Well before WW2, the RAF realised that the increasing speeds and toughness of aircraft would call for something more powerful than the .303 MG. Extensive tests in the 1920s of Browning and Vickers .50 calibre HMGs and of the Oerlikon Type S 20mm cannon had provided important information about effectiveness. At that time, a battery of .303s was chosen as the best option (contemporary aircraft being lightly built and unarmoured), but by the mid-1930s it was recognised that a bigger gun was needed. The .50 HMGs were rejected as "neither fish nor fowl" as they were much heavier and slower firing than the .303s, but did not have the benefit of an effective HE shell, and the RAF decided to look for a 20mm cannon. In 1936 RAF staff witnessed a demonstration of the prototype of the French Hispano-Suiza HS.404 in Paris, and thereafter entirely focused their attention on this weapon.
Much effort was made to get the Hispano cannon into service. An ACAS report in November 1938 stated that "recent firing trials against armoured and unarmoured aeroplanes have convinced me that a more powerful weapon than the .303 must be introduced into service as soon as possible; this factor is so important that the policy for development and production must be laid down at once....The 20mm calibre is the minimum which can be accepted....The Hispano gun should be regarded as the immediate step forward...every effort should be made to ensure rapid production." Interest was also expressed in developing a gun of at least 37mm calibre in the longer term, capable of bringing down an aircraft with one hit.
Despite the high priority given to the Hispano, the problems associated with acquiring manufacturing rights, redesigning the gun to imperial rather than metric measurements, setting up a factory and debugging the weapons, delayed the Hispano's general introduction into service until after the Battle was over.
However, one squadron (No.19) of Spitfire Mk 1B fighters, each armed with two Hispanos, was thrown into battle in June 1940. The results were disastrous; the gun did not respond well either to being mounted on its side (done to bury the top-mounted drum magazine within the thin wing) or to being installed in a flexible wing instead of to the rigid engine block it was designed for. Reliability was so poor that the squadron asked for its .303-armed Spitfires back. Later on, the Hispano would be fully debugged and became arguably the best fighter gun of the war, but it was too late when it was needed most!