The Boulton-Paul/Westland Defender Mk.IV - a cross between a Defiant & a Whirlwind.
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Back story for those who are interested:
Due to the less than outstanding success of the (relatively) contemporary Defiant & Whirlwind, the British aircraft companies Boulton-Paul & Westland partnered up to product the B-P/W Defender Mk I. Combining the best elements of their respective designs they came up with a fast twin-engine turret-fighter powered by RR Merlin III engines, armed with 4 x .303 calibre machine guns in the same turret as used on the Defiant & 6 x .303 calibre machine guns mounted in the nose.
Misguidedly tasked as a day fighter the Defender was not quite up to the job. Although it did perform much better than the German Me. 110 it was too slow to out-run & insufficiently agile to out-turn single seat fighters such as the Me. 109 with subsequently high losses. These losses led to the Air Ministry almost cancelling orders for the aircraft but a need for night-fighters caused a stay of execution as the Defender squadrons were re-tasked to this role.
This is where the Defender 1st made its mark, with the Mk I proving to be considerably better & more versatile than the contemporary single-seat fighters & converted bombers. The aircraft of Defender squadrons all bore the legend "Comrades in Arms", as a memorial to those who died early in the war flying in Defiant & Battle squadrons from which most of the original crews came.
The short-lived Mk II trialled replacing the .303 mg’s with American .50 cal mg’s (4 in the nose & 2 in the turret).
The Mk III which replaced it returned to .303 mg’s, with the usual 4 in the turret but only 4 in the nose. This was because the Mk III was fitted with an additional 4 x 20 mm Hispano cannon in a belly pack below the cockpit.
The Mk IV lost the nose .303’s & the turret. These were replaced by an airborne RDF unit & its operator. Although now limited to only the 4 x 20 mm Hispano cannon, the Mk IV was an extremely effective night-time aerial interceptor.
Later Marks were mainly improvements in RDF/radar & engines, although the Defender did spawn the highly successful “Aggressor” fighter-bomber.
The Aggressor was, basically, a single-seat late-Mark Defender armed with 6 forward firing 20 mm Hispano cannon (2 x nose, 4 x belly pack) plus up to 2,000 lb’s of bombs & 8 rockets.
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Build album slideshow link:
http://s459.photobucket.com/user/GPlachy/slideshow/Defender:)
Guy