You seem to believe that with a click of the finger and your astounding ability to conjure up hindsight like it was something British planners had oodles of, everything should have been done differently, SR; this seems to be a staple of almost every argument you enter into about British aircraft. Hindsight does give us the power to rubbish the turret fighter, (or anything British, in your case) but the reality was the rule book hadn't been written yet in terms of fighter tectics. New technology brought about new problems and attempting to solve them was very much hit and miss. When aeroplanes were first being developed in the first decade of the 20th Century, how many iterations of controls in the cockpit were there? Heaps, until a successful forula was settled on, with experience.
It took timeand the proverbial blood sweat and toil to get there. Yes, the idea was flawed, but the Air Ministry didn't know that in 1935 when the spec that produced the Defiant was released would be so. The fear of massed formations of bombers was real to these guys. Remember, that same fear spawned the Zeppelin threat in Britain during the Great War; fear of German airships carrying out mass attacks on Britain drove this, yet the reality, although casualties were recorded and damage done was not what was expected. That did push the British to evolve an air defence network unlike any other however. Such is the benefit of experience. The fear of modern fast monoplane bombers in formation was a likely argument to evolve a turret fighter if your country has the technology to do such a thing.
By 1939, Britain had 3 major power turret manufacturers, BP, Bristol and Fraser Nash. No other country had bombers armed with power turrets in service at that time. The Sunderland was the first 'modern' all metal monoplane 'bomber' to be so fitted. Interestingly, the first American bomber put into production with power turrets was the B-24; in the Liberator II, a variant built expressly for the British, the bomber was completed without armament, delivered to Britain and Boulton Paul turrets were fitted to it.
That the BP Overstrand was 'not very good', compared to what exactly, SR?! Again, you are attempting to impose standards by which these things are judged that simply did not exist at the time!
How about getting a grip.
A lot of what I complain about the British is because they ignored the lessons of the First World War. Bringing up that they ignoring things that happened (and were paid for in British blood) hardly requires hindsight on my part.
There are somethings the British did very well, other things not so well. Like a lot of other countries.
The Rule Book of fighter tactics had been written, in large part, by the end of WW I. Ignoring it or trying to come up with alternatives to it should have called for some sort of testing.
I have no trouble with issuing a specification in 1935 to explore the "idea". The problems start creeping in with ordering hundreds of production examples when the Prototype had barely flown (without turret) and before firing trials were even conducted against towed targets.
How about if I quote an English author?
Francis Mason page 234 "The British fighter Since 1912" on the Hawker Demon.
"It has to said at this point that, while the Demon performed the task to which it was allotted--- that of providing a 'defence' against the Hawker Hart during defence exercises---- its entire concept in the wider sense was flawed. Sydney Camm is on record as having stated that his proposal 'to set a Hart to catch a Hart' was never intended to be more that a very short term expedient. He was well aware that his new Fury was the answer to any bomber threat extant in Europe in the early 'thirties. Indeed, the Demon came to be perpetuated as a product of financial necessity. Unfortunately, what came also to be perpetuated, probably owing to the success of the Demon in its very limited context, was that the two-seat interceptor represented an essential item of equipment in the RAFs arsenal,
which it most certainly was not."
At this point the Demon had yet to be fitted with a "turret" (the turret may have been hydraulically powered in travers only?) The turret version (only 61 built?) was not delivered until 1936.
Again from Mason
"By the time of the Munich crisis of Sept 1938, the two year old Fighter Command fielded eight Demon squadrons---- a larger number at home than at any other time. Unfortunately this apparent dependence upon a two seat, single engine interceptor had artificially established within the Command a class of fighter which, when considered for replacement, engendered a requirement for a replacement--- the Boulton Paul Defiant, as it transpired---which, in the great air battle of 1940, was not only found to be technically and tactically flawed but, worse, was wholly superfluous to the needs of fighter Command."
Now had any test intercepts been done with Demons using gun cameras to prove (or at least gather data) on the proposed tactics? Before ordering over 500 Defiants?
AS for
"That the
BP Overstrand was 'not very good', compared to what exactly, SR?! Again, you are attempting to
impose standards by which these things are judged
that simply did not exist at the time!"
This constant defending of what amounted to obsolete junk is getting a bit tiresome.
The Overstrand was a modified Sidestrand (first flown in 1928) which equipped one squadron. A late production example (J9186) was used to help test a succession of Jupiter engines and cowls. Finally in 1933 John North suggested fitting it with Pegasus engines instead of the Jupiters. The Original suggestion was to rebuild the original airframes but only a few were re-engined and 24 (?) were
built new in 1935. and issued to 101 Squadron between Sept 1935 and Jan 1936. Please note that the Bloch 210 had first flown in 1934, the S.M. 79 had first flown in in 1934 and the HE 111 had first flown in Feb of 1935.
Now what standard do you want to apply? Yes I am comparing limited production plane to prototypes but they predate the production Overstrand by over half a year at least.
I am using European planes as you seem to dislike the American ones.
Accounts differ as to the turret, some accounts say it was pneumatically powered in travers, others say hydraulic (or system was changed?) with the weight of the gunner balancing the weight of the gun in elevation.
1936 | 2850 | Flight Archive
1936 | 2876 | Flight Archive
For contemperaty description and pictures.
