be detected by Radar, but they would only be doing about 150mph, which is not a lot less than the stall speed of the Mosquito, as the Beaufighter had a lower stall speed, it was ideal for shooting these V1 Carriers down, this created another problem though, and that was when th V1 Carriers were detected by Radar, if there was no Beaufighter within range the V1 Carriers were able to get away. This was rectified by the fitting of Wellington Bombers with Airborne Early Warning Radar, which could track these Bombers no matter how low they flew.


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## cheddar cheese (May 13, 2004)

cool, the beau was a pretty versatile plane 8)


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## Lightning Guy (May 13, 2004)

I'm not sure, but I really doubt the Mossie's stall speed was that high. Anything that landed upwards of 100mph was considered to be a "hot ship" and clearly their landing speed was higher than their stall speed (or that would have gotten real ugly).


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## plan_D (May 13, 2004)

I fail to see how that was versatile anyway, it's just shooting down bombers.


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## cheddar cheese (May 13, 2004)

yes but on top of all the other things the beau did


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## plan_D (May 13, 2004)

I know but saying it showed versatility because it shot down V-1 bombers, well it isn't.


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## cheddar cheese (May 14, 2004)

but it could do a lot of other things too


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## Lightning Guy (May 14, 2004)

So bring up the other things. Mention that the Beau did great work with Coastal Command making torpedo and rocket attacks on German shipping. Another instance of shooting down German planes doesn't do anything to add to its versatility. I'm with Plan_D here.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 14, 2004)

but it sure as hell packed one hell of a punch...................


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## cheddar cheese (May 14, 2004)

yes it did


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## plan_D (May 14, 2004)

It did but saying that because it shot down bombers which carried different loads doesn't make it a versatile aircraft. Of course it was, I'm just saying that with this thread, it isn't.


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## cheddar cheese (May 15, 2004)

what i meant with my first post in this topic was that its more versatile than i though


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 15, 2004)

what ever you say it doesn't change the fact that i wouldn't want to come up against, 6x .303 + 4x 20mm and a gun in a dorsal possistion, pretty dam scary.............


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## Lightning Guy (May 15, 2004)

Excapt the the dorsal gun was only carried by the torpedo-marks and they lacked the 6 .303s in the wings. Only the fighter marks carried those.


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## GermansRGeniuses (May 15, 2004)

Swing and a Miss. The "Torbeaus" were armes to the teeth with 6 .303 Browning machine guns, 4 20mm Hispano cannon, 8 60lb rockets, and a 1,640 (if I remember correctly) lb fish. 330mph top speed. 'Nuff said.


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## cheddar cheese (May 15, 2004)

cool 8)


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 16, 2004)

it was described once as coastal command's "punch"..............


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## Lightning Guy (May 17, 2004)

OK, so I did some checking on the Torbeau's guns. I only have one book available that mentions anything about the Beau in detail and, according to it, it was only the fighter marks that carried the wing guns. I would be a bit skeptical of that were it not for the pictures which clearly lack guns in the wings. Also, from the pics I've seen of the rocket-equipped Beaus, it seems that the rockets would have been mounted directly under those guns and that may have caused some problems. My online search produced something interesting. According to one site, the Torbeaus had the bays for the wing guns but they were often used to carry extra fuel tanks. That may explain the discrecpancy. As for the torpedoes, I've checked four sources and none of them agree on the weight of a British torpedo.


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## plan_D (May 17, 2004)

Swings...and it's going out of the park.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 22, 2004)

you're obviously refering to cricket, being an englishman, i mean, why would anyone refer to baseball.............


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## cheddar cheese (May 24, 2004)

baseball is more cliché, i mean, does cricket have its own jingle?


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## plan_D (May 25, 2004)

I was actually refering to baseball, as he is an American and we don't want to over complicate things. 
I hate cricket anyway, it's so boring. Then again Baseball is boring to watch.


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## Huckebein (May 25, 2004)

cheddar cheese said:


> baseball is more cliché, i mean, does cricket have its own jingle?



HOWZAT!

PS. I can't stand cricket...  

PPS. The six .303" Brownings were removed from all Coastal Comand Beaus to provide space for extra fuel (I doubt if they'd have much effect against surface vessels anyway), but the Mk X's cannon ammunition loadout was increased to compensate. They also had a Vickers machine gune added in the dorsal cupola.

The TF.X could carry One 18"/ 1,605 (728 kg) or 22.5"/ 2,127 lb (954 kg) torpedo.

Torbeaus attack:















(see, no wing guns...)

[Pictures obtained from various sites, copyright Australian Archives]


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## plan_D (May 25, 2004)

Very nice pictures.


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## cheddar cheese (May 25, 2004)

sure are 8)


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## Erich (May 25, 2004)

Huckebein don''t forget to credit the Austrailian archiv's for those Beu pics please. they are under their copyright.....


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 25, 2004)

the bottom one is in one of my books, it says it's not shooting at anything and that it's a show for the camera, but i doubt that..................


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## Lightning Guy (May 25, 2004)

I've got that pic in a book too. It maybe the same book since the caption in mine calls it a staged photo. It is hard to say anything about it since the photo shows so little, but pictures like that were often staged.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 26, 2004)

well if it says it in two books it's right, i just didn't think they'd waste rockets like that...............


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## Lightning Guy (May 26, 2004)

It's not as if rockets were that expensive. And you had to train with them sometime. That pic could be of a training flight or even of a trial to see how the rockets would perform.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 26, 2004)

does anyone know why the tail fins were angled up in the beau??


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## cheddar cheese (May 26, 2004)

nope but it sure made it look cool 8)


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## Huckebein (May 26, 2004)

Stability - the early Mk Is were unstable in flight 'cos they had horizontal tailplanes. They tried lots of antidotes including a '110 style twin tail, a movable tailplane (no elevators - whole unit tilts) and a 'butterfly' tail (I think), and then found that this dihedral arrangement solved the problem perfectly.


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## Lightning Guy (May 26, 2004)

They also added the extended dorsal fin to improve stability. That was one reason the Merlin-powered version wasn't successful, it actually increased the swinging problem.


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## Huckebein (May 27, 2004)

Yeah - they used a few Mk IIs (I think the Merlin version was the Mk II?) for home defence, but the performance difference wasn't too great either, as well as the stability problems.


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## Lightning Guy (May 27, 2004)

It was the Mk.II. I think the speed improved slightly but not enough to accept the added instability. Take-offs were supposed to have been rather hairy.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 29, 2004)

have you got any pics of a melin engined beau, i've never seen one...........


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