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Apart from the initial 2 seat night fighter variant the zerstorer variants these evolved into were engineered with a raised canopy and Me 410 cheek guns, the Fw 187C also was to have fixed rear armament aimed by periscope. Rear arament shows up repeatedly in various proposals and engineering mock ups illustrated or photographed in the Dietmar Hermann book. Hermann is not your average aviation author and tries to show relevant technical detail, he interviewed Hans Sander, who was a test pilot on the program.
Despite this the Fw 187 was always lighter and much faster than it competitors and it did so on engines that were actually available and reasonably well developed. Some 26000 hours of direct engineering time from some of Germanies finest engineers went into this aircraft for no result. Repeated modification requests attempted to turn it into a sort of multi role combat aircrsft loaded with equipment.
This was a failure of doctrine or procurement or managment. The aircraft that ended up doing the role of the Fw 187 were the Ta 154, Do 335, He 219 and to an extent the Me 410. All needed not only new large engine but developed versions of these engines that provided around 2200hp rather than the 1750hp the Jumo 213 and Db603 entered service with. Granted the were available in mid/late 1944 but by then couldn't be put into mass production and further delays resulted from C3 fuel shortages.
Obviously there was no reason it couldn't be uparmed as it was with the later prototypes. Also understand that most first prototypes had no armament installed, so its odd that it had any guns at all.
On the rear gun, if 187 A-0 carried one it must be oneof the poorest rear gunner position in 1939.
The P-38 was never intended to be a naval aircraft for starters. As a matter of fact no one ever thought that more than 70+ P-38s would ever be built. I think there were some artist depiction of a navalized P-38 but that was someone's marketing plan.What were the advantages of a Tigercat compared to a navalized P-38. Why did they not just went this way instead of creating a whole new design?
only if you changed the wing.