Talk:Bristol Blenheim

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Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
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WikiProject Echo has identified Bristol Blenheim as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Swedish language Wikipedia.

I've found very different data as for how many Blenheim were produced in England: Blenheim Mk I: 1236, 1280, 1330 or 1390 (in article is 1351), Mk IV: 3297, 3122 or 3162 (in article is 3307). Pibwl 21:56, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the article include something on Blenheim survivors? After all, the accompanying photograph is dated 2001 ! 84.130.93.233 13:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Inaccurate details The article is quite inaccurate in its discussion of the design, development and armament of the aircraft. A few examples:

1. The Type 135 civil twin design was on Bristol drawing boards by Jul 1933.

2. That design was brought to Rothermere's attention in early 1934, not the other way around.

2. The first flight was in April 1935, not in 1934.

3. The fixed fwd firing gun was outboard of the port engine, not in the wing root.

and so on. Extensive redrafting of this article is required, from sound source material. I don't have time to attempt that at present. Don Clark 21:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Really?

"one additional man was taken on board and armed with a Suomi submachine gun. When the aircraft was flying low, the additional crew member strafed the groups of Soviet soldiers on the ground."

Is this actually true? I can't imagine a more useless tactic. Guy + gun + ammo + suit + oxy gear + parachute etc. is going to be maybe 350 pounds. If he's lucky he might fire one entire clip of ammo during a flight, as I find it very difficult to believe they'd be in range long enough to reload. Assuming a hit rate of 1% (which is extremely generous IMHO), every three missions or so you might get one casualty. In exchange, the aircraft has to lose one entire bomb worth of weight and fly into easy range of the ground fire for extended periods.

This sounds EXTREMELY stupid.

Maury 12:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

...or desperate...as I understood it, they wanted to add some lethality to the aircraft (more MGs to strafe the enemy with) after they had dropped their few bombs. One has to remember that the Finnish military was in a really lousy condition when entering the war. At some points the situation was so desperate that the military was given order to stop the Soviets "by any means". --MoRsE 12:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Soviet Army still employed to some extent WWI era tactics, and employed massed infantry attacks. I believe the hit chances were somewhat higher then too... --MoRsE 12:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The assymetrical war forced the development of several improvised ideas of warfare, the most famous improvisation was the molotov cocktail which gained fame during the conflict although being an old invention, others were the adaption of large caliber artillery pieces as anti-aircraft guns, firing special ammunition that created massive (and scary) air bursts (which led to that Soviet bomber crews dropped their bomb loads early), logs were tied horizontally between trees, if lucky, this could perhaps destroy the guns of onrushing tanks. Blocks of wood were used to blocking the sprocket of tanks, in order to immobilize them. --MoRsE 13:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent review

I would like to enlist other editors in assessing this article which had recently been classed as a "start" and to my mind, does not fit that category. See examples of start articles. FWIW, the example of a "start" article is 1st Battalion 2nd Marines. Bzuk (talk) 05:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC).