it did OK in east africa. I believe it is unfairly maligned. Like the stuka, it suffered heavily when air superiority was not achieved. Unlike the stuka, it never operated in a major theater where that was the case. Performance wise, it flies faster than the stuka, with similar defensive armament, neither had enough to save them if fighters came calling.
yeah i feel like it was more a case of a doctrinal failure then anything to do with the plane. it was like they didnt know what to do with the plane so they kept just sending them out to die.
Yeah this seems harsh. All light medium bombers got slaughtered when they got hit by modern fighters like in the Battle of Britain and the RAF didnt exactly cover itself in glory during the French campaign. Also even if technology is advancing quickly you can't just produce nothing and wait for technology to finish as you need the production experience and R&D experience to make something better. Also having something is normally better than having nothing as you force enemy CAP and AA to be active.
@@MikeBracewell IIRC it's named after the palace, that is named after the battle, that is named after the town in Germany (which is actually Blindheim).
@@MikeBracewell There is no town called Blenheim in England. There is a Parish of Blenheim, which takes its name from Blenheim Palace, which was gifted to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough as a result of his victories in the War Of Spanish Succession, the most famous of those being the Battle Of Blenheim... which was fought near the village of Blenheim (or more correctly Blindheim) in southern Germany.
@rogi_itsumi5370 Poland, the UK and France had a mutual assistance treaty in case the Germans attacked Poland. This meant we had to go to war or no one would ever take us at our word. You just can't re-write history because you don't like it.
@rogi_itsumi5370 so Poland shouldn't have defended themselves after the Germans invaded? LMFAO. As I said, there was a treaty that only named German as the aggressor.
An interesting video and timely for me as two weeks ago I was in the reserve hangar of the National Air and Space Museum in Ottawa and was very surprised to see what appeared to be a Fairey Battle. It was painted in the yellow used for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (CATP) training aircraft and sported a great big turret. Apparently over 700 Battles were sent to Canada starting in August 1939 and this example had the rear cockpit removed and replaced with a Bristol turret for turret-gunnery training. Four Battles still exist, with other examples in the UK, Belgium and Australia.
It's been sitting in that hanger for many years, at one time it had the Henkel HE 162 Volkjager as company before it was finally re-assembled and moved into the museum proper.
The Battle had a crew of 3 (pilot, bombardier / navigator & gunner), but only carried two parachutes. In the event of needing to bail out, the bombardier / navigator was supposed to be attached to the gunner (who had a special harness & larger than normal parachute), before jumping from the plane. This was the first instance of tandem parachute jumps being attempted. Of course, if the gunner is killed or incapacitated, the bombardier is kind of f******d......
The problem was that at the time aviation technology moved on so quickly, that a plane could be perfectly adequate today, and be a flying coffin 18 months or 2 years down the line. Plus, in the thirties there were different theories regarding air tactics and strategies. Although, the light bomber concept was probably flawed from the outset. Fine for a policing role in the colonies, which was something the Hawker Hart did do, not so great when fighting an peer opponent.
In 1932, arms limitation talks looked likely to limit bomb loads to 1000lbs. It was also the Great Depression. The Hart had proved difficult to intercept in exercises. So the Battle was a cheap answer to the limitation talks and they thought it could still be useful afterwards. However, it was not suitable for the role it was pressed into in France, but at that point it was what was available apart from the Blenheim. The latter was similarly armed at the time but slightly faster.
@@wbertie2604 Blenheim was fast, just not fast enough.Armed, but nor armed enough. By the end of the war the light bomber had been replaced by the heavy (and not so heavy) fighter for tactical ground attack. Spitfires, Typhoons, Tempests, Beaufighters, P47s and mosquitos - all strafed their way across France and the low countries ahead of the allied army
A reminder that the Tsar Bomba was used at a 50% yield which is the 50-58 megatons that was actually tested, due to concerns regarding the fallout it would cause, it's actual 100% yield was 100-116 Megatons.
Yep. It was 3 stage weapon, and in test configuration tertiary uranium tamper was replaced with lead, possibly 2nd stage tamper too. Test bomb was cleanest bomb ever, at 97% yield coming from fusion. 100Mt warshots would not had been clean...
Comparisons can be made to the Douglas TBD Devastator -- a plane that was also considered modern for about two years. Unfortunately those years were the wrong side of the start of WWII. It's also interesting to compare the Battle to the Il-2, two planes that were actually very similar in many respects.
Tha Fairey Battle is a much maligned aircraft. The problem it ran into was that air combat had advanced from the time it was conceived to when it was in combat. Like the JU 87, it suffered greviously when engaged by fighters. I wonder how it would have been remembered if it had fighter protection ?
The Ju 87 had one decisive advantage. It could hit targets very precisely. Thus it made more sense to protect the valuable Ju87 rather than the Battle.
I remember playing some turn based strategy Battle of Britain game as a kid in the 90s and being absolutely baffled as to how anyone thought deploying this thing in 1940 against BF-109s and 110s was going to end at all well.
I really wish you would throw in the month and year more. For example when design parameters were submitted or when a prototype flew. At least the year.
From my view it would make sense to compare the Fairey Battle with the German Stuka. It was the same time, single engine, similar vulnerable to fighters... The benefit of the Stuka was its diving capability which provided a bombing accuracy the battle did not have.
