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I was just looking at the wikipedia article on the Westland Whirlwind after reading the design an aeroplane thread and it's raised some questions.
The Whirlwind was a heavy fighter armed with four 20mm cannon, at a time when most of it's contempories had nothing more than rifle calibre machine guns, however it's engine, the Rolls-Royce Peregrine, proved unreliable in service, and the Whirlwind never had the high altitude performance needed to match the Hurricane and Spitfire.
That said the Whirlwind was a very effective plane at low altitude and as an attack aircraft. If the wiki article is correct it was a particularly nasty surprise to German E-Boats and supply trains, perhaps more so than it's successor the Hawker Typhoon.
So what if this rather underated plane was given more of a chance by the RAF? What if the Peregrine was developed a bit more? Would the Whirlwind have become the Stuka of the Allies?