Worst Aircraft of WW2

John D. Voss said:

My vote for the worst US WWII aircraft goes to the Curtiss SO3C Seamew.

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No Brewster Buccaneer?

I'm sticking with the Lerwick. The Fisher Eagle was both terrible and great. It did great job of keeping GM out of the B-29 program.

Uh, you do realize the Defiant used a smaller wing than the Hurricane?

An IL-2 used a wing very close in size to a Bf 110 or about 10 sqft smaller than SB2C Helldiver or only 5-6 sq ft larger than a Fairey Barracuda.

Even with a Griffon you are going to need JATO rockets to get it off the Ground.

SaparotRob said:

The Fisher Eagle was both terrible and great. It did great job of keeping GM out of the B-29 program.

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Is that a good thing?

Fisher were in charge of making an engine module to fit the V-3420 in place of the R-3350s. The resulting aircraft would be the B-39.

Spending the time on the XP-75 delayed the XB-39 so that it would only fly after most of the issues with the R-3350 were solved.

The XB-39 showed slightly improved performance with slightly reduced range.

wuzak said:

Is that a good thing?

Fisher were in charge of making an engine module to fit the V-3420 in place of the R-3350s. The resulting aircraft would be the B-39.

Spending the time on the XP-75 delayed the XB-39 so that it would only fly after most of the issues with the R-3350 were solved.

The XB-39 showed slightly improved performance with slightly reduced range.

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No, I don't think it was a good thing at all.

AerialTorpedoDude69 said:

Wasn't it phased out of production in '42? I think the Hurricane was produced well beyond that. Although I just read that they continually upgraded existing production in order to meet overseas orders.

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Yup, by mid 1942 it was falling behind in capability compared to Beaufighter and the introduction of the Mosquito added performance to the mix. The Hurricane continued production until 1944 (the last Hurricane built still survives and flies with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight). The Hurricane remained in production mainly as a strike fighter, to use a modern phrase. Even by 1942 the Hurricane Mk.II's performance was not as good as enemy fighters in service, but it remained because armed with four cannon or 12 machine guns or two even bigger cannon and its ability to carry bombs under the wings it made an excellent ground attack aircraft. Because of its rugged construction it was easy to repair in the field and so it was an asset long after it had been declared obsolete as a fighter, its advantage being that once it had dropped its bombs it could defend itself as a fighter because of its performance.

Shortround6 said:

problem with evaluating the Defiant as a night fighter is that NONE of the British night fighters were very successful until about March of 1941.

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This is true. Night fighting was hard. It's worth noting that despite this apparent poor performance, no one else in the world had anywhere near the experience nor carried out anywhere near the same amount of research in to night fighting than the RAF within the first two to three years of the war. German successes didn't really become a thing until 1942/1943 when Bomber Command began its really big raids. The Defiant was a good starting point, well, certainly better than the Blenheim, but no other country had anywhere near the same number of night fighters by mid 1941, the radar equipped Blenheim and Beaufighter, the Hurricane and Defiant and the P-70 Havoc. Not the Germans, and certainly not the Americans, Japanese nor Italians, nor Russians. Adding the Mosquito NF.II to the Beaufighter fleet in 1942 really cemented the RAF's night fighter force, but it had to go through the motions with its less effective pre-war stuff first.

Shortround6 said:

The Defiants "success" was pretty much pure luck, paid for the deaths of many crewmen flying hundreds of missions in the dark in crappy weather.

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Not to forget those lost in training by flying into the ground. In 1941 the RAF had two main night fighter Operational Training Units, 54 OTU at Charterhall, Northumberland and 60 OTU at East Fortune in East Lothian, Scotland. Both were equipped with Defiants and Blenheims and the landscape around both regions were soon littered with crashed aircraft. So much so that Charterhall became known as Slaughter Hall. It was also the airfield where Australian fighter pilot and author (his book The Last enemy is regarded as a classic) Richard Hillary took off from when he died flying a Blenheim night fighter in Scotland in 1943. As for the Defiant, 60 OTU bears the distinction as being the operator of the largest number of Defiants of any RAF unit.

the British certainly payed for their expertise. You are quite right, nobody else came close.

