Fairey Battle

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Fairey Battle
Type Light bomber
Manufacturer Fairey Aviation
Designed by Marcel Lobelle
Maiden flight 10 March 1936
Introduced June 1937
Retired 1949
Status 4 remain in museums
Primary users Royal Air Force
Belgian Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force (trainer)
Royal Canadian Air Force (trainer)
Produced 1937-1941
Number built 2,185

The Fairey Battle was a British single-engined light bomber. It was built by Fairey Aviation in the late 1930s for the Royal Air Force. The Battle was powered by the same Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that gave the contemporary Supermarine Spitfire its high performance; however, the Battle was weighed down with a three-man crew and a bomb load. It was slow, limited in range and highly vulnerable to attack. During the Battle of France in 1940, the Fairey Battle recorded the first RAF aerial victory of the Second World War. Despite this claim, it sustained terrible casualties and was pulled form the front lines.

Contents

[edit] Design and development

The original Battle was designed to Specification P.27/32 as a two-seat day bomber, to replace the ageing Hawker Hart and Hawker Hind biplane bombers. The prototype Battle first flew on 10 March 1936.When the RAF embarked on the pre-war expansion programme, the Battle became a priority production target with 2,419 ordered.[1] The first production order was for 155 Battles, built to Specification P.23/35 with the first production aircraft completed in June 1937 at Fairey's Stockport factory. It was tested at their Manchester (Ringway) facility.

Production Battles were powered by the Rolls Royce Merlin I, II, III and V, and took their Mark numbers from the powerplant (ie., a Battle Mk II was powered by a Merlin II). Later production to Specification 32/36 was 1,029 aircraft produced by the Austin Motors "Shadow Factory" at Longbridge.

The Battle's standard payload of four 250 lb (110 kg) bombs was carried in cells inside the wings. An additional 500 lb of bombs could be carried in under-wing racks. Replacing the RAF's Hawker Harts and Hinds when it entered service in 1937, the Battle was obsolescent as fighter technology had soon outstripped the modest performance gains that the light bomber possessed over its biplane antecedents.[2]

[edit] Operational service

The first RAF squadron to be equipped with the Battles was No.63 Squadron in June, 1937. The Battle had the distinction of becoming the first operational aircraft to enter service with a Merlin engine, beating the Hawker Hurricane's service debut by a few months.

The Battle was obsolete by the start of the Second World War but remained a front line RAF bomber due to a lack of a suitable replacement. On 2 September 1939, during the "Phony War", ten Battle squadrons were deployed to France to form a vanguard of the Advanced Air Striking Force. On 20 September 1939, a German Messerschmitt Bf 109 was shot down by Battle gunner Sgt. F. Letchard during a patrol near Aachen, marking the RAF's first aerial victory of the war. Nonetheless, the Battle was hopelessly outclassed by Luftwaffe fighters, being almost 100 mph slower than the contemporary Bf 109 at 14,000 feet. The Battle's defence consisted of a single .303 Vickers K machine gun mounted in the rear cockpit. The aircraft also carried a forward-firing .303 machine gun in the starboard wing.

When the Battle of France began, Battles were called upon to perform unescorted, low-level tactical attacks against the advancing German army. This put the aircraft at risk of attack from Luftwaffe fighters, and within easy range of the German Army's light anti-aircraft guns. On 10 May 1940, two Battle sorties were carried out; in the first sortie, three out of eight Battles were lost, while in the second sortie, 13 out of 32 went down, with the remainder suffering damage. Despite bombing from as low as 250 ft (76 m), their attacks had little impact on the German columns.

The following day, 15 Battles of the Belgian Air Force attacked bridges over the Albert Canal on the River Meuse, losing ten aircraft. In one RAF sortie on that day, only one Battle out of eight survived. On 12 May, six Battles of the No. 12 Squadron RAF attacked the Albert Canal bridges; four of the aircraft were destroyed. Two Victoria Crosses were awarded posthumously for the action - to Flying Officer Garland and navigator/bombardier Sgt. Gray of Battle P2204/K - for pressing home the attack in spite of the heavy defensive fire. The third crewmember, rear gunner Leading Aircraftman Lawrence Reynolds, did not share the medal. Garland's Battle destroyed one span of the bridge, although the German army quickly erected a pontoon bridge to replace it.

The penultimate Fairey Battle sorties included an "all-out" attack against German pontoon bridges on 30 May 1940. The light bombers were swarmed by opposing fighters and were devasted; out of a strike force of 71 Battles, 40 were lost. After these abortive raids, the Battle was withdrawn from front line service in France. A similar situation would befall the German Luftwaffe during the early days of the Battle of Britain when the Ju 87 Stuka divebomber suffered equivalent losses in a similar role. With the exception of the successful de Havilland Mosquito, Bristol Beaufighter and Douglas A-20, low-level attack missions passed into the hands of single-engined, multi-role fighter aircraft such as the Hawker Hurricane, Hawker Typhoon and P-47 Thunderbolt.

