WI: both Hawker Fury and Gloster Gladiator conceived as monoplanes?

These are the Gloster production statistics for 1937-40 from Putnams Gloster Aircraft.

1937 - 265 aircraft (12 Gauntlet, 252 Gladiator and one F.5/34)
1938 - 169 aircraft (158 Gladiator, one F.5/34 and 10 Henley)
1939 - 524 aircraft (320 Gladiator, 171 Henley, 32 Hurricane and one F.9/37)
1940 - 1,247 aircraft (16 Gladiator, 19 Henley, 1,211 Hurricane and one F.9/37)

In the past I've wanted to have more Hurricanes built instead of the Gladiator and Henley, but if the monoplane Gloster builds instead of the Gladiator was as good as we think it could be then it would make sense for Gloster to keep building it instead of the Henley and Hurricane. That probably means more aircraft built in 1938 and 1939 because Gloster doesn't have to tool up to build 2 new types of aircraft (i.e. the Henley and its cousin the Hurricane).

However, if the Gloster monoplane is as good as we think it could be, then the Hurricane and/or the Spitfire might be cancelled because the RAF usually standardised on one or two types.

In the middle of 1936 the RAF wanted 900 F.5/34 fighters by the end of March 1939 to equip a front-line of 294 aircraft (21 squadrons of 14) backed up by a reserve of 225%. IOTL it ordered 310 Spitfires and 600 Hurricanes.

However, ITTL at least 203 Gloster monoplanes were on order out of the 581 that were eventually built for the RAF and RN instead of the Gladiator. Therefore it would have been logical for the Air Ministry to order about 100 extra Gloster monoplanes from Gloster instead of the Spitfire. The Air Ministry could be more confident about Gloster completing the contract on time than Supermarine. The Gloster monoplane was already in production and Gloster had 15 years experience of building aircraft in those quantities. Between 1920 and 1936 it built 1,000 aircraft while over the same period Supermarine had only built about 175 aircraft, although many of them were twin-engine flying boats that were much larger and more expensive than the aircraft Gloster built.

IOTL the 310th Spitfire and 600th Hurricane were both delivered 6 months late.
 
The non-production of Hurricanes at Gloster means there is more Merlin engines around, so installation of the Merlin on the Gloster fighter is sorta natural progression. We'd probably have the 'British MC.202/205' here - a fighter of modest proportions, once powered by a 840+ HP engine, gets the ever better V-12 engines, hence keeping itself competitive. The 6-8 gun armament would've probably progressed to 2 cannons and 4 Brownings, ie. like most of the mid-war Spitfires. If we get the performance figures close to the Spitfire with same HP (say 350 mph on Merlin III, 360-370 MPH on Merlin 45) that gets us the fighter that can trump earlier Italian and IJA adversaries, while not being a cannon fodder for the best Germany and later Italy and Japan can throw in. Also means Spitfire is not a must for Mediterranean and Asia/Pacific. VVS also fares better with it, than with historical Hurricane.

Hopefully, once it is realized that Hurricane runs the 3rd after the Gloster and Spitfire, FAA gets the Sea Hurricane and/or Seafire earlier and perhaps more tweaked for it's needs?
 
I don't think non-production of Hurricanes at Gloster means more Merlin engines around necessarily, but will probably mean that Spitfire production will be halted during the production difficulty period, or limited in quatity, as was the consideration at the time, to concentrate on more easily developed Hawker and Gloster aircraft, and this, indeed, will mean more Merlins available.
 
If Gloster builds a Mercury powered retractable undercarriage monoplane (effectively the G.38) to Spec. F.7/30 instead of the Gladiator, it would then be logical for the firm to have proposed the G.39 (powered by the Kestrel or Mercury instead of the Peregrine and Taurus) to Spec. F.5/33. IOTL the prototype flew in April 1939, but with the 4 year head start ITTL it could have flown as early as April 1935. That's the same month as when the Bristol 142 flew and 9 months before the Fairey Battle prototype flew.
 
I'd not thought of that and Hawker did take over Gloster in 1934 so I suppose Hawker could have forced Gloster to decline the Air Ministry order for a prototype. However, Hawker didn't force Gloster to turn down the order for 2 F.5/34 prototypes at about the same time IOTL, even though it was in competition with what would become the Hurricane. Furthermore Hawker did not submit a design to F.5/33 so Gloster would not be taking any work away from Hawker.

IOTL one prototype was ordered to F.5/33. This was the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.34 K5061 ordered to Contract no. 356293/34. However, the project was cancelled before the prototype was completed. ITTL I'm proposing that the Air Ministry orders a prototype from Gloster instead.
 
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