... and if you want to invest in a cannon armed bomber destroyer, you really can't go wrong with this.
Bombers as Interceptors?
- Thread starter Delta Force
- Start date
Backfires armed with AAMs attacking RN carriers in the North Sea manage to surprise and down several Harriers in the book the "War That Never Was."
http://www.amazon.com/The-War-That-Never-Was/dp/0918339790
End of the war?
The Bristol Beaufighter was using AI radar to find and kill Luftwaffe bombers in the winter of 1940/41, and the single engine Defiant was first equipped with AI Radar in 1941.
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You are still going to have a bigger gun to accomodate a larger barrel and a new ammunition feed system. According to wiki (I know, I know...) the B-20 came in at around 50 pounds and the comparable 20mm Hispano at on 43 pounds. The original 12.7mm Berezin UB weighed 47 pounds. I don't think that's a weapon the RAF are going to find easy to mount.
A comparison of 20mm and 12.7mm ammuniton.
I'm afraid you got pounds and kilograms mixed up. The B-20 was 25 kg (13 kg lighter than M2 Browning) and the HS 404 43 kg, not 43 pounds. The B-20 fired a round with the same cartridge length as. 50 BMG but with a larger shell. The only downsides were low gun life and low muzzle velocity, but if you're treating the entire gun as a consumable and going after slow bombers those aren't problems.
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The Bristol Beaufighter in 1940-1942 was a very effective night fighter because being faster than the Do 17 and He 111 bombers and that four-cannon 20 mm installation resulted in a lot of Luftwaffe losses operating at night. The Do 217 and Ju 88 could in the right circumstances outrun the Beaufighters, but from the fall of 1942 on the arrival of the Mosquito NF versions made night bombing of the UK very dangerous. Indeed, the Mosquito NF's fought against the Ju 88C/G and Do 217 J/N night fighters over Germany later the in war.
Ah, so I did. That's what I get for taking info from English and German wiki whilst trying to do three other things at the same time.
The muzzel velocity issue is going to be important. For example, the German Mark 108 30mm was notorious for the long flight time of its shells and their downward curving trajectory. This will put any attacking fighter well within the range of bomber's defensive guns.
Also, fitting .50 calibre guns in the tail turret of a Lancaster caused big issues. The heavier guns required a lot more torque to traverse the turret.
Giants fighting
US Navy Patrol aircraft actually shot down Japanese patrol aircraft on occasion
in this case, a PB4Y shooting down a Japanese Emily Flying Boat
https://books.google.com/books?id=u...=pb4y shooting down emily flying boat&f=false
US Navy Patrol aircraft actually shot down Japanese patrol aircraft on occasion
in this case, a PB4Y shooting down a Japanese Emily Flying Boat
https://books.google.com/books?id=u...=pb4y shooting down emily flying boat&f=false
Actually, the Whirlwind was pretty much a dead end. Expensive, maintenance intensive, and with almost no development potential.
... and if you want to invest in a cannon armed bomber destroyer, you really can't go wrong with this.
Driftless
Donor
From the Smithsonian Air & Space emag:
"The War's (WW2) Oddest Dogfight"
A shootout over the Atlantic west of Portugal between a B-24D Liberator and two FW-200 Condors.
"The War's (WW2) Oddest Dogfight"
A shootout over the Atlantic west of Portugal between a B-24D Liberator and two FW-200 Condors.
I'll bite, what's the story?
I'm betting it was the Germans flying the B-17. That they captured.
On the same scale of epic there is the RAAF Shorts Sunderland flying boat that was attacked by 8 Ju-88's over the Bay of Biscay in 1943. The Sunderland got home, at least three of the Ju-88's didn't.
... and if you want to invest in a cannon armed bomber destroyer, you really can't go wrong with this.
AKA the "Crikey", supposedly/officially for it's performance in an advertisement for Shell which used the term, but possibly also for what people said when they first saw it
That's the legend anyway.Also shared a designer with the Canberra, Gnat and Lightning.
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The Whirlwind is wonderful whif- fodder, but it really does need alternate reality to live up to its potential, it was never a great interceptor, with engines that did not function well at altitude, small fuel tanks not cross connected, it was already a quart in a pint pot with little further room for growth- a great fighter- bomber, but with the poor altitude performance of the Peregrines in no way qualified as an interceptor.
The same project that looked at sea dart armed Vulcans also looked at an armed airliner, the Vickers VC 10, under the codename 'pofflers'- well, you're not going to guess what it means, are you? It actually became favoured for two main reasons, it had a greater potential loiter time, and it was more economical to run. Yes, even the VC 10.
