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AFAIK the Fairey Battle was designed around the Griffon I, but Rolls Royce cancelled that engine to concentrate on the Merlin. Fairey tried to produce a sufficiently powerful engine of its own, but that was cancelled too so that the Battle had to be fitted with a Merlin engine.

If Operational Requirement 7 and Specification P.27/32 had allowed twin-engine aircraft could Fairey have produced an unarmed very fast bomber designed around 2 Merlin engines? This would effectively be a "Metal Mosquito," but available 5 years earlier.

To paraphrase Oscar Goldman, "Did they have the technology?"

The "Twin Battle" that enters service in 1937 will only have Merlins in the 1,000hp class so it's performance won't be as good as the Mosquito, whose engines produced at least 25% more horsepower. However, it should still be a significant improvement over the real Battle and for that matter the Blenheim.
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