The Loose Association of Wargamers

That was incredible. A severed head on yer wing, FFS.

Norman D. Landings wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2020 11:06 pm That was incredible. A severed head on yer wing, FFS.

Oh God yes, I'd forgotten that. Wasn't that from one of the flak ships or something? Every time I take the ferry into Cherbourg harbour I think of those Whirlwinds and Typhoons coming in so fecking low that the flak guns on the harbour wall couldn't depress low enough...

By the way, if you ever go to the 'Musee du Debarquement' in Arromanches, one of the (bent) 20mm Hispanos from Reggie's Typhoon is on display there. It spent 50 years impaled through a tree near Carpiquet before being recovered.

Etranger wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2020 2:21 pm Apparently you could loop the Walrus, which would have been something to see.

Especially from inside the aircraft!

Slugbalancer wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2020 7:55 pm

Norman D. Landings wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2020 7:22 pm

Buff Orpington wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2020 5:04 pm

. The unsurpassable Whirlwind HAR Mk 10. Best job of my life.

The first bearer of that name was IMHO the best-looking aircraft of WWII.
Seriously, you can find Merlins for Fairey Battles and Boulton Paul Defiants, but not for Whirlwinds? Practically sabotage, that is.

I'm not sue the structure of Whirlwind could take the extra power of Merlins.

The wing would have required a redesign to accommodate the larger Merlin engine but I too have wondered why they didn't at least try to.

Demand for Merlins was rising. Each merlin engined whirlwind by 1942 was two spits, one mossie, or half a lanc not in production. Then they started putting them in tanks.

There was the Welkin.

The tragedy was the Hawker Henley, a 300 MPH Stuka would have been great in the desert.

I note how many fighter squadrons converted to bloodhounds. Was the bloodhound really going to drop bears out of the air in droves or was it just wishful thinking and immature tech? Could the sovs have simply flown lower and lofted their nukes? What effect would the standoff missiles like kitchen and kennel have stopped them?

grizzlymc wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 3:51 am Demand for Merlins was rising. Each merlin engined whirlwind by 1942 was two spits, one mossie, or half a lanc not in production. Then they started putting them in tanks.

There was the Welkin.

The tragedy was the Hawker Henley, a 300 MPH Stuka would have been great in the desert.

There were lots of Henleys in this neck of the woods. Again, used as target-tugs and bombing trainers. There was however, one 'combat' engagement involving one:

Wg Cdr Ira 'Taffy' Jones DSO MC DFC* MM, the former WW1 air ace and friend of Mick Mannock, was commanding RAF Stormy Down (between Port Talbot and Bridgend), when he watched the Germans bombing Swansea across the bay. He called RAF Pembrey, the local fighter station (west of Llanelli and only around 10 miles from Swansea), demanding to know why they didn't have fighters in the air. For some reason Pembrey's fighters didn't get airborne and Swansea was very badly hit. Taffy was apparently apoplectic with rage and when he saw a Ju-88 appear overhead (conducting post-raid damage assessment), he jumped into a Henley and took off to engage it, despite the Henley being completely unarmed... Undeterred, he opened the canopy and let rip with a Very pistol and forced the Ju-88 down to sea level. However, the Henley was by this time, absolutely riddled with bullet-holes and as the red mist finally lifted, Taffy broke off and landed his colander-like Henley back at Stormy Down.

But never used, as designed, as a dive bomber.

So, what is the skinny on the bloodhound.

'Taffy' Jones was an enthusiastic and unapologetic proponent of machine-gunning baled out crews in their parachutes. Naughty little scamp.