Some boffins in the Air Ministry thought highly of turrets. Turret-equipped bombers were supposed to defend themselves against fighter attack, because the guns could shoot it many directions, while fighters with fixed forward-firing guns were limited to straight ahead. They blamed dead bomber crews for losses. Heavy losses. The turret fighter concept originated before these losses, and carried through until the turret fighters suffered heavy losses. They were withdrawn from day combat shortly after beginning of Defiant II production began, and continued. The Defiant served as the most effective RAF night fighter at a time when night fighters were deemed ineffective, so they were the best of the useless. The pilot operated the radar scope, when radar Defiants entered service, so I presume a Hurricane could have been so equipped as well. The Hurricane wasn't an aeronautical tour de force, but its performance edged out the Defiant, although the Hurricane's time as a front line fighter was limited. Its perceived replacement, the Tornado, and Typhoon, awaited the Tempest before being considered satisfactory. A replacement for the Defiant, a twin-engined fighter with 4 cannons in a streamlined turret was tested in scale, and in a wind tunnel, and found ridiculously inadequate. The Defiant wing wasn't designed for guns, and I know of no evidence that a physical attempt was made to insert one. The clumsy undercarriage, the wing joint, the landing lamp and the pitot tube are in the way, and the fuel tanks were where the guns would want to be. They could build a new wing, sure. I never saw an attempt, and the fuel tank still needs a home. A Griffon Defiant is hogwash. Real fighters needed those engines. The marks on the stupid twin Defiant wing are landing lights, not gun ports. What would the BoB look like if the RAF flew an all Defiant Fighter Command? Should the Spits have been converted? If the concept were valid, it would be valid for Spits. It wasn't, and if not for the failure of the Henley as a target tug, Defiants would have been delegated to scrap sooner. Why were the Henleys never fixed?