Boulton Paul Defiant
Gentlemen...
May someone who was never anything more than a limited ground hugging pongo please ask a question of you....
In relation to the Boulton Paul Defiant of years past.
It could rotate its turret fully forward, putting its four guns either side of the pilots canopy, with the pilot able to fire the guns. But with the guns unable to fire directly ahead, only at a minimum angle of something like 19 degrees above horizontal and with no gunsight for the pilot, I wonder if it was a practical proposition to use it as a fighter, given that it had no other fixed forward firing armament.
I know someone who takes the view that it could operate as a conventional fighter aircraft of the day, and that the real problem it had was that the pilot was over the wing rather than pretty much behind it, so had a big blind spot beneath. I would have thought rolling the aircraft would have helped, and with the turret gunner providing a second set of eyes able to look in a different direction, located pretty much behind the wing visibility would not be such a problem.
Can anyone offer wise counsel to the ignorant but interested?