The Fairey Battle - The Metal Mosquito

Both Hawkers and Supermarine put forward 20mm cannon armed versions of the Hurricane and the Spitfire. This was in response to the specification F.37/35, (the same specification that resulted in the Whirlwind) orders for prototypes were issued to both companies and then cancelled (Someone at the Air Ministry decided that a single engine fighter could not carry four 20mm cannons. But of course the Defiant could carry the drag and weight of a turret) About two years later both companies were instructed to fit cannons to there respective aircraft. Therefore it is a racing certainty that if the Orders to Supermarine and Hawkers to Specification F.37/35 had been left alone there would have been at least some effective 20mm armed RAF fighters in the BoB. The Air Ministry Strikes Again!

I often agree with you - but not here. Yes, Hawker & Supermarine put forward designs for this Spec. but these were quickly cast aside due to them wanted to concentrate on their current production aircraft orders, and wanting to look at other new designs.
Hence, two aircraft were ordered from Boulton-Paul P.88a (Hercules) and P.88b (Vulture), a twin from Supermarine, and two from Westland. Sadly the Treasury, wouldn't provide the funds for so many - hence only the Whirlwind for that Spec. Moreover, you'll see from that - no problem with single-seat cannon fighters, but nb both P.88s had higher h.p. engines than the Merlin.
 
The British built too many Battles based on an obsolete concept, as they kept the Blenheim production going well past prime. The Battle had just a little less wing than a Blenheim, and kept its bomb load in the wings. Armor and self-sealing tanks weren't common yet, and the Blenheim which incorporated these features, the Mark V, or Bisley, was the poorest performer of the lot, and suffered worse. With the accommodation afforded the Bombardier/Observer, one would think that a dive bomber would have offered advantages, per Fulmar or Henley. Engine performance hadn't developed the numbers to validate the fighter-bomber concept yet. Indeed, engine performance didn't allow for 4 cannon installation on single-engine fighters. Hurricanes had just received constant-speed props by the BoB, and some examples still sported fabric wings, which couldn't take an internal cannon. When the Hurricane finally got 4 cannon in the Mark II variant, it's speed was reduced to that of the Mk.I.

I don't recall the performance or survivability of the Potez 63s as being noteworthy, being somewhat limited in the power of 14M engines.

FaireyFaireyBattlez.png
 
Hence, two aircraft were ordered from Boulton-Paul P.88a (Hercules) and P.88b (Vulture), a twin from Supermarine, and two from Westland. Sadly the Treasury, wouldn't provide the funds for so many - hence only the Whirlwind for that Spec. Moreover, you'll see from that - no problem with single-seat cannon fighters, but nb both P.88s had higher h.p. engines than the Merlin.

In any event, did you ever find out what these BPs would have looked like? Also, the early Hercules didn't have more horsepower than the middle Merlin, and the Vulture had less than a late Merlin. Also, they didn't order the aircraft themselves, but rather, proposals, AFAIK.
 
In any event, did you ever find out what these BPs would have looked like? Also, the early Hercules didn't have more horsepower than the middle Merlin, and the Vulture had less than a late Merlin. Also, they didn't order the aircraft themselves, but rather, proposals, AFAIK.

If you have T Butler's BSP - see p34 model & plan drawings - the proposals/designs were studied and evaluated, and as I wrote before five prototypes were ordered, but the Treasury would fund that many, so only the Westland option went ahead.
The Hawker & Supermarine designs were to have a Merlin of about 1.000 hp., the P.88a a Hercules was expected to be 1,500 & the P.88b Vulture 1,750 hp. - granted in the event the early Hercules only managed 1,375 hp. - but later exceeded the 'expected' hp.
 
So perhaps the British should have built a 44.5 liter V-12. What's your take on why the DB-603 had different compression ratios on left and right cylinder banks?

The most common explanation I have seen is manifolding complexities caused by sticking the supercharger asymmetrically on the side of the engine to free up space to accommodate the cannon.