It is just that the claims of the Defiant's success seem to ring hollow.
Like we are supposed to overlook it's performance in the time because it was so good at night, except it wasn't much good at night either.
It flew around at night, it crashed at night, it shot down 0-3 bombers a month at night (at least until April and May) and if they had stayed on the ground it would have been a net gain for the RAF.
In fact park the Defiants, yank their propellers off and put them on the Blenheim's and you might have come out ahead.
The Blenheim was not a good aircraft for night flying and they never changed it. Poor cockpit layout, the 2 pitch props which made take-offs hazardous, depending on fuel load, really hazardous. Constant speed props may have increased the dive speed a bit (may be 20-30mph?) which may have allowed a few planes to actually pull off an interception.

use the Havoc/Bostons as actual night fighters (guns and radar on the same plane) instead of the Turbinlite scheme might have paid dividends (even one enemy plane shot down?)

Trying things, like the Defiant, helped acquire the expertise. Keeping the experiments going for months/ years for little result wasn't adding anything.

At least the Daffy had a better kill record than the Blackburn Roc - which shot down one aircraft during it's career.

I cannot begin to imagine the embarrassment and shame the Ju88 pilot must have endured for allowing that to happen...

Shortround6 said:

It is just that the claims of the Defiant's success seem to ring hollow.
Like we are supposed to overlook it's performance in the time because it was so good at night, except it wasn't much good at night either.

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Yes and no. From a critical situational analysis and examining each incident of interception versus actual kills recorded across Britain's entire wartime night fighter effort, it doesn't appear very impressive at all, but in context of the time, its better than perhaps what even the RAF Air Staff were hoping for. There are a number of communiques in 1940 about how ineffectual Britain's night fighter defences were in combatting German bombing raids, but what do you expect? These were early days. The Defiant surpassed expectation simply because it was able to record kills when the Beaufighter was suffering delay and the Blenheim and Havoc were almost useless. Sure, they were few and far between initially, but that doesn't indicate a specific failure of the Defiant, more like operational and systemic failures that didn't take into consideration the difficulty of finding a bomber from a night fighter even once it had been vectored to its general location by GCI.

The advent of airborne radar changed everything. The Defiant ended up on the wrong side of that development process. It wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but it did achieve kills at a time when other British aircraft were stagnating in their efforts. The Beaufighter took longer than expected to get the radar right, but even before then it proved its efficacy, but that doesn't mean the Defiant was totally ineffectual.

Shortround6 said:

Trying things, like the Defiant, helped acquire the expertise. Keeping the experiments going for months/ years for little result wasn't adding anything.

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I disagree. The value of experience was enormous. Having those Defiant squadrons added numbers to the scorecard. This is a valuable lesson the British learned in the summer of 1940 and something you might have forgotten. Sure, lots of guys lost their lives in training, but for the loss of those lives, there was a learned experience. We don't go through life learning the greatest lessons from our successes but from our failures and the same goes in warfare. Just ditching the Defiant would have left enormous gaps in available airframes that provided capability, training and experience.

The Defiant was adding something to the mix. Every German aircraft shot down was one less that was going to return for another sortie at a later date. Every German aircraft that was damaged but returned to base was one that was kept from operations for however long until it was fixed, regardless of what shot at it. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

I suspect your expectations are higher than what the RAF had available to it technology and airframe wise. The Defiant couldn't be retired any sooner than it was. Beaufighters were not available in as large numbers and what do you expect to happen once their numbers increased? Same with Mosquitoes. When the first new aircraft arrived on squadron, you didn't get 18 Mosquitoes in one day to replace 18 Defiants and voila! The squadron was ready, so let's get rid of those shitty Defiants! They turned up in small numbers at a time and even after most squadrons received their first Mosquitoes, they were not always able to declare themselves fully operational for weeks afterwards. Had all the Defiants been retired en masse once the first Mosquitoes and larger numbers of Beaufighters appeared, there would have been a severe shortage of useable aircraft. What then? Were the pilots supposed to just sit around until all their Mosquitoes and Beaufighters arrived? One Defiant kill every couple of weeks or so was better than none at all.

Putting a short ranged AI Radar like AI MkIII/IV, with a range of about 4 miles, into an aircraft as was done by the RAF in mid-1940 with Blenhiems and Beaufighters was only part of the story of producing a successful night defence system. First those aircraft had to be brought close enough to use that radar. Hence the need for GCI which was worked on throughout 1940.

The first operational GCI station opened on New Years Day 1941 with 5 more hand built equipments in operation by the end of the month covering the east and south coasts of Britain. This and subsequent pages have some detail.

But each station could only control a single night fighter initially.

The first AI equipped Beaufighters only arrived on front line squadrons in Sept 1940 and production was slow (the 100th aircraft from Filton was produced in early Dec 1940 and the 200th in May 1941, with other factories coming on line in Feb & March 1941. But some of those were for Coastal Command). Full re-equipment of initial NF units took until well into 1941 in many cases.