The light bomber concept never made sense for me, even in the era it was introduced; it would only be safe operating closer to friendlies, but would not be particularly effective at bombing compared to bigger bombers. The light defensive armament of the light bomber would be useless when operating in enemy airspace, when the OpFor could bring more fighters to bear against them, quickly.
@@geesehoward700 Exactly. The Mosquito was a light bomber and it performed well. Most carrier-borne bombers also fit this role. The Battle was just obsolete for its time. An updated version could have performed well.
@@米空軍パイロット i think the plane was fine but they just didnt know how to use it at that point. didnt help that the only fighters we had were all short range. maybe the best thing we can say about the plane was they learned from its mistakes.
You called the Fulmar “successful” and that got a belly laugh from me. Thanks for that. My uncle never stopped talking about how he hated his Fulmar completely and utterly. He said it was “useless as a fighter or bomber”. He eventually got a Hellcat and waxed poetic about it “putting the damn Fulmar in the garage” until he passed in the eighties. But you be you. Mahalo for bringing back my memories of a great man, and Aloha!
@@brookeshenfield7156early in the war it shot down a fair few German and Italian bombers. But yes, the F4F was definitely a step up, which the FAA got after the Fulmar.
@@wbertie2604 It was the Fleet Air Arm responding to the small air groups of Royal Navy carriers with a desire for a plane that could do more than one job. Understandable, but the result was the Fulmar, a plane that did none of the jobs well.
It wasn’t ’cutting edge’ by the time war broke out, and the RAF knew it wasn’t. Don’t try and misrepresent things. They began a process to replace it prior to the war but had to stop due to the outbreak of hostilities.
3:20 ish; As far as I'm aware the tzar bomb was planned to have a yield that "absolutely blows those bombs out of the water"(it self included) but even the soviets where like "you know what? Maybe don't ." I think the actual bomb they used had the potential for 100 MT, and the original designs was specified with 150 MT and a theoretical possibility to get the design get up to 1 Gigaton (wft?). Not sure how much of that is fact or soviet propaganda tho. Especially the bit with the 1GT sounds a bit too... uhm... russian to me. But the 100MT part is as far as I know true and the planned 150t sounds reasonable... if one can use that word there, because it's really everything but reasonable to build such a thing, which is probably why they didn't...
And the WWI plane you show as a "light bomber" was a "medium bomber"... The Albatros CIV was pretty large, what you should have posted was the Halberstadt CL.II The "L" meaning "light" It was about 3/4's the size and weight of the Albatros. You should do a episode about the Vickers Wellesely, mainly because it pioneered the "geodetic" aluminum framing of the later Wellington.
Thanks once again for another of your informative video. Ah the Fairey Battle, in my conscience, it's up there with the Brewster Buffalo F2A for aircraft that should not be mentioned, given the amount of poor souls that were expected to fight with.... Your observation of the Battle having so much weight and drag for a single Merlin engine has also always resonated with me, along with that thick and broad wing design. As a side note, if I may, the original 1933 Air Ministry Specification P.27/32 specified 'a two-seat single-engine monoplane day bomber'. I wonder why the RAF accepted a three-seat design, given both the manpower cost and space and weight a third crewman would constitute? Regards Rob
Fonz was on the cutting edge. It was a modified version of the very first racing game to use pseudo 3D, 1976's Road Race. It was also on the first officially licensed video game.
Pratically it was designed as a "modernized" version of the Harts light bombers, with the same WWI's armament and mission, but the problem was that the modern fighters were more powerful than in the past. I remember the old Airfix model, its box cover had been used in this video, it wasn't an ugly aircraft, very sleek, but sadly, as I said, was designed for the wrong war. P.s. fun fact, when it was originally designed, the only possible enemy for the UK was reputed....France, so it had a optimal range for to reach Paris, naturally taking off from Britain.
Like so many weapons from different countries, it depends on how you utilize it. Even outclassed planes or tanks can be of use in specialized role. The best examples are the Gloster "Gladiator" MK I , Junkers 87/"Stuka" or the Henschel HS 123 Tactically good deployment always leads to success and in vice versa defeat or at least to unnecessary losses.....
I think the real problem was tactics. These were operated by highly trained prewar crews that did as they were told. The tactics just didn't work against more modern weapons. If they had been flown using later tactics I don't think the loses would have been so bad.
Yes, the accepted idea was line up in a neat line and come in one at a time on the same heading and altitude. German AA gunners had a field day. The vast majority of Battles were shot down by AA fire. Most of the crews were killed; a few were taken prisoner.
It was underpowered for its size and weigh so its performance was pedestrian to downright inadequate for the roles it was tasked to perform. It was ludicrously under-armed defensively and carried a mediocre bomb load. What better an aircraft to send, poorly or totally unescorted, against vastly better performing and better armed fighters? Why not task it as a fighter as well... er... wait a minute...give it a prop spinner, a tail hook, a moderately more powerful engine and eight wing mounted .303 Brownings... er... It was not a bad looking aircraft (neither was the Blenheim) but neither fared well except in theatres where there was no aerial opposition.
