Gloster F9/37 with twin Merlins

Britain is able to conduct an escorted daylight bombing campaign from 1940. Any thoughts on this?

Kevin J said:

Britain is able to conduct an escorted daylight bombing campaign from 1940. Any thoughts on this?

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Does the title relates to the post?

tomo pauk said:

Does the title relates to the post?

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We don't have a long range fighter in 1940 that can dogfight a Bf 109F. Everyone keeps suggesting Merlins in the Whirlwind. It's wing area is too small. The Gloster has 386 Sq ft enough to support Merlins and a lot more fuel. It would be a boom and zoom fighter. I suggested long range escort in my thread starter so I'd say yes to your question. In fact the title should make the topic open ended. So fewer Hurricanes, so the Soviets get no Hurricanes, the RAF gets no Typhoons off Gloster, Hawker builds them instead. CC&F and Fairchild Canada would have to continue building them instead of the Helldiver.

Kevin J said:

We don't have a long range fighter in 1940 that can dogfight a Bf 109F. Everyone keeps suggesting Merlins in the Whirlwind. It's wing area is too small.

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I don't think that Merlin will fit on Whirly, unless a major redesign is attempted.

The Gloster has 386 Sq ft enough to support Merlins and a lot more fuel. It would be a boom and zoom fighter. I suggested long range escort in my thread starter so I'd say yes to your question. In fact the title should make the topic open ended. So fewer Hurricanes, so the Soviets get no Hurricanes, the RAF gets no Typhoons off Gloster, Hawker builds them instead. CC&F and Fairchild Canada would have to continue building them instead of the Helldiver.

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The F.9/37 indeed offers much more volume for fuel tanks, and it should have gottent the Merlins from day 1.

BTW - stuff for a 'What if' sub forum?

tomo pauk said:

I don't think that Merlin will fit on Whirly, unless a major redesign is attempted.



The F.9/37 indeed offers much more volume for fuel tanks, and it should have gottent the Merlins from day 1.

BTW - stuff for a 'What if' sub forum?

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Okay, I'll move it there.

Thats a thick wing and chunky fuselage for long range at high speed. Looks a bit too much like a slightly smaller Beaufighter and how did that go in daylight over europe

Kevin J said:

We don't have a long range fighter in 1940 that can dogfight a Bf 109F. Everyone keeps suggesting Merlins in the Whirlwind. It's wing area is too small. The Gloster has 386 Sq ft enough to support Merlins and a lot more fuel. It would be a boom and zoom fighter. I suggested long range escort in my thread starter so I'd say yes to your question. In fact the title should make the topic open ended. So fewer Hurricanes, so the Soviets get no Hurricanes, the RAF gets no Typhoons off Gloster, Hawker builds them instead. CC&F and Fairchild Canada would have to continue building them instead of the Helldiver.

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That is an awful lot of airplane to haul around on 1940 single speed, single stage Merlin's. The P38 only had 327 square feet of wing where the Gloster had 386 square feet and the P38 was turbocharged so it would maintain its 1150 hp up to 25,000 feet.

I hesitate to mention what I would like to hang a pair of Merlin's under in 1940.........but Grumman made 1.

pinsog said:

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That is an awful lot of airplane to haul around on 1940 single speed, single stage Merlin's. The P38 only had 327 square feet of wing where the Gloster had 386 square feet and the P38 was turbocharged so it would maintain its 1150 hp up to 25,000 feet.

I hesitate to mention what I would like to hang a pair of Merlin's under in 1940.........but Grumman made 1.

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It's no worse than the Bf 109E. The first combat ready P-38E didn't get delivered until 1941.

Kevin J said:

It's no worse than the Bf 109E. The first combat ready P-38E didn't get delivered until 1941.

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I have no idea how well it would have done as an escort fighter but looks to me like it would have made an excellent low level attack plane, like a smaller, faster Beaufighter.

Edit: after reading a bit more, if it would do 360 mph on a pair of 1050 hp radials then I wonder how fast it would have been on a pair of Merlins? You might have something here. Certainly better than an Me110

I think I may have been ambitious for a service entry date of 1940, perhaps 1941 would be more realistic. Certainly in time to escort the Manchester, Halifax and Stirling on daylight raids. Who can tell how much more effective our daylight bombing raids over Western Europe could have been.

fastmongrel said:

Thats a thick wing and chunky fuselage for long range at high speed. Looks a bit too much like a slightly smaller Beaufighter and how did that go in daylight over europe

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Yup, inclined to agree, you're gonna get not much for a lot. A reflection of this was Gloster's entry to F.18/40, which had little commonality (on paper at least) yet shared the same basic layout) - the unofficially named Reaper. It promised better performance, probably what you are looking for, Kevin, but the reality was that Gloster could not promise it until mid 1942 because of its commitment to building jets. Carter himself admitted he didn't have the workforce to do both.

Nevertheless, there's quite a back story to this specification and as originally written was for a two-seat fixed gun night fighter, but was amended to include a gun turret. The Reaper was a favourite, despite not having a turret and Gloster could not promise it or the F.9/37 (also oddly discussed at this time) before mid 1942, which was not favourable to the Air Ministry, and the other option was de Havilland's Turret Fighter Mosquito, not officially entered into F.18/40 but acknowledged as a contender based on the excellent performance of the prototype, so the turret armed Beaufighter V was promised as an interim with production due to start in August 1941. Because the Beau V was slower than the Defiant it was meant to replace, the production order was not given and with the big reduction in performance of the turret Mossie (and unforseen problems with the turret) over the fixed gun Mossie meant that by late 1941 the turret armed F.18/40 was a dodo, but the fixed gun fighter Mosquito promised exactly the kind of thing the Air Ministry needed anyhoo.

But I digress, much has already been written and discussed about the possible merits of the Reaper, but by mid 1942, are we going to have an aircraft that offers nothing more than what a turretless Mosquito offers and delays to the jet fighter programme, or is the Mosquito going to be exactly what was needed and Gloster concentrate its resources on jet stuff? Not building Hurris or Typhoons doesn't change much, mainly because they don't require the meagre Gloster design staff, which it needed for the jet programme.