E.g.http://ww2aircraft.net/forum/engines/db603-605-compression-ratio-left-cylinder-blocks-38349.html

To me this is more plausible than the oil splashing explanation but it could be that, or a bit of both, or something else....
 
The British built too many Battles based on an obsolete concept, as they kept the Blenheim production going well past prime. The Battle had just a little less wing than a Blenheim, and kept its bomb load in the wings. Armor and self-sealing tanks weren't common yet, and the Blenheim which incorporated these features, the Mark V, or Bisley, was the poorest performer of the lot, and suffered worse. With the accommodation afforded the Bombardier/Observer, one would think that a dive bomber would have offered advantages, per Fulmar or Henley. Engine performance hadn't developed the numbers to validate the fighter-bomber concept yet. Indeed, engine performance didn't allow for 4 cannon installation on single-engine fighters. Hurricanes had just received constant-speed props by the BoB, and some examples still sported fabric wings, which couldn't take an internal cannon. When the Hurricane finally got 4 cannon in the Mark II variant, it's speed was reduced to that of the Mk.I.

I think that the RAF didn't buy the Battle because it was sticking to an obsolete concept. I think it was because the Battle (and the Blenheim and the Wellesley) were cheaper than the alternatives.

The following costs are extracted from a cabinet paper dated October 1937:

£11,250 Battle
£11,750 Wellesley
£13,500 Blenheim
£18,500 Wellington
£20,000 Hampden
£24,000 Harrow
£30,000 Whitley

The figures include airframe, engine(s), aircraft equipment (instruments, &c) and armament, other than bombs and ammunition.

I suspect that the RAF really wanted a bomber force consisting of twin or even quadruple engined bombers in 1932, which is when it issued the specification (P.27/32) that the Battle was built to. If more money had been available in the second half of the 1930s it would have bought more Hampdens and Wellingtons, which were also designed to a 1932 specification (B.9/32) in place of the Blenheim and Wellesley as well as the Battle.

The Battle, Blenheim and Wellington were kept in production for as long as they were because of delays to the bombers built to the specifications issued in 1935 and 1936. That is the Halifax, Lancaster/Manchester, Stirling, Supermarine B.12/36 and Warwick.
 
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Handley Page Super Hampden

From Handley Page Aircraft since 1907 by C.H. Barnes
Although the Hampden was not developed to the same extent as the Wellington, proposals were made in November 1938 for a variant with a wider fuselage and either Merlin XX or Hercules engines, to carry 2,000 lb of bombs at an all up weight of 21,000 lb and a maximum speed of 315 mph. When Handley Page offered to produce this variant by arrangement with Textile Machinery Ltd in Lancashire and Briggs Bodies at Dagenham, Tedder replied that "the Air Staff would leap at such a bomber if available immediately, but could not wait 15-18 months before delivery, so they declined the offer; what they wanted as early as possible from Handley Page was plenty of Halifaxes." Later proposals by Handley Page for a Hampden development to meet specification B.7/40 where similarly refused.
The maximum speed has to be taken with caution as many aircraft didn't perform as well as the manufacturer's estimate. On the other hand its performance would probably improve as more powerful Hercules and Merlin engines became available.

I'm surprised that the "Super Hampden" could only carry 2,000 lb of bombs as the standard aircraft, which had a narrower fuselage could carry 4,000 lb of bombs.

The Hampden could carry 4,000 lb of bombs for 1,200 miles, whereas the Battle could only carry 1,000 lb for 1,050 miles.

It was also faster than the Battle, 254 m.p.h. at 13,800 ft vs 241 m.p.h. at 13,000 ft.

The Blenheim IV could carry 1,000 lb if bombs for was 1,460 miles, but a Hampden could carry 2,000 lb of bombs for 1,885 miles. However, the Blenheim IV was faster with a maximum speed of 266 m.p.h. at 11,800 ft.

