BOULTON PAUL DEFIANT

By the late 1930’s and with war looming in Europe, planners at Britain’s RAF had long recognised that modern warfare would increasingly rely on taking the fight to the enemy as they in turn, bought it to you. This meant greater reliance on heavy bombers to attack the enemy's manufacturing base - especially it’s aircraft production.

The flip side was of course, how to defend against such attacks?

The increasing speed of multi-engined bomber aircraft presented significant challenges to anti aircraft batteries, but as bomber range began extending far beyond the protection of escorting fighters, they were forced to rely more and more on their self defence capabilities.

For the RAF, it accelerated the development of a new generation of turret-bombers such as the Vickers Wellington and later, the highly successful Avro Lancaster.

For the US the concept of the independently self-defended bomber was further championed with the introduction of the heavily armed B-17 Flying Fortress.

Anticipating that the Luftwaffe would also be forced to launch their long range bombers against targets in Britain without the protection of escorting fighters, the Air Ministry ordered the production of a turret armed defensive fighter.

Free from the threat of escorting fighters, a turret equipped defensive fighter could easily be positioned below, behind or to the side of an intruding bomber by its pilot, whilst the gunner in his turret could bring its powerful machine guns to bear on the intruder.

The RAF's solution was the Boulton Paul Defiant, with its hydraulically operated dorsal turret equipped with four 303 browning machine guns. Full production was quickly intiated and in mid October 1939, No. 264 Squadron were the first to receive them.

On the 12th of May 1940, 264’s Defiants flew their first operational sortie, accompanying six Spitfires over the English Channel where they managed to shoot down a lone twin- engined Ju 88 bomber.

A few days later they added to their score by claiming three He 111s with another two heavily damaged and shortly after, claimed another six German fighters for the loss of only three Defiants.  

On the 29th of May, 264 Squadron had their best day claiming another 37 kills in just two sorties. This included 19 Ju 87s, nine twin-engined Bf 110s plus another eight Bf 109s.  

Unfortunately these early successes were largely due to the fact that the German pilots, using their tried and tested tactics of ‘bouncing’ enemy aircraft from behind using their wing and nose mounted cannons, often mistook the Defiants as Hawker Hurricanes - oblivious to the Defiant's powerful rear defensive machine guns.

It wasn’t long before the Luftwaffe changed their tactics after releasing that without any forward facing defences, the Defiant was easy prey against a frontal attack.

The vulnerable Defiant’s fortunes soon began to wane and by August of 1940 with their losses spiralling out of control, they were withdrawn from a forward offensive role to the one they had been originally designed for - home defence and in particular, that of a deadly night fighter.

Initially, the night fighter Defiants relied on spotting enemy aircraft through their illumination by ground-based searchlights but by September 1941, the vastly improved  Defiant Mk II became operational, and equipped with the RAF’s new AI Mk IV radar guiding them to their targets, Luftwaffe losses began to increase.

Even though the Luftwaffe's primary fighters, the BF 109 and the twin-engined Bf110 were now fitted with long-range drop tanks enabling them to escort the German bombers to their targets, their role remained as daylight fighter escorts - leaving the Luftwaffe night-time, heavy bombers easy targets for the radar assisted Defiant’s.

In fact, during the Blitz on London of 1940-41, the Boulton Paul Defiant radar equipped RAF squadrons were responsible for shooting down more enemy aircraft than any other night fighter during the period.

After the Germans were forced to abandon their invasion plans for Britain, the Boulton Paul Defiant found its role as a night fighter being gradually phased out by the faster and more heavily armed twin engined Bristol Beaufighter and all-wooden De Havilland Mosquito and instead, was to finish the war as a high speed target towing tug for aerial gunnery training.

A total of 1064 Boulton Paul Defiant were built during the War and saw action with the RAF, RAAF, RCAF and the Polish Air Force. 

All Boulton Paul Defiant Instruments listed below come complete with a detailed, custom-built Scale Model of the Boulton Paul Defiant Aircraft on its Magnetic Display Arm; Mango Wood Display Stand & Plaque, plus Printed Fact Sheet featuring photo of instrument in aircraft cockpit - as shown in this Spitfire example opposite:

Return to VINTAGE ORIGINAL AIRCRAFT INSTRUMENTS

• 

  BOULTON PAUL DEFIANT ALL METAL No2 Mk III MORSE CODE SENDER KEY

  Rare early Boulton Paul Defiant all-metal 5c/372 No 2 Mk...

  $1,100.00

  View Product