Originally Posted by
Asturias56
"Most air forces seem to have assumed that bombers would be able to operate unescorted, protected either by their speed or defensive armament. Perhaps also there was an overestimation of the effectiveness of bombing, "
read any history of the Bomber Command in WW2
I have read a few. I am specifically
not talking about the experience of 1939 when the RAF quickly discovered that unescorted formations of bombers were unable to bomb naval bases in daylight. What I am referring to is the thinking of the mid-1930s, the relevant period for the design and procurement of the Defiant: the period when bombers were being designed (and introduced) that were faster than the fighters then in service, and when multi-gun turrets were replacing single rifle-calibre machine guns as defensive armament. In this period new (interceptor) fighters were being designed and introduced, and very good they were, but they were all relatively short ranged, and not suitable for escorting bombers: the Messerchmitt Bf 109 was notoriously marginal even for the short range of the raids of 1940. As far as I know, and I could well be wrong, the first aircraft introduced by a major power as an escort fighter was the Mitsubishi A6M "Zero," and that was slightly later than the European 1,000hp monoplane fighters.
What I am asking (and expecting the answer "No" but prepared to learn) was whether any planners, in the mid-1930s when the Defiant was specified, were expecting large formations of bombers with fighter escorts.