Boulton Paul Defiant: Good Aircraft, Flawed Concept

Comments · 406

• SA

  @salfox1820 · 1 year ago

  The last time I was this early; the Sabre had straight wings

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• OL

  @Oliver-GS · 1 year ago

  While both Military Aviation History and Ed Nash have excellent videos on turret fighters, I've been wanting to see a detailed look at the Defiant for a long time. Thank you for providing once again with your typically thorough and detailed videos

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• JA

  @jabonorte · 1 year ago

  Fair summary. We often make the mistake of comparing our worst performing planes with our best, and saying “why did we have this when we needed Spitfires “, but looking at the other side puts it in a different light. Comparing the Defiant with the Bf110 is interesting, as is comparing the Hampden with Do-17. Thanks!

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• NO

  @nortyfiner · 1 year ago

  Cue a raging Lord Hardthrasher in 5, 4, 3...

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• RE

  @RemusKingOfRome · 1 year ago (edited)

  Excellent Video, full of details !  I've never seen so much details on the Defiant !   The defiant had such potential but had some serious weaknesses. A swallow tail would have also helped the gunner.  Poor 141 Sqn never had any time to sync pilot and gunner.

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• MU

  @mudcrab3420 · 1 year ago

  What seems to be rarely mentioned when talking about the British &apos;obsession&apos; of having fighters with guns point in odd direction is the idea of No Allowance Shooting.<br><br>This was a weird little phenomena where your bullets effectively went exactly where you pointed the weapon, making aiming a lot easier. It worked, if that is the correct term, when the shooter found the sweet spot between allowing for bullet drop and allowing for their aircraft&apos;s own motion.<br><br>Visualise it this way. You are flying straight and level and have a flexible mount weapon. If you fire straight ahead your bullets will drop away from gravity, so you will need to lift your aiming point to allow for this.<br><br>However if you shoot straight up your bullets will lag behind due to your motion, so you will need to lower your aim point to allow for this. So if we look sideways at the aircraft that is flying right to left you need to rotate the gun mount clockwise for bullet drop, but counter clockwise for your motion to get your bullets to hit your target.<br><br>And eventually there will be this magic point where the apparent bullet drop is cancelled by the motion and your bullets will seem to come straight out of your weapon and all you need to do is point direct at the target with &apos;No Allowance&apos;.<br><br>This was one of the reasons the WW1 tactic of shooting from below was so successful. Yes, surprise on the target, but also it greatly simplified aiming.<br><br>So after WW1 this concept was understood by enough RAF people that the idea of &nbsp;having aircraft designed deliberately to take advantage of it was one of the driving forces behind turret fighters and also explains why the pilot on Defiant also have triggers. By coming in under a target bomber the pilot could shoot up at the magic angle and all the gunner had to do was tell the pilot how clever he was.<br><br>In theory...<br><br>Like the video says the Defiant was a very well designed aircraft capable of doing its one job VERY well. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but at the time it was seen as a very rational and advanced method of dealing with the massed bombers that every theory stated were both unstoppable and would be utterly destructive to the target cities.<br><br>The Roc on the other hand... yeah... No.

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• CH

  @christopher5723 · 1 year ago

  It&apos;s nice to see a more nuanced take on the Defiant, which is one of my favorite early war aircraft.

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• BR

  @briancavanagh7048 · 1 year ago

  The history, background &amp; doctrine in the 1920s &amp; 30s leading to the eventual selection of this &nbsp;turreted fighter is what makes this the best documentary on the Defiant bar none. Thank you for your work.

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• SI

  @silverbullitt850 · 1 year ago

  How. Do. You. Not. Get. More. Views?<br><br>Damn you make good content.

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• WA

  @warspiteschannel4817 · 1 year ago

  I should point out that later Defiants flew with radar installed. Later, in addition to target tugs, they were used for air-sea rescue but were rather more effective in flying radar jamming missions using Mandrel, etc, well into 1943.

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• AN

  @AndrewGivens · 1 year ago

  I&apos;ve held a sort-of contrarian view on the Defiant for a short while now, realising that the main &apos;problem&apos; as far as it was one, hinged on the Fall of France, and how that hadn&apos;t been planned for in pre-war rearmament. This made the Defiant concept pretty solid. Discovering that the combat record wasn&apos;t <b>quite</b> the turkey shoot that older histories leaned into was something of a revelation as well.<br>It&apos;s nice to see an in-depth assessment of the type which also looks properly at the combat record of this maligned aeroplane; satisfying to see that it was a far better air-to-air platform than long considered. The juxtaposition with Hurricane and Spitfire losses regarding pilot experience &amp; quality was extremely useful and apposite.<br>Many thanks; I enjoyed this video very much.<br>Keep up the good work.

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• AN

  @anselmdanker9519 · 1 year ago

  😊 marvellous thanks for covering this neglected and maligned fighter.

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