Is this the likely performance range of a Twin Battle with 1,000 hp Merlin engines?
 
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I suppose what I meant to say is that the Battle production was an easy way to build up numbers in service aircraft to meet various "schemes" without paying any attention to their validity as combat aircraft. A better Hampton would fail under the same criteria.

The Mosquito entered service with a 2000 lb bomb load. Things change.
 
I must admit this topic made me look a bit closer at the Battle. A twin engine Battle not unarmed, but just following the rough range and armament specification would have been something, certainly more survivable, in fact my idea is a twin engine Battle could be similar to Potez-63.

The question is, when the RAF changes the requirement for a third crew member, do they redesign it to put him in the nose, or still in a long canopy with a solid nose? Next issue is engines, if they use TWO Merlins, then obviously for the same engine production they could only build 1100, not as OTL 2200 Battles, to build more they need more engines, plus the aircraft itself will be a bit bigger and heavier, maybe 50%. So what gives way, is there any spare capacity somewhere that can be used in the 1936-1940 timeframe, maybe a different engine that can be used?
It would be 2,200 Twin Battles.

As far as I can remember British rearmament policy at the time was for Anglo-French parity with the Luftwaffe in terms of the number of aircraft, not their quality. RAF Expansion Scheme F of February 1936 specified a home defence bomber force of 70 squadrons with 1,022 aircraft plus a reserve of 225% by 31st March 1939. Of these 25 squadrons with 402 aircraft were to be equipped with Battles and 14 squadrons with 252 aircraft were to be equipped with Blenheims. However, a smaller number of Hampdens, Wellingtons and Whitleys would have carried a greater weight of bombs.

Therefore ITTL the Treasury is somehow persuaded to cough up the money required for a one-to-one substitution of the standard Battle with the Twin Battle.

Furthermore Rolls Royce is subsidised to build more factory space needed to make the 2,200-odd extra Merlin engines. Even if the Twin Battle is not significantly more successful than the real Battle that would be a useful increase in Merlin production capacity. That may for example encourage the Air Ministry to allow Avro to build the Manchester III (Lancaster) sooner and provide Armstrong Whitworth with the engines to switch over from the Whitley (2 Merlins in later marks to the Lancaster (4 Merlins) sooner.

Still i guess 1100 Merlin powered twin engined Battles would be far more valuable than 2200 OTL Battles. For starters, nothwithstanding much increased survivability in 1939-40, they would be excellent nightfighters, so instead of Blenheim Mk IF you have Battle Mk IF, not to mention that very likely they will still be built in improved versions and developments after 1940, until the Mosquito come online at least.
That's what I'm hoping for. That is it would have the same development potential as the Spitfire and be kept in production alongside its intended replacements. It might even be kept in production instead of the Mosquito.

Things is though, do the Blenheim, Beaufort and Beaufighters still exist in this TL, does it make sense to build the twin engine Battle at the same time as Blenheim?
The Twin Battle is built in place of all of the above, but probably in the same factories. Furthermore there would probably be some marks with Mercury, Taurus and Hercules engines in place of the Blenheim, Beaufort and Beauforts with Hercules engines. However, if might be possible to get more Twin Hercules Battles in place of the Twin Taurus Battles that would otherwise be built instead of the Beauforts.

Alternatively, an idea i was toying was to have this twin engine Battle as small as possible and with "contemporary" bit smaller engines like improved Kestrel family, crew in long canopy and solid nose, pretty much the same as the Potez-63 i was mentioning earlier. Maybe in this TL one can have more attention and resources diverted to the Kestrel engine family culminating in the Peregrine which perhaps can be fixed quicker, so hopefully one can have almost the same number of Battles built (say 1500) plus 3000 smaller Kestrel/Peregrine type engines instead of 2000 Merlins. Ideas, ideas...
I hadn't thought of that, but it sounds to me like building the Whirlwind 5 years earlier, but with Kestrels in place of the Peregrine or bringing the Gloster Reaper forward 5 years.


