WI: Hawker Henley as a viable combat aircraft?

[tomo pauk]

Hello,
Let's suppose that Hawker managed to get good deal(s) for the Henley from either RAF or RN, if not both. What kind of useage we might expect from a properly developed monoplane bomber? Maybe shave the bomb bay and it's doors, so RN can lug a torpedo under it? Or, make a night fighter once better Merlins are available? Two-seat Naval fighter?

 

[The Wooksta!]

The Henley was a perfectly viable combat aircraft - it was designed to a light bomber spec that was cancelled. It would have been more use in France than the Battle, although given the numbers of 109s that were littering the skies losses would likely have been heavy.

I've a kit of one somewhere that'll end up as a 2TAF communications aircraft, in the late war colours and roundels, complete with four blade prop and 6 stack exhausts.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

It would have been the ideal replacement for the Skua as a dive bomber.

 

[tomo pauk]

With a better Merlin on-board (Mk.XX and subsequent) - a tough target to catch for the IJN/IJA pilots in their Zeros, Oscars, let alone Nates and Claudes? (I'm using those descriptive names beacuse they sound cool )

 

[Don Quijote]

With a better Merlin on-board (Mk.XX and subsequent) - a tough target to catch for the IJN/IJA pilots in their Zeros, Oscars, let alone Nates and Claudes? (I'm using those descriptive names beacuse they sound cool )

Interesting point there, when you think of the Henley going into combat service you think of it as a replacement for the Battle, but I've never looked at it from the Pacific/Far East angle. The Vultee Vengeance was the OTL successful 'jungle dive bomber' in Burma, but the Henley would be available earlier. Also, given the often primitive aircraft servicing conditions and the fact that Hurricanes were also in the Burma theatre, the wing interchangeability would be useful there too perhaps.

 

[Just Leo]

I've done a few studies on the Henley since it is prime alternate history material. It didn't do anything but it could have been something. It wasn't as good as we think it was, but could have been better than what actually was. I never took a liking to he original cockpit canopy. I don't think a torpedo was an option, and I don't think it could run away from a Zeke, but it could have stood in for a Vengeance with a vengeance, and with those oft-cited planned folding wings, could have served from a deck. Engine options include Merlin XX power egg, Griffon and Hercules.

Funny thing is that the target tug had insufficient cooling, while nobody thought it was important enough a flaw to correct since only a few died flying it. I don't believe it had self-sealing tanks or armor, and armament, although possible, never was installed, nor was a bomb crutch. It could dive bomb at 70 degrees, but no hint on effectiveness, of course. What it did have was potential.

 

[merlin]

As it wasn't ordered for the specified role, the fact that it didn't have this or that, doesn't mean that if it had been ordered for that role, doesn't mean it still would not have. Seems quite plausible to have things such dive-brakes and bomb crutch on the developed production aircraft.
I did a similar thread some years ago - not accepting posts, unfortunately, the webpage link there to art-work of the Henley in various guises, does not work.
It could have been a Skua replacement, interesting to wonder about it in action in the Desert, and would it have done any better than the Battle in France - maybe mixed formations of Hurricanes & Henleys!

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The Fairey rival to Specification P.4/34, which produced the Hawker Henley, became the Fairey Fulmar. Make of that what you will.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

It should be noted that the Fairey P.4/34 lost out to the Henley in the competition for a Battle replacement. It was only after that that Fairey turned it into a Naval Fighter.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I've got to like the Henley, such versatility and opportunities for different roles.

Here's the Henley with 40mm cannon, ideal for CAS.

Naval fighter http://beyondthesprues.com/Forum/index.php?topic=312.0

With Vulture engine...

Internal bombay is ideal for temporary fuel cells.

Could the Henley replace the Vengeance in RAF India?

 

[Just Leo]

Here's the Henley with 40mm cannon, ideal for CAS.

Hawker Hurricane IID with Vickers S gun fitted with littlejohn squeezebore adaptor for trial, May 1944, and found wanting.

 

[yulzari]

The Henley is a popular WI subject but it carried no more than a Hurribomber could and was, effectively, a Hurricane carting around more weight. The published figures were without armour or self sealing tanks and the Hurricane was falling behind the development curve by late 1940. I would plump for more Hurricanes in Hurribomber form as a better choice. Yes I do know that the Hurribomber was post BoB but there was nothing to stop it happening earlier other than the prevailing doctrine.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

It should be noted that the Fairey P.4/34 lost out to the Henley in the competition for a Battle replacement. It was only after that that Fairey turned it into a Naval Fighter.

Correct.

