Sunday 12 July 2020

Impressively Wrong, Even For The 'Mail'...

The nation's most beloved airplane? Well, no. It isn't.

The spotter points out: "These planes are Boulton Paul Defiants. They had no forward-firing guns, their only armament was the four .303 machine guns in the turret. The Spitfire was a single-seat fighter. The defiant had a crew of two and was never a great success."


H/T: Stephen Brown

6 comments:

MTG 1 said...

Now this IS unforgivable.

Rev. Spooner said...

..and another Spotter writes:

They have the squadron wrong, too. Squadron code "PS" is 264 Sqdn.

225 never operated Defiants - they DID have Spitfire, but not until 1943 - so not quite during the BoB!

Anonymous said...

Just as well I subscribe to the Express :-))

Jason Lynch said...

The Defiant was somewhat underrated - it had a few minor successes as well as losses as a day fighter - not disastrous but less effective than conventional fighters.

It was useful as a nightfighter (especially once fitted with radar), and served on in the unglamorous workhorse role of target tug, but also found use as an electronic-warfare platform supporting Bomber Command (with "Mandrel" noise-jamming or "Moonshine" repeater-jamming gear replacing the gun turret).

But, a Hurricane or a Spitfire it most definitely is not...

JuliaM said...

"Now this IS unforgivable."

For once we agree, Melv...

"They have the squadron wrong, too."

Good grief!

MTG said...

'For once we agree...'

Good grief. Note to self - encouraging her is pointless.