At least they put 4 50s in a few Fulmars later on. The Fulmar was certainly not expected to fight fighters, just be faster than an Fw200. But that made it not very versatile. But it was expected to operate well away from land with no chance of enemy carrier aircraft, and Germany had no carriers.
@@wbertie2604 Its a good thing that it saw little or no use in the Asian theatres as the Japanese HAD carriers and employed fighters that had considerably longer range than Allied types. At least its armament gave it some sort of "bite".
@@stephengardiner9867 in the mid-30s the concern was very much Europe not Asia for a future war. Plus the Zero was a bit of a surprise. So given limited funds and time, the Fulmar had to do. It wasn't suitable against fighters, but it was never expected to be needed to fight them.
Actually it had a Very important function, like the devastator or the wild cat is helped by putting Something in the air while the next generation was readied. Thus the allies and axis got about 1/2 generation off in plane design and the axis were still trying to put their last generation Air Force together while the allies were winning with their own latest generation
The Battle was a very capable plane when introduced pre-war. Aircraft design was so rapid it was soon outdated. Having a 2,000 hp Merlin in it may have made matters different. But the Merlin did not reach 2,000 hp until later in the war when the Battle was all but forgotten.
Faster than the whitley and wellington,almost as quick as the blenheim and hampden, was it ever used in attacks where the allies had air superiority and the enemy hadn't had 24 hours to set up their AA defences???
This is best compared to is the Italian ba.65 nibbio. Not great but did well in the second tier forces and theaters of the war. Of not both did pretty good in Africa
Give two engines to the Battle, place it in the wings and it's basically an English BF-110. The overal idea and the cockpit make them incredibly similar. Even their history in the war is similar, with both becoming pretty useless after they were easily outclassed by single-engined fighters.
I don't know about that. The BF110 was designed as a fighter, and had a useful armament. The fighter pilot who found himself the target of a BF110 was in fairly severe trouble if it was pointing at him. The Machine guns and cannon were concentrated and would do pretty serious damage. They were even more dangerous against bombers; lots of day bombers were shot down by 110s, and a whole bunch of night bombers met their fate due to the BF110. All the top Luftwaffe night fighter aces flew BF110s almost exclusively.
It's easy to judge from 80 years perspective. We know NOW that light bombers like Battle, PZL 23 or Su-2 was a bad idea. But in late 30s people had different view.
I never understood why attack aircrafts of this time and period were always so underpowered compared to fighters even today. I get why fighters are nimble, it's common sense, but attack aircrafts need to be as nimble if not more considering they also have to defend themselves from ground threats on top of enemy fighters
You know, the furry battle and the devastator torpedo.Bomber have a lot in common.That way, in the beginning in their design phases, they were cutting edge.In fact, however, in reality coming off the assembly line, they were obsolete and a p.o.s.
Same goes for the Blenheim, and the Beaufort. Blenheim had a couple of 900 bhp Mercurys - 260mph, Beaufort had a pair of 1300bhp Taurus and were stuck at 270 mph. Only when the Beaufighter came along with a pair or 1600bhp Hercules did the speed crack 320mph and the aircraft get to be pretty useful. Whether you regard it as a heavy fighter or a light bomber, the Beaufighter was pretty usable, especially in the South Pacific and as a night fighter in the UK
What I wondered always wondered about is if one of the later Merlins with a few other tweaks in the design would´ve made the Battle actually a useful plane. Any opinions?
I cant see anything useful about it. There were many stools, and it fell between all of them. It wasn't fast, it had sod all firepower, and it couldn't carry much bomb load. It turned out that it was easier to turn an air superiority fighter into ground attack, than use a slow light bomber. Everything in WWII air warfare that had any success had massive power and firepower.
3:38 Why doe's it say "Brünhilde"? Why the Ü? The name is Brunhilde, isn't it? Or did I miss some thing and both was used? I guess so... But to me this almost looks like if some one who doesn't know German tries to make a "German looking" prop for a movie. Where they write something like "Uberbratwürst", because they don't know how "umlaute" work. (It's Über, imagine a french person calling an Uber and you're there)
The Germans were fairly ahead of the curve in moving forward with plenty of 2 cm Flak 30 and 2cm Flak 38 guns as well as 8.8cm FLAK 37 and a few 3.7cm FLAK 37. These rather than the Luftwaffe shredded the RAF and FaF.
The brave crews that flew that suicide mission should be remembered. AFAIK, the planes were not license build, put purchased from Fairey. However, the designer of the Battle, M. Lobel, was actually Belgian. I think only a dozen or so aircrafts participated in the attack. It appears they did not even have a bombsight installed. They had no chance at all, and died in vain.
After sitting through 4 minutes + of a voice droning on and on about anything and everything in the world BUT the Fairy Battle. I switched channels and watched the paint drying contest, which was more exciting.
RAF throwed Battles and Blenheims to low level raids against German pontoon bridges crossing river Meuse. German fighters and flak wiped whole squadrons out of the sky. Still, targets worth to die for. There were plenty of Fighter Command Hurricanes in France, but co-operation between them and Advanced Air Striking Force bombers was non-existant. Luftwaffe also did everything possible to suppress enemy air activity by hitting known bases.
The videos are decent but the long lead in material gets a little tiring. That said, I just skip past the first few minutes until the actual topic begins.