The first AI equipped Havoc night fighters only arrived with squadrons from April 1941. Night fighter Mosquitoes don't begin to arrive with squadrons until the beginning of 1942 and again deliveries were slow. The first two squadrons flew their first operational sorties at the end of April.

While there was a lull in German night bombing raids over Britain from May 1941 when German attention turned to the USSR it picked up again in April / May 1942 with the Baedeker Blitz. Their final bomber offensive was Operation Steinbock in early 1944

Until AI could become generally available the RAF was prepared to try just about anything to tackle night raiders. So you get Pandora, an aerial mine whose use was attempted from late 1940

While the idea of the Turbinlite might seem bizarre today, it represents a realistic attempt to allow use of single engined day fighters as night fighters in 1941/42.

The Germans were experiencing exactly the same problems countering RAF night raids and developed very similar radar defences. The Kammhuber Line developed from July 1940. Initially using a Freya radar and searchlights to direct the night fighters, it developed to pair 2 Würzburg radars to each Freya, one to control the fighter and the other to track the target. The RAF counter to this was the bomber stream to swamp the system and used from the end of May 1942.

Germany too tried to use single engined fighters at night with its so called Wilde Sau tactics.

nuuumannn said:

"…… Aside from that little quirk, the idea of approaching a bomber from different approach vectors and directing fire in various directions is all very well and good in theory, but it requires a considerable amount of piloting skill and positioning in a extremely fast evolving set of circumstances……"

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I wonder even if teamwork tactics were devised and practiced would early war radios be able to hack the resultant complete attacks?

And

nuuumannn said:

"……that the Bf 110s practised the same Lufbery Circle manoeuvre when attacked by multiple single-seaters."

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A tactic carried on into Viet Nam by A-1 Skyraider pilots when Migs were reported. Must be a method to the madness..

nuuumannn said:

One Defiant kill every couple of weeks or so was better than none at all.

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Except they didn't get a kill every couple of weeks.
Over the winter it was closer to a kill every couple of months.
And those kills were spread out between the several different types of night fighters, so the Defiants weren't scoring much at all.

March was the turning point for the night fighters, with 22 Germans destroyed it was close to the total of the previous 5 months combined.
The first operational use of a Defiant with radar was Sept of 1941, well after the night blitz.

The Defiants did better in April and May but also look at the other numbers.
First Beaufighters show up in Sept as EwenS has noted, but it takes until Dec to get 100 built (not issued) and the 200th built in May with the other production lines contributing a few planes starting Feb and March.

nuuumannn said:

The Defiant surpassed expectation simply because it was able to record kills when the Beaufighter was suffering delay and the Blenheim and Havoc were almost useless.

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Well, as mentioned earlier, scoring 4 kills a month (for all aircraft) in the fall of 1940 with the Germans flying 6,000 sorties a month (and a much worse intercept rate in the next 3 months) it was pretty low expectations. And since success at those odds was pretty much luck. (In Sept of 1940 there were 6 effective Blenheim Squadrons and 3 effective Defiant Squadrons. Only 1/3 of the Blenheims had radar.
The Blenheim was near useless because of lack of speed,
The Havoc was near useless because they didn't put radar in them at this time and because they were just entering British service. Havocs entered service in March of 1941?
Havoc kills are sometimes left out because some of the Havocs were used as intruders and were shooting down German bombers (rarely) over their bases in France. The Intruders were not part of fighter command so kills are sometimes lost.
Of course then the British went off on whole Turbinlite scheme which meant some of Havocs were worse than useless. 70 planes served in number of squadrons (10?) and more were converted but not issued. The Turbinlites had radar but no guns, they were given a search light to illuminate the target/s with for the accompanying Hurricanes to shoot down.

This was after the Night Blitz.
Basically because of the need to convert the ex French aircraft to British standards (change instruments and throttles and such) the Bostons and Havocs didn't get into action in number until around April of 1941.

the Defiant's tale of success is on very thin ice and it depends on careful editing of the dates.
Most successful in which months?

GrauGeist said:

The Me163 hardly qualifies for that list unless it's failure to produce combat results out of 300 built is a factor.

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Its range of 50 miles and its ability to melt/fry its pilots and groundcrew are also factors

GrauGeist said:

At least the Daffy had a better kill record than the Blackburn Roc - which shot down one aircraft during it's career.

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Well, they only built 136 Rocs.

They built 1064 Defiants. Yes they shot down more than eight planes but both planes contributed more as trainers and target tugs than they ever contributed in combat.

