Originally Posted by
MAINJAFAD
Even as a day interceptor, the Defiant's overall loss to kill ratio was actually in its favour, yes both 141 and 264 Sqn got hammered over the course of a few days, but so did quite a few Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons. The problem for the Defiant was a 1.1 to 1 kill/loss ratio was just not good enough. Had they been used to deal with the deeper penetration raids or up north as a pure bomber killer where there was no Me-109 threat they could have racked up some quite impressive scores.
IIRC one squadron used the book defensive tactics (Descending circle formation providing a 'ring of fire') and was pretty successful the other didn't and got mauled.