Not all planes during WW 2 were good and they all lost lots of planes, even though some of em were really good, I was not aware of this plane and I know little about the pre battle of Britain air war. The british fighter with 4 tail guns got turned into a nightfigher, cause of losses. as Luftwaffe changed flying doctrines against it, To me, it feels like we do not talk about how many planes and plane crews were lost during WW 2.
The Soviets made that concept work in the ilushin lL - 2 Sturmovik , a totally different beast though heavily armoured but they suffered heavy losses ,in exess of 6000 losses , the one aircraft in the Luftwaffes line up of greatest number of kills on a single type ; The much vuanted Supermarine Spitfire which the Luftwaffe killed in exess of 5000! (Not sure whether that number includes Spitfires lost in the far east theater (South east asia and Australia)
Very interesting as always. I really don't want to sound rude but I am always astonished about the ugliness of early british designs, they look so non aerodynamic, I am surprised they even flew...
@@MartinWillett : What is wrong with you? I wrote in english, not chinese language, that Blen heim is german pronouncion. Where did i wrote english people should speak german?
Please, if you do struggle to pronounce the names of British aircraft please RESEARCH. ruclips.net/video/FwvUwcr0uFU/видео.html It Grates something awful to hear it mispronounced. Please no more 'Blen-Heims'.
16:02 - “This’s the paper that my friend Hitler wiped his behind after doing his business. At the same time ensuring peace and harmony of all Europeans. This paper has odd streak and smells like pea soup”. Brits came to their senses with and stopped trying to woke Hitler or appease. RIP those pilots who had to fly a Woke bomber.
"Battle" was a poor name, "Hissy Fit" more apt. How many Brave pilots lost their lives in this DOG of a plane ? Far too many ! Where was the fighter escort ???? Everyone knew back then that bombers needed escorts. FAIL on the RAF. n
Not very encouraging going on mission and you know that you have only maybe 10% of chance to come home. But those guys still followed the orders and did anything they could. Respect for that.
Outfitted as a bomber The Hurricane had a similar bomb load while being much more likely to survive attack by enemy fighters.
Much shorter range, though.
@@wbertie2604
The Battle had quite a respectable range, though that wasn't much use if it never returned
it did OK in east africa. I believe it is unfairly maligned. Like the stuka, it suffered heavily when air superiority was not achieved. Unlike the stuka, it never operated in a major theater where that was the case. Performance wise, it flies faster than the stuka, with similar defensive armament, neither had enough to save them if fighters came calling.
The stuka was a highly effective, high precision dive bomber. The battle couldn't hit anything smaller than a medium sized continent.
yeah i feel like it was more a case of a doctrinal failure then anything to do with the plane. it was like they didnt know what to do with the plane so they kept just sending them out to die.
Design-wise, it was quite similar to the Nakajima B5N, but the B5N has a decent reputation, despite operating later.
Yeah this seems harsh. All light medium bombers got slaughtered when they got hit by modern fighters like in the Battle of Britain and the RAF didnt exactly cover itself in glory during the French campaign. Also even if technology is advancing quickly you can't just produce nothing and wait for technology to finish as you need the production experience and R&D experience to make something better. Also having something is normally better than having nothing as you force enemy CAP and AA to be active.
@@jsalbano Also, conceptually, the Mosquito was a light bomber. It did great because it wasn't outdated.
Blen umm ...
I'm 60 and I've never heard any documentary maker of film or television get this wrong so congratulations.
You don't pronounce Blenheim Blen - Heim, it's Blen-im.
...to rhyme with "venom."
In german language it would be spoken Blen-heim, because - heim ( home) is common in german.
@@brittakriep2938 except this is named after a town in England called Blenheim. It's nothing to do with Germany whatsoever
@@MikeBracewell IIRC it's named after the palace, that is named after the battle, that is named after the town in Germany (which is actually Blindheim).
@@MikeBracewell There is no town called Blenheim in England. There is a Parish of Blenheim, which takes its name from Blenheim Palace, which was gifted to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough as a result of his victories in the War Of Spanish Succession, the most famous of those being the Battle Of Blenheim... which was fought near the village of Blenheim (or more correctly Blindheim) in southern Germany.
Named after the town of Battle, which is closer to the site of the Battle of Hastings than Hastings.
Tee-Hee
@@dallesamllhals9161
They had to fight a battle at the town of Battle because of nominative determinism.
@@alanpennie Sry' As a Jute i like Dane law when...war?
Should have called it the Fairey Fulford as it's alliterative and there was also a battle there in 1066.
@@alanpennie wrong way round. The batyle came first, then the Abbey and finally the town.
The much maligned Chamberlain did a lot to prepare for WW2, including research into radar.
@rogi_itsumi5370no Hitler did..🙄
He did just about everything to avoid war and so gave the Allies the moral high ground.
@rogi_itsumi5370 no, that was that nice Hr Hitler when he ordered his military to invade Poland.
@rogi_itsumi5370 Poland, the UK and France had a mutual assistance treaty in case the Germans attacked Poland. This meant we had to go to war or no one would ever take us at our word. You just can't re-write history because you don't like it.
@rogi_itsumi5370 so Poland shouldn't have defended themselves after the Germans invaded? LMFAO. As I said, there was a treaty that only named German as the aggressor.
