So, search revealed no Tiger Moth thread and with the new Airfix kit ...
Tiger Moth Fighter, yep 'twas real.
Illustrations and text from
Armament of British Aircraft, H.F. King (normally I don't copy/quote complete
passages, in this case I'm making an exception.)
Tiger Moth The Tiger Moth appeared in 1931. Quickly establishing itself
as a trainer, it also showed adaptability for armament practice or offensive
work. Installations were made of a camera gun on the starboard lower
wing and an Aldis sight bracketed to the starboard side of the fuselage,
and also of a carrier for 20-lb bombs beneath the fuselage, this last in conjunction
with a vertical tubular sight and release quadrant. One Tiger
Moth (E.6) was built solely for offensive work as the Tiger Moth Fighter,
and the makers announced:
'We are now able to offer the Tiger Moth as a single-seater fighter
fitted with a machine gun firing forward through the propeller, and also
capable of carrying eight bombs of 20-lb each. A fairly substantial order
has been received from an important foreign Government for Tiger
single-seater fighters fitted with Gipsy Major engines, on which we have
now completed full firing tests, both on the ground and in the air. The
machine gun is air-cooled, weighs only 9-5 kilos, and is manufactured by
the Czechoslovakian Arms Factory of Prague. A Pratt and Whitney
synchronising gear is fitted, which is very light and efficient, the drive
being taken from the top half of the rear cover of the engine, where provision
for hand-starting gear is normally allowed for. The gun is
mounted in the front cockpit, and shoots directly over the top engine
cowling. The ammunition box, holding 200 rounds, and the cartridge
shute, are fixed to the mounting itself, and the only connections between
the gun, gun mounting and fuselage are four holding-down bolts. The
cocking handle is connected only by a cotter pin to the lever which acts
on the gun. In order to protect the workings of the gun it has been
cowled in. An Aldis telescopic (sic) gun sight is provided for long-distance
firing. The ordinary ring-and-bead sight for "dog-fighting" can be fittedas
an alternative, or together with the Aldis . . .'
Tests were made with a disc fitted to the propeller and it was claimed:
'The results of the official ground and air acceptance test were as
follows: (1) Pulling over the propeller by hand, the first round penetrated
the disc 19-i deg. after top dead centre. (2) Dispersion throughout
the entire speed range occurred between the angles 45 deg. to 86 deg. ;
that is to say through an arc of 41 deg. (3) Propeller speeds varied from
800 to 2,400 r.p.ni. These results are absolutely satisfactory.'
Clearly D.H. were rather pleased with their little trainer as a fighting
machine, but they could hardly have foreseen that the Tiger would actually
go to war-and not in the service of a foreign nation but wearing the
roundels of the RAF. Like the D.H.5 before, it was pressed into service as
an anti-submarine aircraft with four 20-lb bombs under the wings. For
anti-invasion duties astonishing devices were schemed, among which a tray
of Mills bombs was one of the least spectacular. These devices are beyond
the scope of the present review, and Tiger Moth enthusiasts will already
have been apprised of them by Messrs Bramson and Birch's Tiger Moth
Story (Cassell, 1964). The present writer's contribution to the continuing
story of the Tiger is the foregoing fragment of history.