However, the Fulmar is not remembered as a great combat aircraft and I have the feeling that the Henley would have suffered the same fate had it been used in combat. The Henley would have been an improvement on the Fairey P.4/34s older and bigger brother the Battle, but I have a feeling that the Luftwaffe's Bf109s would have been shot the Henley to pieces just as easily as they did the Battle.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The Henley is a popular WI subject but it carried no more than a Hurribomber could and was, effectively, a Hurricane carting around more weight. The published figures were without armour or self sealing tanks and the Hurricane was falling behind the development curve by late 1940. I would plump for more Hurricanes in Hurribomber form as a better choice. Yes I do know that the Hurribomber was post BoB but there was nothing to stop it happening earlier other than the prevailing doctrine.

What I do is change the RAF's army co-operation doctrine between 1934 when the Henley and Lysander prototypes were ordered and 1936 when both types were ordered into production.

Expansion Scheme F still has 11 army co-operation squadrons, but instead of 2 Blenheim squadrons for strategic reconnaissance and 9 Lysander squadrons for AOP and LL there were 2 Blenheim SR squadrons, a number of Auster flights for AOP and LL plus 9 Hurricane fighter-bomber squadrons for close air support.

IOTL the Henleys were built by Gloster, which was also building Gladiators and Hurricanes at the same time. ITTL it built 200 Hurricanes instead of the 200 Henleys and more Hurricanes instead of some of the later Gladiators.

However, IOTL Westland built Spitfires and Seafires after Lysander production terminated. Rather than have the firm build Hurricanes instead of the Lysander and then re-tool to build the Spitfire ITTL the firm builds Spitfires instead of the Lysander and the Whirlwind.

IOTL the RAF had 16 Hurricane, 10 Spitfire and 5 Lysander squadrons in September 1939. That is:

1. 12 Hurricane and 10 Spitfire squadrons in the main force of Fighter Command
2. 4 Hurricane and 4 Lysander squadrons in No. 22 (Army Co-operation) Group
3. One Lysander squadron in the Middle East

ITTL there would be 16 Hurricane and 15 Spitfire squadrons. The deployment would be:

1. 7 Hurricane and 15 Spitfire squadrons in the Main Force of Fighter Command
2. 8 Hurricane squadrons in No. 22 (Army Co-operation) Group
3. One Hurricane squadron in the Middle East.

There would also be 122 extra Hurricanes on charge instead of 122 Henleys that the RAF had at the outbreak of WWII IOTL. These would be used to re-equip the 3 squadrons that had biplane army co-operation aircraft in No. 22 Group IOTL with Hurricanes.

During the Battle of Britain there were about a dozen RAF and RCAF squadrons equipped with the Lysander in the UK. ITTL they would have been equipped with Hurricanes and were transferred to No. 11 Group for the duration of the battle.

 

[merlin]

Fighters only became fighter-bombers when either there wasn't enough 'fighter' work for them to do, or the aircraft is obsolete as a fighter. Hence, it wasn't until 1941 when Fighter Command had plenty of Spitfires, and the Hurricane was at a disadvantage compared with the Me-109f - helped too by the extra power of the Merlin XX engine.
With the Henley sources for the bomb-load vary - Thetford says 750lb, but Peter C Smith in Dive Bomber p.51 -'with a capacity for four 500lb bombs on underwing wing racks' - not to mention the two 250lb bombs in the bomb bay!

http://dinger.byethost5.com/AArt3.html?i=1

http://forum.keypublishing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=205884&d=1338827013

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Correct.

However, the Fulmar is not remembered as a great combat aircraft and I have the feeling that the Henley would have suffered the same fate had it been used in combat. The Henley would have been an improvement on the Fairey P.4/34s older and bigger brother the Battle, but I have a feeling that the Luftwaffe's Bf109s would have been shot the Henley to pieces just as easily as they did the Battle.

That's true about any light/dive bomber though. Even the very best of them were easy targets for fighters. The exception to this being naval aircraft that generally would only encounter enemy fighters over a target.

 

[Just Leo]

There is a lovely site for the Henley somewhere which states that it was tested with 2 500 lb bombs, or 2 brackets with multiple bombs up to over 1100 lbs on the wings. I presume that's without internal load, which was limited to 2 250 lb bombs side by side, without a crutch. All this is academic, since the RAF preferred to send Hawker Hecters into the fray in desperation, rather than Henleys.

Even the very best of them were easy targets for fighters. That's true whether British, French or German. That's what doctrine is all about, and why Mary Coningham was so well remembered. A squadron of Stukas was intercepted by a unit of French Curtiss Hawks, and eliminated. It works both ways.