An interesting video and timely for me as two weeks ago I was in the reserve hangar of the National Air and Space Museum in Ottawa and was very surprised to see what appeared to be a Fairey Battle. It was painted in the yellow used for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (CATP) training aircraft and sported a great big turret. Apparently over 700 Battles were sent to Canada starting in August 1939 and this example had the rear cockpit removed and replaced with a Bristol turret for turret-gunnery training. Four Battles still exist, with other examples in the UK, Belgium and Australia.
Well, well!
It was a versatile aircraft.
It's been sitting in that hanger for many years, at one time it had the Henkel HE 162 Volkjager as company before it was finally re-assembled and moved into the museum proper.
The Battle had a crew of 3 (pilot, bombardier / navigator & gunner), but only carried two parachutes. In the event of needing to bail out, the bombardier / navigator was supposed to be attached to the gunner (who had a special harness & larger than normal parachute), before jumping from the plane. This was the first instance of tandem parachute jumps being attempted. Of course, if the gunner is killed or incapacitated, the bombardier is kind of f******d......
Life was cheap in the RAF. HM's subjects carried out their duties to the end.
The Fairey Battle, after its withdrawal from combat, also served as a glider tug. 🛩️🇬🇧
Yeah but not for the big transport gliders like the Horsa and Hamilcar they needed something like the C-47 or the AVRO Manchester.
My wife's father told me he was transported about by Battle in S.Rhodesia when it had been relegated to hack.
The problem was that at the time aviation technology moved on so quickly, that a plane could be perfectly adequate today, and be a flying coffin 18 months or 2 years down the line. Plus, in the thirties there were different theories regarding air tactics and strategies. Although, the light bomber concept was probably flawed from the outset. Fine for a policing role in the colonies, which was something the Hawker Hart did do, not so great when fighting an peer opponent.
In 1932, arms limitation talks looked likely to limit bomb loads to 1000lbs. It was also the Great Depression. The Hart had proved difficult to intercept in exercises. So the Battle was a cheap answer to the limitation talks and they thought it could still be useful afterwards. However, it was not suitable for the role it was pressed into in France, but at that point it was what was available apart from the Blenheim. The latter was similarly armed at the time but slightly faster.
@@wbertie2604 Blenheim was fast, just not fast enough.Armed, but nor armed enough.
By the end of the war the light bomber had been replaced by the heavy (and not so heavy) fighter for tactical ground attack. Spitfires, Typhoons, Tempests, Beaufighters, P47s and mosquitos - all strafed their way across France and the low countries ahead of the allied army
A reminder that the Tsar Bomba was used at a 50% yield which is the 50-58 megatons that was actually tested, due to concerns regarding the fallout it would cause, it's actual 100% yield was 100-116 Megatons.
Yep. It was 3 stage weapon, and in test configuration tertiary uranium tamper was replaced with lead, possibly 2nd stage tamper too. Test bomb was cleanest bomb ever, at 97% yield coming from fusion. 100Mt warshots would not had been clean...
Comparisons can be made to the Douglas TBD Devastator -- a plane that was also considered modern for about two years. Unfortunately those years were the wrong side of the start of WWII. It's also interesting to compare the Battle to the Il-2, two planes that were actually very similar in many respects.
The main advantage of the IL2 was its strong protection.
The Il2 attacked from higher altitudes with very low precision.
@@holgernarrog962Plus 700 more horsepower...
@@kimj2570 It depends on the source. With about 1300hp it was not that strong.
Tha Fairey Battle is a much maligned aircraft. The problem it ran into was that air combat had advanced from the time it was conceived to when it was in combat. Like the JU 87, it suffered greviously when engaged by fighters. I wonder how it would have been remembered if it had fighter protection ?
The Ju 87 had one decisive advantage. It could hit targets very precisely. Thus it made more sense to protect the valuable Ju87 rather than the Battle.
I remember playing some turn based strategy Battle of Britain game as a kid in the 90s and being absolutely baffled as to how anyone thought deploying this thing in 1940 against BF-109s and 110s was going to end at all well.
I always liked the Battle. A P.O.S. in combat but a really nice looking aircraft.
I really wish you would throw in the month and year more. For example when design parameters were submitted or when a prototype flew. At least the year.
From my view it would make sense to compare the Fairey Battle with the German Stuka. It was the same time, single engine, similar vulnerable to fighters...
The benefit of the Stuka was its diving capability which provided a bombing accuracy the battle did not have.
The "H" in Blenheim is silent....
Um acshually, the Bell x1 was a rocket powered aircraft in 1947, NOT a jet aircraft.
The light bomber concept never made sense for me, even in the era it was introduced; it would only be safe operating closer to friendlies, but would not be particularly effective at bombing compared to bigger bombers. The light defensive armament of the light bomber would be useless when operating in enemy airspace, when the OpFor could bring more fighters to bear against them, quickly.
Consider the economic troubles at the time, and it makes more sense.
depends on what you want to call the mosquito or fight bombers i guess. they did quite well operating from carriers as well.
@@geesehoward700 Exactly. The Mosquito was a light bomber and it performed well. Most carrier-borne bombers also fit this role. The Battle was just obsolete for its time. An updated version could have performed well.