The same project that looked at sea dart armed Vulcans also looked at an armed airliner, the Vickers VC 10, under the codename 'pofflers'- well, you're not going to guess what it means, are you? It actually became favoured for two main reasons, it had a greater potential loiter time, and it was more economical to run. Yes, even the VC 10.
I actually don't disagree with you, but I was thinking slightly differently. As far as a planner in the late 1930s was concerned, the Whirlwind was a logical and hopefully effective way to bring cannon against enemy bombers. They didn't anticipate the engine problems or the inability of RR to devote time to curing them. It would certainly have been a much better option than an attempt at a cannon armed turret fighter.
And talking of dead ends, here is a Wimpy with a 40mm S gun turret.
Riain
Banned
The Whirlwind suffered from a lack development rather than any major problems in design, the engines in particular could have been improved with RR supercharger development. It carried some 133 gallons of fuel, compared to the Spitfire's 90 gallons, so had respectable range and there were proposals to fit another fuel tank in the fuselage which would have extended the range even further.
It is actually an inversion of the OP; an interceptor that became a bomber. There are timelines in which it reaches its' promise- seaborne command RNAS would be rather lost without it- but in reality, it was the air ministry's reaction to the Battle of France, and Beaverbrook's reaction, that deprioritized it and prevented it getting the attention it needed.
The ministry may have over- reacted slightly, a couple of small babies were thrown out with the bathwater; Whirlwind being one of them, and what should have been the next generation of bombers, higher and faster VHA types- and there lies an interesting possibility.
At high altitude, in thin air, a lot of fighters have problems- big wings are a real advantage. The missile age closes down high altitude bombing, but there is a window, which nearly but not quite coincides with the second world war, and connects to some of the ideas earlier in the thread- B-36's dropping bombs on Tu-4's, so on.
If the aircraft progress a little faster, more priority and funding, you could end up with a couple of years of the second world war where very high altitude, stratospheric bombing becomes common, and single engine fighters simply can't get to that altitude with enough performance margin left to fight; even the mediums converted to night fighters might not be up for it, and there we are in the realm of bomber repurposed as interceptor.
The ministry may have over- reacted slightly, a couple of small babies were thrown out with the bathwater; Whirlwind being one of them, and what should have been the next generation of bombers, higher and faster VHA types- and there lies an interesting possibility.
At high altitude, in thin air, a lot of fighters have problems- big wings are a real advantage. The missile age closes down high altitude bombing, but there is a window, which nearly but not quite coincides with the second world war, and connects to some of the ideas earlier in the thread- B-36's dropping bombs on Tu-4's, so on.
If the aircraft progress a little faster, more priority and funding, you could end up with a couple of years of the second world war where very high altitude, stratospheric bombing becomes common, and single engine fighters simply can't get to that altitude with enough performance margin left to fight; even the mediums converted to night fighters might not be up for it, and there we are in the realm of bomber repurposed as interceptor.
The Luftwaffe experimented with this basic premise in a small way OTL with the Ju86P, but found that they had difficulty landing the aircraft's miniscule bombload in the same county as the target from nearly 40,000 feet.
This was the catalyst for the development of the Vickers Type 432 (which looked good but really wasn't)...
Well, that makes the 86P no worse than early bomber command, so maybe there's development potential in there yet.
the Welkin, supposedly, found itself in coffin corner very easily- at fighting altitude it was in the tip of it's flight envelope, maximum speed and stalling speed very close together and limited room for fighter like manoeuvre; the wing was too thick and draggy, a larger more conventional shape (see; four engined fighter) should have been better.
the 432 is weird- it looks right, it should have flown right; was what was wrong with it more than merely teething troubles? The Whirlwind probably couldn't have been re- engined without major reconstruction of the wing, but moving from one mark of Merlin to another should have been feasible.
Surprising that it was the Spit that ultimately proved the best prop VHA fighter, though.
the Welkin, supposedly, found itself in coffin corner very easily- at fighting altitude it was in the tip of it's flight envelope, maximum speed and stalling speed very close together and limited room for fighter like manoeuvre; the wing was too thick and draggy, a larger more conventional shape (see; four engined fighter) should have been better.
the 432 is weird- it looks right, it should have flown right; was what was wrong with it more than merely teething troubles? The Whirlwind probably couldn't have been re- engined without major reconstruction of the wing, but moving from one mark of Merlin to another should have been feasible.
Surprising that it was the Spit that ultimately proved the best prop VHA fighter, though.