That might be feasible as the Reaper was built to a 1937 specification, but was originally proposed to meet one issued in 1934. I have considered substituting the Reaper for the Battle, Blenheim, et al by having the Air Ministry order prototypes for the 1934 version instead of the Gloster F.5/34. However, having Fairey design a better Battle makes the allocation of production contracts simpler.
 
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I suppose what I meant to say is that the Battle production was an easy way to build up numbers in service aircraft to meet various "schemes" without paying any attention to their validity as combat aircraft. A better Hampton would fail under the same criteria.

The Mosquito entered service with a 2000 lb bomb load. Things change.

I agree.

I don't know if it was the plan, but what effectively happened was that the new squadrons were formed on unsatisfactory existing aircraft to train the personnel and build up the factory capacity for the types that would fight the war. But the war came earlier than planned and the replacement aircraft took longer than intended to develop or were failures. This forced the RAF to fight the first half of the war with the interim types. Fortunately the German replacement programme fared even worse than the British.

Having said that if the extra money needed to substitute the standard Hampden for the Battle and Blenheim had been spent the result would probably have been the same loss rate due to its similar performance. However, the tonnage of bombs dropped per aircraft lost would be much higher.
 
It's really wonderful that you're changing RAF equipment from mediocre and poor into illusory, unknown and unproven, but it would probably be helpful if you could align these forces with a fresh and functional tactical doctrine as written by Mary Coningham in 1942, and align the equipment to suit the task.
 
Extract from Aircraft for the Few - The RAF's Fighters and Bombers in 1940 by Michael J.F. Bowyer
"If only..." History is littered with that sentiment, very well applied to the Fairey Battle saga. There wasn't all that much wrong with the aircraft; indeed, it featured rugged advanced construction, a retractable undercarriage - and a famous "Merlin", in which rested its undoing for the Battle was conceived to take the much more powerful Griffon. Griffon? In 1933, I hear you say? Yes, but not the Griffon engine of Spitfire days, but a predecessor of the same name, a development of the engine which propelled the Schneider winner. When that engine faltered in 1934 Fairey turned to a powerful and too advanced complex engine of their own making. When that too became a non-starter the company was forced to opt for the Merlin which gave out 800 less horse power. Little wonder the aeroplane, far too large for a 1,000 hp engine, was hardly a success.
Can anyone out there estimate the performance of the Fairey Battle with one 1,800hp engine?

Presumably a Battle redesigned around two 1,000 hp Merlins would not be as fast as the single Griffon version, because it would be heavier and less aerodynamic.

The dimensions of the Battle as built were rather similar to the Bf110. That is:

Wing span: 54 feet for the Battle vs 53⅓ feet for the Bf110C-1

Wing area: 422 square feet for the Battle vs 413⅓ feet for the Bf110C-1

Overall Length: 42¼ feet for the Battle vs 39½ feet for the Bf110C-1

Overall Height: 15½ feet for the Battle vs 13½ for the Bf110C-1

The Battle was considerably lighter than the Bf110, probably due to the second engine and the extra fuel it needed:

Empty weight: 6,647 lb vs 10,770 lb making the Bf110C-1 60% heavier in this condition.

Loaded weight: 10,792 lb vs 13,294 lb making the Bf110C-1 23% heavier in this condition.

The Bf110 was designed and built in the same timeframe. That is the Battle prototype made its first flight in March 1936 and the Bf110V1 two month later.

Although that might not at first sight seem to be much of a recommendation, but:

The Bf110C had two DB601 engines giving it slightly more than double the power of the Battle, 2,100hp vs 1,030hp.

That gave it:

A maximum level speed of 336mph at 19,685 feet against only 241mph at 13,000 feet.