If only more Spitfires could have been in service, but that overlooks the vast difficulty in getting any Spitfires into service, OTL.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Hello,
Let's suppose that Hawker managed to get good deal(s) for the Henley from either RAF or RN, if not both. What kind of useage we might expect from a properly developed monoplane bomber? Maybe shave the bomb bay and it's doors, so RN can lug a torpedo under it? Or, make a night fighter once better Merlins are available? Two-seat Naval fighter?

AFAIK it wasn't possible to improve the Hurricane's performance as much as the Spitfire's because the Hurricane had a metal structure with a fabric covering which was less aerodynamic than the Spitfire's all-metal stressed-skin construction. IIRC from Leo McKinstry's Hurricane book Sidney Camm said that if he had had more time/foresight he would have designed the Hurricane as an all-metal aircraft.

The Henley and Hotspur were effectively light bomber and turret fighter versions of the Hurricane respectively and would have had the same limitations on their development as the Hurricane regardless of how powerful the engine fitted was.

The Fairey P.4/34 was of all-metal stressed-skin construction like the Spitfire and probably had more development potential than the Henley, built to the same specification. IOTL the Fairey P.4/34 was effectively the prototype of the Fairey Fulmar and the Fairey Firely was effectively a Fulmar with the Merlin engine replaced by the Griffon. I suspect that if the same was tried with a navalised Henley it would have inferior performance on the same engines to the Fulmar and Firefly.

Similarly the Boulton Paul proposed Griffon powered night fighter versions of the Defiant armed with 12 forward firing machine guns or six 20mm cannon, plus the turret or an observer in the turrets position, but it wasn't developed because the RAF had the Beaufighter and Mosquito. Again my suspicion is that an equivalent development of the Hotspur would have had inferior performance on the same engine.

 

[sonofpegasus]

In an ideal ATL please give the Skua to the RAF as a target tug, cancel the Roc before construction begins and instead give the FAA 200 heavy fighter bombers being, Henleys with Hurricane outer wings, Hotspurs instead of Roc (again Hurricane type outer wings) and then Hurricanes with the metal clad outer wings as built for the Henley. Now in 1939 you have the FAA with the best fleet defence fighter combination then extant! Oh, How one dreams!!

 

[Just Leo]

AFAIK it wasn't possible to improve the Hurricane's performance as much as the Spitfire's because the Hurricane had a metal structure with a fabric covering which was less aerodynamic than the Spitfire's all-metal stressed-skin construction. IIRC from Leo McKinstry's Hurricane book Sidney Camm said that if he had had more time/foresight he would have designed the Hurricane as an all-metal aircraft.

The Henley and Hotspur were effectively light bomber and turret fighter versions of the Hurricane respectively and would have had the same limitations on their development as the Hurricane regardless of how powerful the engine fitted was.

The Fairey P.4/34 was of all-metal stressed-skin construction like the Spitfire and probably had more development potential than the Henley, built to the same specification. IOTL the Fairey P.4/34 was effectively the prototype of the Fairey Fulmar and the Fairey Firely was effectively a Fulmar with the Merlin engine replaced by the Griffon. I suspect that if the same was tried with a navalised Henley it would have inferior performance on the same engines to the Fulmar and Firefly.

Similarly the Boulton Paul proposed Griffon powered night fighter versions of the Defiant armed with 12 forward firing machine guns or six 20mm cannon, plus the turret or an observer in the turrets position, but it wasn't developed because the RAF had the Beaufighter and Mosquito. Again my suspicion is that an equivalent development of the Hotspur would have had inferior performance on the same engine.

The differences between the Hurri and the Spit were many. The most significant difference was the thin elliptical wing. Sir Sydney was told by the RAE that he had the best wing, according to scale wind tunnel testing, and he stuck with it through Tornado and Typhoon. The boffins then told him, in 1942, that it was all bollocks, and they figured wrong. He then designed the Tempest wing, somewhat Spit-like. Significantly, the Typhoon was all metal, and mostly monocoque, like the Spit. The Martin-Baker MB-5 still used a tube frame, with easily removed metal panels, and suffered no loss in efficiency or performance.

The Hotspur, steel-tubed, was perhaps somewhat superior to the Defiant, monocoque, but Hawker had Hurris to build.

The Fairey P.4/34 was the spitting image of the Fulmar, but was completely different, and the Fulmar was over 1000 kg heavier, being armed and naval. The Firefly was quite different , and the post-war Firefly quite different again. A naval Henley would suffer lost performance as did the Sea Hurricane, even without folding wings, which it would have to possess.

What Boulton-Paul proposed is unimportant, and not relevant, but a Henley did sport a Griffon engine with chin radiator, which goes to show.