It was poorly defended with 1 .303 machine gun in the nose and one in the turret..
And carried a smaller bomb load than single engine fighter bombers in 43'-45'.
It was poorly defended with 1 .303 machine gun in the nose and one in the turret..
And carried a smaller bomb load than single engine fighter bombers in 43'-45'.
You fight with what you’ve got, not what you want or even need.
Yep, pretty crappy bomber, yet not the crappiest British bomber of the war.
Had the misfortune of being designed just a few years before the latest WWII developments, and being optimized for one thing: speed. Now, when war rolls around and your only strong suit, speed, is marginal, you get screwed.
Other just-before-the-war designs had better luck, but still fell behind as the war progressed, like the Zero, Bf109, P-40, and B-17. Only a few pre-war designs kept getting better and better, like the Spitfire and Lightning.
End-of-war Lightnings were formidable, with most of their handling quirks ironed out by design, and proved both fast and manouverable. Spitfires kept taking bigger and bigger engines, while maintaing most of their good aspects (and some of their bad), and had a decent post-war career.
As a Brit, it feels almost sacriligeous top criticise a British WW2 plane. Esp one that served in the darkest days of 1940.