1920/30s light bombers were used effectively by colonial forces to quell uprisings, more of a terror weapon that had no opposition in the air.
@@米空軍パイロット i think the plane was fine but they just didnt know how to use it at that point. didnt help that the only fighters we had were all short range. maybe the best thing we can say about the plane was they learned from its mistakes.
One of those aircraft that looked fantastic in 36-37 but was woefully inadequate 3 to 4 years later
The picture of "Castle Bravo" is in fact "Ivy Mike" the first thermonuclear test
The successful Fairey Fulmar carrier fighter was a development from the design of the Battle.
Seems a good point to make given the unremaked-upon Firefly background!
You called the Fulmar “successful” and that got a belly laugh from me.
Thanks for that.
My uncle never stopped talking about how he hated his Fulmar completely and utterly. He said it was “useless as a fighter or bomber”. He eventually got a Hellcat and waxed poetic about it “putting the damn Fulmar in the garage” until he passed in the eighties.
But you be you.
Mahalo for bringing back my memories of a great man, and Aloha!
@@brookeshenfield7156early in the war it shot down a fair few German and Italian bombers. But yes, the F4F was definitely a step up, which the FAA got after the Fulmar.
@@wbertie2604 It was the Fleet Air Arm responding to the small air groups of Royal Navy carriers with a desire for a plane that could do more than one job. Understandable, but the result was the Fulmar, a plane that did none of the jobs well.
@@brookeshenfield7156 Yes, the Royal Navy's Indian Ocean fleet would like a word.
Fairly aviation made a lot of garbage.
It wasn’t ’cutting edge’ by the time war broke out, and the RAF knew it wasn’t. Don’t try and misrepresent things. They began a process to replace it prior to the war but had to stop due to the outbreak of hostilities.
When I first read of the Fairey Battle, I recall it was billed as a sort of "heavy fighter", rather than as a bomber.
3:20 ish; As far as I'm aware the tzar bomb was planned to have a yield that "absolutely blows those bombs out of the water"(it self included) but even the soviets where like "you know what? Maybe don't ." I think the actual bomb they used had the potential for 100 MT, and the original designs was specified with 150 MT and a theoretical possibility to get the design get up to 1 Gigaton (wft?).
Not sure how much of that is fact or soviet propaganda tho. Especially the bit with the 1GT sounds a bit too... uhm... russian to me. But the 100MT part is as far as I know true and the planned 150t sounds reasonable... if one can use that word there, because it's really everything but reasonable to build such a thing, which is probably why they didn't...
And the WWI plane you show as a "light bomber" was a "medium bomber"... The Albatros CIV was pretty large, what you should have posted was the Halberstadt CL.II The "L" meaning "light" It was about 3/4's the size and weight of the Albatros. You should do a episode about the Vickers Wellesely, mainly because it pioneered the "geodetic" aluminum framing of the later Wellington.
Thanks once again for another of your informative video.
Ah the Fairey Battle, in my conscience, it's up there with the Brewster Buffalo F2A for aircraft that should not be mentioned, given the amount of poor souls that were expected to fight with....
Your observation of the Battle having so much weight and drag for a single Merlin engine has also always resonated with me, along with that thick and broad wing design.
As a side note, if I may, the original 1933 Air Ministry Specification P.27/32 specified 'a two-seat single-engine monoplane day bomber'. I wonder why the RAF accepted a three-seat design, given both the manpower cost and space and weight a third crewman would constitute?
Regards
Rob
Fonz was on the cutting edge. It was a modified version of the very first racing game to use pseudo 3D, 1976's Road Race. It was also on the first officially licensed video game.
Pratically it was designed as a "modernized" version of the Harts light bombers, with the same WWI's armament and mission, but the problem was that the modern fighters were more powerful than in the past. I remember the old Airfix model, its box cover had been used in this video, it wasn't an ugly aircraft, very sleek, but sadly, as I said, was designed for the wrong war.
P.s. fun fact, when it was originally designed, the only possible enemy for the UK was reputed....France, so it had a optimal range for to reach Paris, naturally taking off from Britain.
"Phony war raged on" - LOL
Depends where you were. If you were on board a coastal collier then there never a ‘phoney war’.
@@geordiedog1749
Very true.
The war at sea was fierce from the first day.
Like so many weapons from different countries, it depends on how you utilize it. Even outclassed planes or tanks can be of use in specialized role. The best examples are the Gloster "Gladiator" MK I , Junkers 87/"Stuka" or the Henschel HS 123
Tactically good deployment always leads to success and in vice versa defeat or at least to unnecessary losses.....
Boulton Paul Defiant says hold my beer.
He's done a video, but in fact The Defiant was a pretty good night fighter in 1940 - 41 before airborne radar became standard.
I think the real problem was tactics. These were operated by highly trained prewar crews that did as they were told. The tactics just didn't work against more modern weapons. If they had been flown using later tactics I don't think the loses would have been so bad.
Yes, the accepted idea was line up in a neat line and come in one at a time on the same heading and altitude. German AA gunners had a field day. The vast majority of Battles were shot down by AA fire. Most of the crews were killed; a few were taken prisoner.