A cruising speed of 304mph at 16,405 feet against 210 mph for the Battle (at height not given in Putnams Aircraft of the RAF where I got the Battle data from).

The Bf110C-1 had a better time to height of 10.2 minutes to 19,685 feet against 21.4 minutes to 20,000 feet for the Battle.

The Bf110C-1 had a service ceiling of 32,810 feet against the Battle's 23,500 feet.

The only area in which it was inferior to the Battle was its range, that is 680 miles against the Battle's 1,050 feet.

Conclusion

A Twin Merlin Battle probably wouldn't perform as well as the Bf110C because it's likely to be heavier due to carrying 1,000 lbs of bombs internally and the extra fuel needed for the 50% greater range. However, there is likely to be a considerable improvement over the real Battle.
 
Can anyone out there estimate the performance of the Fairey Battle with one 1,800hp engine?


The dimensions of the Battle as built were rather similar to the A-35 Vengence. That is:

Wing span: 54 feet for the Battle vs 48 feet for the A-35

Wing area: 422 square feet for the Battle vs 332 feet for the A-35

Overall Length: 42¼ feet for the Battle vs 39 9in feet for the A-35

Overall Height: 15½ feet for the Battle vs 15 4in for the A-35


Empty weight: 6,647 lb vs 9725 lb making the A-35 32% heavier in this condition.

Loaded weight: 10,792 lb vs 16,400 lb making the A-35 34% heavier in this condition.


The A-35 had a R-2600 engine giving it 1,700hp vs 1,030hp.

That gave it:

A maximum level speed of 279mph at 11,685 feet against only 241mph at 13,000 feet.

A cruising speed of 235mph against 210 mph for the Battle


The range was better on the A-35 to the Battle in range, that is 1,400 miles against the Battle's 1,050 miles


So the A-35 had self sealing tanks, more armor, forward firing guns, and had the engine been a V12, the streamlining would have added 30-40mph to the top speed.

It still would have been chewed up by Bf-109s in 1940, but fewer losses due to the better protection
 
So the A-35 had self sealing tanks, more armor, forward firing guns, and had the engine been a V12, the streamlining would have added 30-40mph to the top speed.

It still would have been chewed up by Bf-109s in 1940, but fewer losses due to the better protection

Thanks, very interesting. So the maximum speed of a Battle with a Griffon producing 1,800hp might have been in the region of 310-320 mph. Would the Battle's greater wing area vs the Vengeance been an asset or liability?
 
The Fairey Firefly achieved 315-319 mph on a Griffon engine, but it had 9.5 feet less span and a more refined wing of 328 sq. feet, and was shorter. It also had a crew of 2.
 
Thanks, very interesting. So the maximum speed of a Battle with a Griffon producing 1,800hp might have been in the region of 310-320 mph. Would the Battle's greater wing area vs the Vengeance been an asset or liability?

Would have helped with load lifting, one of the downsides of the A-35, lowering wingloading when fully loaded with bombs and fuel.

The Battle had more wing area than even the Douglas Skyraider(2700HP), though less than the Martin Mauler(3000HP)
 
The Vengeance wing was a peculiar shape because they got the CG wrong. The wing was also fitted with a neutral angle of incidence, that is, no lift, to make it a better dive bomber, meaning the aircraft had to fly nose-high, spoiling front visibility, and inducing extra drag. It was the opposite of the Whitley bomber, which had too high an angle of incidence, and flew nose to the ground. The Whitley problem was solved by flaps, but the wing stayed. The Vengeance problem could have been solved by clever dive flaps, but wasn't. It, too, wasn't the aircraft it could have been.

Presuming that the P.4/34 or the Henley would have been better, I think a smaller wing on a different airframe would be ideal, and add armor and self-sealing tanks. But both of these could have been dive-bombers, like the Vengeance, and was regarded with disdain at the time. When they finally ordered one, it was a loser, although the other one, the Brewster was worse.
 
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