Shortround6
Major General
A few thoughts.
The Lysander, while an interesting aircraft was an out of date concept and disaster as a warplane. It was pretty much useless in it's original intended roles. It did see a bit of use in very small numbers in minor areas or for short periods of time.
The whole idea of FAA P-40 is ridiculous, the British may have done some bone headed things (so did everyone) but trying to use P-40s off carriers was not one of them. Just look in a P-40 manual for the take-off and landing distances and/or approach speeds. P-40s did take off from carrier decks but it was usually with little or no ammo and just enough fuel to reach the shore base they were being ferried to. That is a lot different than being an actual operational carrier fighter.
Heck, they even flew P-47s off carriers on a few occasions, sure doesn't mean the P-47 had any potential as a carrier fighter.
The Defiant is another over rated or hyped airplane. An awful lot of it's reputation is based off of wartime propaganda and/or wishful thinking. Or very selective time frames. the Defiant may have shot down about 1/4 of the German bombers during the night Blitz. Now how many other fighters flew missions at night and how many scored any victories? Divide up the number of victories by the number of different types of fighters that flew night missions and the Defiant might come out on top, however that total number is skewed. British night fighters as a whole shot down more German bombers in April and the first two weeks of May than they had shot down from Sept of 1940 to the end of March 1941. No service Defiant carried radar until the fall of 1941. Most of it's other roles could have been performed by any other airframe that was handy.
The Battle gets a bit of a bum rap. Nobody had a bomber that would have done much better in France in 1940 flying in penny packets and for the most part unescorted. However, it's true contribution to the British war effort was the training of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of bomber crewmen. If you don't build the Battle you need to build some other bomber crew trainer. Battles could also have performed some of the roles that Defiants or even Lysanders did. if they were not available.
The Lysander, while an interesting aircraft was an out of date concept and disaster as a warplane. It was pretty much useless in it's original intended roles. It did see a bit of use in very small numbers in minor areas or for short periods of time.
The whole idea of FAA P-40 is ridiculous, the British may have done some bone headed things (so did everyone) but trying to use P-40s off carriers was not one of them. Just look in a P-40 manual for the take-off and landing distances and/or approach speeds. P-40s did take off from carrier decks but it was usually with little or no ammo and just enough fuel to reach the shore base they were being ferried to. That is a lot different than being an actual operational carrier fighter.
Heck, they even flew P-47s off carriers on a few occasions, sure doesn't mean the P-47 had any potential as a carrier fighter.
The Defiant is another over rated or hyped airplane. An awful lot of it's reputation is based off of wartime propaganda and/or wishful thinking. Or very selective time frames. the Defiant may have shot down about 1/4 of the German bombers during the night Blitz. Now how many other fighters flew missions at night and how many scored any victories? Divide up the number of victories by the number of different types of fighters that flew night missions and the Defiant might come out on top, however that total number is skewed. British night fighters as a whole shot down more German bombers in April and the first two weeks of May than they had shot down from Sept of 1940 to the end of March 1941. No service Defiant carried radar until the fall of 1941. Most of it's other roles could have been performed by any other airframe that was handy.
The Battle gets a bit of a bum rap. Nobody had a bomber that would have done much better in France in 1940 flying in penny packets and for the most part unescorted. However, it's true contribution to the British war effort was the training of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of bomber crewmen. If you don't build the Battle you need to build some other bomber crew trainer. Battles could also have performed some of the roles that Defiants or even Lysanders did. if they were not available.