Just wasted 9-10 minutes on You tube watching "Rex's hanger" on the Defiant. Time I will never get back.

GrauGeist said:

At least the Daffy had a better kill record than the Blackburn Roc - which shot down one aircraft during it's career.

I cannot begin to imagine the embarrassment and shame the Ju88 pilot must have endured for allowing that to happen...

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The floatplane version of this plane was so slow it couldn't do low level turns for fear of stalling.

The Havocs were converted from DB-7 / 7A ordered by the French. These were converted to either

Intruders - which were radarless and retained the glazed nose. 23 squadron, in Fighter Command, which had been flying intruder missions since Dec 1940, traded its Blenheim 1f in Mar/Apr 1941 for these. Squadron code YP. Supplemented by Boston III from Feb 1942 they were replaced by a batch of specially built Mosquito II intruders from July 1942. 605 squadron also flew some in the intruder role in 1942/43 before trading them for Mosquitos.

Night fighters - these were given a solid nose with extra 0.303" guns (4 or 12) and were fitted with radar. 85 squadron (squadron code VY) began to receive them in Feb 1941 as a replacement for Defiants and initially alongside the Hurricanes it had been using in the night role.


25 squadron also got a few night fighter Havocs to supplement it main Beaufighter equipment between July and Sept 1941.

93 squadron received specially equipped Havoc I from Dec 1940, from 20 conversions, fitted with the Pandora aerial mine for use alongside Harrows and Wellingtons. It disbanded in Dec 1941.

The Havoc Turbinlites were initially flown by 1451-1460 Flights. These operated in co-operation with normal day Hurricane fighter squadrons to provide night defence. In Sept 1942 there was a reorganisation and the Turbinlites and Hurricanes were brought together in the same squadrons, now numbered 530-539. Most of these units also received a few Boston III. All these units were disbanded in Jan 1943.

All of the above, including the intruder squadrons, were part of Fighter Command. The only unit to use Havocs that was not part of Fighter Command, so far as I am aware, was 161 on Special Duties work.

It was the Boston III, ordered by Britain, that became the first A-20 variant to be used by the RAF and Commonwealth Air Forces in its original role as a light bomber from late 1941 with 2 Group Bomber Command in Britain and with the Western Desert Air Force in Egypt.

Thank you for the corrections.

Basically, if I am understanding this, the gun armed Havocs/Boston's only equipped No 23 squadron from March of 1941 on and No 85 Squadron started getting them Feb 1941 and all other use was after the Middle of May when the Night blitz ended?
Germans were still doing some stuff over England at night but at a much reduced rate?

Shortround6 said:

Except they didn't get a kill every couple of weeks.
Over the winter it was closer to a kill every couple of months.
And those kills were spread out between the several different types of night fighters, so the Defiants weren't scoring much at all.

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You're missing the point. Again, and compared to what? Intercept to kill ratios were not high across the board for non radar equipped night fighters in that period. In fact, between September 1940 and April 1941, Defiants shot down more enemy aircraft than radar equipped Blenheims and Havocs.

Shortround6 said:

the Defiant's tale of success is on very thin ice and it depends on careful editing of the dates.
Most successful in which months?

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Does it matter? It was there in numbers and the reason for that lack of ability in your specified time period was (and I guess I am having to repeat myself because someone is ignoring the situation and seeing it from his own jaundiced point of view) systemic because of the conditions under which the aircraft operated. It wasn't the fault of the Defiant that more kills were not scored. It was operational and circumstantial, nothing to do specifically with the Defiant.

Shortround6 said:

They built 1064 Defiants. Yes they shot down more than eight planes but both planes contributed more as trainers and target tugs than they ever contributed in combat.

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Actually I'm not gonna bother pursuing this with you.

So, based on your ham-fisted logic, without the Defiant the RAF would have had around 800 or so fewer night fighters and training aircraft capable of producing experienced night fighters, not to mention fewer German bombers shot down over British skies when Britain needed experienced crews and more night fighters. But that's okay because going on your logic the Defiant contributed nothing...

BlackSheep said:

I wonder even if teamwork tactics were devised and practiced would early war radios be able to hack the resultant complete attacks?

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Following the introduction of the Defiant into service in late 1939, Sqn Ldr Philip Hunter of 264 Sqn devised tactics for operating the Defiant in combat. He even went into one-on-one combat with Bob Stanford Tuck in a Hurricane and through several engagements, Tuck was not able to register a successful kill against Hunter in the Defiant. This is when he applied the Lufbery Circle idea (named after Raoul Lufbery in the Great War, although its origins are uncertain) to Defiants when attacked by enemy fighters. Around this time Dowding was having expressions of doubt about how effective the Defiant would be in actual combat.

