Interesting RAF bit-players 1939-1941 No.2: The Defiant

[David603]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

Now if we talk under an historical point of view of course it's important to retrieve all the documentation available and preserve the planes: a guy I know has a lot of Farey Battle pieces and would love to restore one, but god knows what an awful machine it was..

Most of the stories about how terrible the Fairey Battle was come from either the RAF leadership or the crew who flew them (the survivors, that is).

What they overlook is the Battle was not actually such a bad aircraft. It compares favourably with the likes of the Stuka for speed, range, armament, payload and combat survivability.

Which is to say, either of those planes will get slaughtered when thrown into an environment where the enemy controls the sky with modern fighters.

The difference is the Stuka had already demonstrated great effectiveness in Spain, Poland and France, so when its limitations were shown up in the BoB theatre it was given new roles, turned into a ground attack aircraft and tank buster, and enjoyed more success in those roles until increasing Allied air superiority again made it too vulnerable, and it was replaced by Jabo Fw-190s.

By contrast, the Battle got slaughtered in horrible situations at the start of its career, and was immediately branded a failure. Much easier for the RAF leadership to blame the aircraft rather than the missions they had given it. Not to mention, with good reason, the crews considered it highly vulnerable to fighters and were understandably reluctant to fly it.

Given better planning and some upgrading with a more powerful engine and armament, it could have been a successful night intruder (good payload/range/plenty of room for more guns or radar/has navigator), or filled the Stuka's later role as a ground pounder/tank buster (of course, it would be more vulnerable in this role than a fighter-bomber, but endurance and payload are much better).

In these roles, the Battle could have had a successful career until at least 1942-3 before better aircraft became available to replace it.