It was underpowered for its size and weigh so its performance was pedestrian to downright inadequate for the roles it was tasked to perform. It was ludicrously under-armed defensively and carried a mediocre bomb load. What better an aircraft to send, poorly or totally unescorted, against vastly better performing and better armed fighters? Why not task it as a fighter as well... er... wait a minute...give it a prop spinner, a tail hook, a moderately more powerful engine and eight wing mounted .303 Brownings... er... It was not a bad looking aircraft (neither was the Blenheim) but neither fared well except in theatres where there was no aerial opposition.
At least they put 4 50s in a few Fulmars later on. The Fulmar was certainly not expected to fight fighters, just be faster than an Fw200. But that made it not very versatile. But it was expected to operate well away from land with no chance of enemy carrier aircraft, and Germany had no carriers.
@@wbertie2604 Its a good thing that it saw little or no use in the Asian theatres as the Japanese HAD carriers and employed fighters that had considerably longer range than Allied types. At least its armament gave it some sort of "bite".
@@stephengardiner9867 in the mid-30s the concern was very much Europe not Asia for a future war. Plus the Zero was a bit of a surprise. So given limited funds and time, the Fulmar had to do. It wasn't suitable against fighters, but it was never expected to be needed to fight them.
Actually it had a Very important function, like the devastator or the wild cat is helped by putting Something in the air while the next generation was readied. Thus the allies and axis got about 1/2 generation off in plane design and the axis were still trying to put their last generation Air Force together while the allies were winning with their own latest generation
Maybe modifying the underwing bomb bays into mounts for 20mm Hispanos could have turned the Battle into a decent night fighter?
The Battle was a very capable plane when introduced pre-war. Aircraft design was so rapid it was soon outdated. Having a 2,000 hp Merlin in it may have made matters different. But the Merlin did not reach 2,000 hp until later in the war when the Battle was all but forgotten.
Oh look, this vid has become obsolete faster than the Battle.
Faster than the whitley and wellington,almost as quick as the blenheim and hampden, was it ever used in attacks where the allies had air superiority and the enemy hadn't had 24 hours to set up their AA defences???
Did the Battle have supercharging. Was the third crewman really neccessary?
This is best compared to is the Italian ba.65 nibbio. Not great but did well in the second tier forces and theaters of the war. Of not both did pretty good in Africa
Give two engines to the Battle, place it in the wings and it's basically an English BF-110. The overal idea and the cockpit make them incredibly similar. Even their history in the war is similar, with both becoming pretty useless after they were easily outclassed by single-engined fighters.
I don't know about that. The BF110 was designed as a fighter, and had a useful armament. The fighter pilot who found himself the target of a BF110 was in fairly severe trouble if it was pointing at him. The Machine guns and cannon were concentrated and would do pretty serious damage. They were even more dangerous against bombers; lots of day bombers were shot down by 110s, and a whole bunch of night bombers met their fate due to the BF110. All the top Luftwaffe night fighter aces flew BF110s almost exclusively.
It's easy to judge from 80 years perspective. We know NOW that light bombers like Battle, PZL 23 or Su-2 was a bad idea. But in late 30s people had different view.
Aircraft marked QT were from 142 Squadron. 103 Squadron carried the code PM.
I never understood why attack aircrafts of this time and period were always so underpowered compared to fighters even today. I get why fighters are nimble, it's common sense, but attack aircrafts need to be as nimble if not more considering they also have to defend themselves from ground threats on top of enemy fighters
Blenheim is pronounced "blennim".
You know, the furry battle and the devastator torpedo.Bomber have a lot in common.That way, in the beginning in their design phases, they were cutting edge.In fact, however, in reality coming off the assembly line, they were obsolete and a p.o.s.
Furry Battle.
Same goes for the Blenheim, and the Beaufort. Blenheim had a couple of 900 bhp Mercurys - 260mph, Beaufort had a pair of 1300bhp Taurus and were stuck at 270 mph.
Only when the Beaufighter came along with a pair or 1600bhp Hercules did the speed crack 320mph and the aircraft get to be pretty useful.
Whether you regard it as a heavy fighter or a light bomber, the Beaufighter was pretty usable, especially in the South Pacific and as a night fighter in the UK
Hmm, Vickers Wellesley
Next?
I believe in both design and doctrine it was a case of theory hitting reality.
19:45 ye had to make the avatar meme reference. ye just had to XD😆🤣🤣🤣
What I wondered always wondered about is if one of the later Merlins with a few other tweaks in the design would´ve made the Battle actually a useful plane. Any opinions?
I cant see anything useful about it. There were many stools, and it fell between all of them. It wasn't fast, it had sod all firepower, and it couldn't carry much bomb load.
It turned out that it was easier to turn an air superiority fighter into ground attack, than use a slow light bomber.
Everything in WWII air warfare that had any success had massive power and firepower.
@@leosmith848 I guess you´re right with this ssessment. I came too similar conclusions even before I did write my question.
Still. I wonder...
3:38 Why doe's it say "Brünhilde"? Why the Ü? The name is Brunhilde, isn't it? Or did I miss some thing and both was used? I guess so...
But to me this almost looks like if some one who doesn't know German tries to make a "German looking" prop for a movie. Where they write something like "Uberbratwürst", because they don't know how "umlaute" work. (It's Über, imagine a french person calling an Uber and you're there)
The infrastructure change was the most important development.
