Fairey Battle restored

[KrazyKraut]

What makes you thing the battle would've been a good dive bomber? Adding the required equipment would've only made the thing even slower.

 

[Waynos]

I am not saying the Battle would have been a good dive bomber, it was not designed to be. I am saying that it did exactly what it was designed to do, just as the Ju 87 did, if the requirement had been for a dive bomber then the Battle design would have emerged slightly differently. The point is purely that there was nothing wrong with the design and that it is villified, quite wrongly, on the basis that the early days of the war showed the concept it was designed for to be out of date, technologically speaking the Battle was as up to date as anything in service anywhere in 1939, and actually ahead of many.

To simply say that the Battle was shot down in droves because it was a crappy aeroplane is to miss the point completely. You should see the Flight magazine reports from 1939/40 to get a perspective of what the opinion of the Battle was before it was shown to be tactically obsolete.

The failure of the Battle was a failure of planning, as opposed to the failure of something like the Blackburn Botha which really was just a dangerous piece of crap.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

<sigh> We're revisiting the "worst aircraft of WWII" thread.

You need to differentiate between a plane that was built to fulfil an impossible mission from a plane that failed to perform a possible one. The Battle would have been a great success, had the mission it was built for been possible to perform. But, it wasn't, and a lot of brave men died. That doens't mean the Battle was a bad plane. Rather, it means the doctrine it was designed to fulfil was faulty.

We still need to remember and honor those brave men who died, flying those Battles, even if their sacrifies seem to have been in vain.

For one, they weren't in vain. Oh, yes, they didn't stop the German advances in that part of that particular war, but they did establish a legacy of bravery and commitment that continues to serve as an example to servicemen and women, both in the RAF in and in other Air Forces.

CD

 

[Watanbe]

In my opinion the whole concept of the Fairey Battle is flawed. If your going to design a single engined light bomber, it had better be very fast, to avoid interception.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

In my opinion the whole concept of the Fairey Battle is flawed.

Yes, we know that now, but it wasn't realized in the 1930's. Back then, it was thought to be a viable concept. Like the turret fighter, the heavy escort fighter, hydogen-filled zeppelins, and other failed concepts, it wasn't until it was tested in combat that it was realized to be invalid.

It makes you wonder which modern war-fighting concepts we're training to use will be found invalid when the next war breaks out.

CD

 

[Watanbe]

Yes, we know that now, but it wasn't realized in the 1930's. Back then, it was thought to be a viable concept. Like the turret fighter, the heavy escort fighter, hydogen-filled zeppelins, and other failed concepts, it wasn't until it was tested in combat that it was realized to be invalid.

It makes you wonder which modern war-fighting concepts we're training to use will be found invalid when the next war breaks out.

CD

very good point. Over reliance on air and helicopter close support in infantry operations? My knowledge of the modern is quite vague.

 

[Chriss1958]

On the other hand - why? Why remind people what crap aircraft they were, underpowered, and undergunned - death traps.

The Fairey Battle went on to perform valuable service as a training aircraft. Its stable flying performance, reliability and sturdy construction made it an important and useful aircraft to train fledgling crews.

Yes, the Battle deserves to be preserved.