Co-ordination between the pilot and gunner was essential, naturally, and in reality, the switch in the turret that toggled fire control between the pilot and gunner was wired in the off position simply because it was a silly idea. In reality, the pilots ferried the gunners around and allowed them to make the calls as to when to fire. This in itself highlights the idea as being inferior to a single-seat interceptor as the Defiant is either ahead, alongside or underneath the aircraft it is attacking.

nuuumannn said:

You're missing the point. Again, and compared to what? Intercept to kill ratios were not high across the board for non radar equipped night fighters in that period. In fact, between September 1940 and April 1941, Defiants shot down more enemy aircraft than radar equipped Blenheims and Havocs.



Does it matter? It was there in numbers and the reason for that lack of ability in your specified time period was (and I guess I am having to repeat myself because someone is ignoring the situation and seeing it from his own jaundiced point of view) systemic because of the conditions under which the aircraft operated. It wasn't the fault of the Defiant that more kills were not scored. It was operational and circumstantial, nothing to do specifically with the Defiant.


"Doesn't matter what you say! I Don't Like it! So There!"

Since you are so certain of this, let's see a break down of British night fighter kills within that period by Defiants, Blenheims, Hurricanes, Havocs and Beaufighters. in the years of 1940/1941.

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We did this back in Sept of 2018.


Unless we have new sources.

"With that said it appears that as a nightfighter The Defiant scored 1 kill in Aug 1940, 1 kill in Sep, 1 in Oct, 0 (?) in Nov and 1 in Dec 1940. Jan saw 1 kill, 2 in Feb,
7 (?) in March followed by 16 (?) in April and 18-19 (?) in May of 1941"

Different source says ALL Night fighters kill 8 planes in Sept-Oct. less than 8 in Nov-Dec-Jan, 22 kills in March, 48 kills in April and 96 in the first 2 weeks of May.

Source (book) with kills broken out by Defiants gives a bit higher total in some months.

My jaundiced point of view understands that the situation was systemic. Nobody was getting kills with anything until March-April of 1941. At least not in any fashion (numbers) that indicate much of anything except pure luck.
Which British plane happened to be flying on a particular night in an area where a ground controller was able to vector the crew to a target and they were able to spot it. Or in some cases the crew may have picked out a target without the aid of ground control.

My objection is the jumping of the systemic failure of the whole system (until March) into accolades for the for the Defiant as the "most successful" based on such a miniscule sampling. Starting in Aug we have 7 kills total for the Defiant through the end of Feb. Perhaps the Defiant did beat whatever plane had the 2nd highest total for those months. But the rate of success is so low that attributing any qualities of the Defiant to the success is like whistling into the wind.

In March the weather got better, the nights got shorter, the ground controllers were getting better (and had better equipment?) and the Beaufighters with radar were, after months of trying, starting to get a few kills. The Havocs don't seem to have done much until Feb-March, if then, that is when they started flying.

As noted 4 years ago the Defiant's claimed about 1/3 of the kills in March (7 out of 22?) and 1/3 of the kills in April (16 out of 48?) and 1/4 of the kills in May (19 out of 96).
I will go with the lower number of kills to make the Defiant look better.


Blenheims were being phased out.
Havocs were in 2 or 3(?) squadrons by May, those that weren't towing explosives around on 2000ft cables.
Hurricanes were flying around but I don't have details.

Roderick Chisholm claimed 5 victories starting 13th of March (2 in one night) and followed within March or early April with 3 more of the 5. By July of 1941 he had a total of 7 victories, one probable and one damaged. This was extraordinary but also shows the change in the dynamic.

The Defiant doesn't go operational with radar until Sept. Fault is with the installation, not the aircraft.
But many accounts tout the Defiant's use of radar in the night fighter role.
They certainly flew with it. They are supposed to have shot down a German plane with it. But it was well after (months after) the Night Blitz.

Useful factoid if you are trying to fill up space in an article of the Defiant. A bit misleading if they leave out the dates or claim that the Defiant was leading the way in late 1941 for night fighters.

The Defiant was used, but the situation wasn't good for any of the types over the winter of 1940-41 and to proclaim the Defiant as "the best" with such a poor sampling (and it's competitors had equally poor sampling) seems more like a PR campaign than a real assessment.

Much like many of the websites and articles on the web repeat the claims of Defiants shooting down 27 or more planes in a single day the Spring of 1940.