Belgium built 18 under license, all were lost in one day, attacking the bridges of Maastricht, only one bridge was destroyed.
The Germans were fairly ahead of the curve in moving forward with plenty of 2 cm Flak 30 and 2cm Flak 38 guns as well as 8.8cm FLAK 37 and a few 3.7cm FLAK 37.
These rather than the Luftwaffe shredded the RAF and FaF.
The Allies would wait until the Germans had set up their excellence AA artillery, only then attack which went as well as you'd expect.
The brave crews that flew that suicide mission should be remembered.
AFAIK, the planes were not license build, put purchased from Fairey. However, the designer of the Battle, M. Lobel, was actually Belgian.
I think only a dozen or so aircrafts participated in the attack. It appears they did not even have a bombsight installed. They had no chance at all, and died in vain.
After sitting through 4 minutes + of a voice droning on and on about anything and everything in the world BUT the Fairy Battle. I switched channels and watched the paint drying contest, which was more exciting.
One is on a very long term restoration to fly
Solid.
Yet it became the fulmar then the firefly then eventually the Gannett finally leaving service in the seventies
It should have been given the name Deathtrap, especially in 1940.
RAF throwed Battles and Blenheims to low level raids against German pontoon bridges crossing river Meuse. German fighters and flak wiped whole squadrons out of the sky. Still, targets worth to die for. There were plenty of Fighter Command Hurricanes in France, but co-operation between them and Advanced Air Striking Force bombers was non-existant. Luftwaffe also did everything possible to suppress enemy air activity by hitting known bases.
The videos are decent but the long lead in material gets a little tiring. That said, I just skip past the first few minutes until the actual topic begins.
Not all planes during WW 2 were good and they all lost lots of planes, even though some of em were really good, I was not aware of this plane and I know little about the pre battle of Britain air war. The british fighter with 4 tail guns got turned into a nightfigher, cause of losses. as Luftwaffe changed flying doctrines against it, To me, it feels like we do not talk about how many planes and plane crews were lost during WW 2.
The Soviets made that concept work in the ilushin lL - 2 Sturmovik , a totally different beast though heavily armoured but they suffered heavy losses ,in exess of 6000 losses , the one aircraft in the Luftwaffes line up of greatest number of kills on a single type ; The much vuanted Supermarine Spitfire which the Luftwaffe killed in exess of 5000! (Not sure whether that number includes Spitfires lost in the far east theater (South east asia and Australia)
These fairy heavy fighter things are sexy, albiet underpowered
What if they armoured it and made it into British IL-2...
Battle? What battle?
7,40 then we come to the meat of the video.
The word "Blenheim" is pronounced as /ˈblenɪm/ ("BLEN" + "im").
More like Fairly Brittle, amirite?
Why do u use the word stronger instead of more powerful?
17:17 not for very long :(
Very interesting as always. I really don't want to sound rude but I am always astonished about the ugliness of early british designs, they look so non aerodynamic, I am surprised they even flew...
Drinking game, each time IHYLS pronounces Blen-HYIM 😆
Them funny Yanks!
I know you always try hard to pronounce aircrafts names correctly. 'Blenheim' is pronounced 'Blennem'.
Would be correct in german.
@@brittakriep2938 who won the war?
@@MartinWillett : Germany, don't believe Fake News!
@@MartinWillett : What is wrong with you? I wrote in english, not chinese language, that Blen heim is german pronouncion. Where did i wrote english people should speak german?
@@brittakriep2938 Stop reacting to comments as if everyone is out to get you
What's with all the toxicity in the comments? Are the pommies butthurt that a Yank is criticizing their "wonderful" aircraft?
Please, if you do struggle to pronounce the names of British aircraft please RESEARCH. ruclips.net/video/FwvUwcr0uFU/видео.html It Grates something awful to hear it mispronounced. Please no more 'Blen-Heims'.
Should have stayed in colonial policing operations. The Battle was already obsolete by the time War broke out.
16:02 - “This’s the paper that my friend Hitler wiped his behind after doing his business. At the same time ensuring peace and harmony of all Europeans. This paper has odd streak and smells like pea soup”.
Brits came to their senses with and stopped trying to woke Hitler or appease. RIP those pilots who had to fly a Woke bomber.
Really? Woke? Give it a break
IDK, but your pronunciation of Blenheim makes me angry
British Kamikaze.
Blen hime😂
"Battle" was a poor name, "Hissy Fit" more apt. How many Brave pilots lost their lives in this DOG of a plane ? Far too many !
Where was the fighter escort ???? Everyone knew back then that bombers needed escorts. FAIL on the RAF. n
Ah, so you could win the Battle AND win the war. Very good.
you've never heard "Blenheim" said aloud by a British person on TV ihyls? You're saying it weird.😂
Not very encouraging going on mission and you know that you have only maybe 10% of chance to come home. But those guys still followed the orders and did anything they could. Respect for that.
Minor niggle: Blenheim is pronounced Blennim.
"Blenheim" have you never heard the name pronounced before?
Wow, after like 4.50 minutes you finally come to the point. 6! Sit down!
Blenheim is pronounced Blen-em!
Why do British people have such a hard time with metric/Imperial conversions. Americans are just better at math, I guess.
Blen-nym.
Now THIS is the TBF Avenger we have at home