While the few remaining Fairey Battles were evacuated from France, for a short period of time, the RAF continued to rely on the light bomber. Reforming the No. 1 Group and later equipping some new Polish squadrons with the type, it continued to be deployed in cross-channel operations. The last operational sortie was mounted on the night of 15/16 October 1940 by No. 301 (Polish) Squadron in a raid on Boulogne and Nos. 12 and 142 Squadrons bombing Calais. Shortly after, all Battle squadrons were re-equipped with more potent Vickers Wellington bombers. [3]

[edit] New roles

While the Fairey Battle was no longer used as a combat aircraft, its benign handling characteristics made it an ideal platform for testing engines and it was used in this role to evaluate engines up to 2,000 hp. As the dual-control Fairey Battle T, it served as a trainer and as the winch-equipped Fairey Battle TT, it was used as a target towing aircraft. The Battle served as a trainer with the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the South African Air Force. From August 1939, 739 Battles were stationed in Canada as trainers in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Most were used for bombing and gunnery training with a small number equipped as target tugs. Some aircraft had the rear cockpit replaced with a Bristol turret for turret-gunnery training. Ironically, the Battle remained in RAF service in secondary roles until 1949.

[edit] Variants

  • Fairey Day Bomber: Prototype (K4303).
  • Battle Mk I: Three-seat light bomber version. This was the first production version, which was powered by a 1,030-hp (768-kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin I inline piston engine.
  • Battle Mk II: Three-seat light bomber version. Powered by a 1,030-hp (768-kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin II inline piston engine.
  • Battle Mk V: Three-seat light bomber version. Powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin V inline piston engine.
  • Battle T: After May 1940, a number of Battle Mk Is, IIs and Vs were converted into training aircraft.
  • Battle IT: After May 1940, a number of Battle Mk Is, IIs and Vs were converted into training aircraft with a turret installed in the rear.
  • Battle TT: After May 1940, a number of Battle Mk Is, IIs and Vs were converted into target tug aircraft; 100 built.
  • Battle TT.Mk I: Target tug version. This was the last production version; 226 built.

[edit] Production

In total 2,185 Battles were built during the machine's production life; 1,156 by Fairey and 1,029 by the Austin Motor Company. A further 18 were built under licence by Avions Fairey in Belgium for service with the Belgian Air Force.

A Fairey Battle under restoration at the Brussels Air Museum, 2006.
A Fairey Battle under restoration at the Brussels Air Museum, 2006.

[edit] Survivors

While there are no flying examples of the Battle, four are held by various museums. The best known is that of L5343 displayed at the RAF Museum in Hendon. In July 1940 it was allocated to No. 98 RAF Squadron, after which it and other Battles were flown to Iceland for anti-invasion operations in support of British forces which had occupied the island in May 1940. L5343 was the first RAF aircraft to land on Icelandic soil. During operations, the aircraft crashed. In 1972, the RAF embarked on a successful recovery operation to salvage the wreck and return it to the UK for restoration. The wreck of a further Battle was discovered in an Icelandic glacier in 1995, [1] although there are no plans to restore it.

Another airframe is on display at the Canada Aviation Museum as a Battle T (marked as R7384/35), to represent the contribution the aircraft made to aircrew training in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. R7384 was manufactured as a pilot trainer in 1940, and taken on strength by the RCAF in 1941. Converted to a turret-gunnery trainer in 1942, it was used until 1943, when it entered storage. After moving among several storage locations, the aircraft was transferred to the Canada Aviation Museum in 1964. A final restoration program was completed in the 1990s. Although far from complete, another Canadian-based Battle trainer is currently being restored at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum at Brandon, Manitoba.

A fourth aircraft is part of the collection of the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History, Brussels, Belgium. It is currently under restoration.

[edit] Operators

[edit] Specifications (Mk.II)

Orthographically projected diagram of the Fairey Battle.

General characteristics

  • Crew: 3
  • Length: 42 ft 2 in (12.85 m)
  • Wingspan: 54 ft 0 in (16.46 m)
  • Height: 15 ft 6 in (4.72 m)
  • Wing area: 422 ft² (39.2 m²)
  • Empty weight: 6,647 lb (3,015 kg)
  • Loaded weight: 10,792 lb (4,895 kg)
  • Powerplant: 1× Rolls-Royce Merlin II liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,030 hp (770 kW)

Performance

Armament

  • Guns:
  • Bombs:
    • 4× 250 lb (110 kg) bombs internally
    • 500 lb (230 kg) of bombs externally

    [edit] References

    1. ^ Moyes 1971, p.120.
    2. ^ Taylor 1969, p. 358.
    3. ^ Moyes 1971, p. 115.


    [edit] External links

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