Handley Page Hampden and Hereford

[sideshowbob9]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this but I had a dream last night. In it, I was going around some supermarket aisles and found one of those 1/100th diecast models in a clear plastic bubble-packet. It was a Hampden trainer with a trainee pilot's position in the nose, silver with yellow bands, which I thought was quite cool. Naturally I bought it! 

[Caveman]

Night fighter conversion of Hampden. Done in competition with the Blenheim NF. The slight speed advantage the Hampden had, along with the perception by pilots of its better manoeuvrability and the navigator/radar(when fitted) operator's superior visibility gave it a favourable outlook.

The two rear gunners positions were deleted and faired over - slightly improving the aerodynamics. The nose gun was also deleted as it was found to be blinding at night to pilot and navigator. A quad pack of brownings was fitted below the bomb bay (this photo shows a mock-up pack used for drag and c-of-g analysis). Ammunition was actually held in the bomb bay and the gun pack mounted to existing hard points. The opening bay doors and their respective hydraulic systems were deleted as a further weight reduction measure.

Radio and radar control equipment was moved into the nose, and even with the removal of bomb aiming kit it became quite a tight space. The heavy transmitting equipment was mounted in the ex-gunners positions. Various antennae (not yet fitted on this prototype) were mounted along the wings, tail boom and nose of the aircraft.

Speculation has it that Bristol's team were better placed to shmooze the seniors responsible for the ultimate decision on which aircraft to take into operation. And so a promising night fighter was neglected. The later beaufighter and mosquito however were much more capable and not too long in coming into service. So perhaps not much would have changed in the course of the night war.

[PR19_Kit]

    

[Old Wombat]

The fact that both the Mosquito & Beaufighter used 4 x 20mm cannon as their primary armament, rather than .303 mg's, would, probably, have been one of the principal deciding factors.

[jcf]

You could probably fit six to eight Brownings in the belly pack.

[kitnut617]

Four .5's might be good ---

[kitbasher]

I think it was during the Great Modelzone Closing Down Sale I snaffled a Hampden at a knock-down price with the intention of building a night fighter version (if the Germans could turn bombers into night fighters why not the Brits?).  The cunning plan was to have guns in the nose like the Douglas Havoc, don't remember whether the rear turret would be kept or not.  Anyway, came to nothing and the kit was sold on.

Wish I hadn't now, as an NF Hampden is a bit of a no-brainer really

[RAFF-35]

I was looking for Hampden inspiration and realised I hadn't posted my night fighter on here.

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=51992.0

[Gondor]

I think it was during the Great Modelzone Closing Down Sale I snaffled a Hampden at a knock-down price with the intention of building a night fighter version (if the Germans could turn bombers into night fighters why not the Brits?).  The cunning plan was to have guns in the nose like the Douglas Havoc, don't remember whether the rear turret would be kept or not.  Anyway, came to nothing and the kit was sold on.

Wish I hadn't now, as an NF Hampden is a bit of a no-brainer really

Ah, but we did turn at least one bomber into a night fighter.

The Mosquito

[kitbasher]

I think it was during the Great Modelzone Closing Down Sale I snaffled a Hampden at a knock-down price with the intention of building a night fighter version (if the Germans could turn bombers into night fighters why not the Brits?).  The cunning plan was to have guns in the nose like the Douglas Havoc, don't remember whether the rear turret would be kept or not.  Anyway, came to nothing and the kit was sold on.

Wish I hadn't now, as an NF Hampden is a bit of a no-brainer really

Ah, but we did turn at least one bomber into a night fighter.

The Mosquito

And the Blenheim, of course.

You could argue that the HP Harrow was kinda sort of vaguely converted into an interceptor when trialled to deploy Long Aerial Mines during the Blitz.

Anyway, a cheap Bilek badging of the Airfix Hampden was snaffled recently at the Worthing show to resurrect the Hampden NF idea.

And then I checked this.....

I was looking for Hampden inspiration and realised I hadn't posted my night fighter on here.

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=51992.0

.....and thought 'bugger'.  And then I saw I'd even commented on the actual thread!

Anyway, RAFF-35's build is nearly but not quite what I had in mind.  May still have a stab at a 'Hampden NF', or may just give in to the idea of a Tomcat whif idea that won't go away.

[Weaver]

I had a related idea for a Hamden "flak basher" along the lines of the A-26 Invader.

It's job would be to go in much lower than the bombers, identify AAA sites by their muzzle flashes or searchlight sites by their beams, strafe them and/or drop small bombs all over them. Nose full of guns, lots of tubes for adapted 3" mortar bombs in the bomb bay, navigator in the former dorsal turret position with just a flex-mount K-gun, ventral turret deleted.

The sticking point for any project like this is making the solid nose. If you just paint the standard nose glazing it looks wrong. Maybe you can sand off the frame lines, but then maybe it no longer mates up with the fuselage afterwards. The only solution then is to coat it in a thin layer of filler and buckle up for some serious PSR sessions. I suppose the other way would be to claim that they did the conversion "quick'n'dirty" by just replacing the perspex with bent alloy on the existing frames, but I can't think of a real-world example of that being done.

[zenrat]

The 633 Squadron Mosquitos had the perspex painted over.

[Rheged]

I had a related idea for a Hamden "flak basher" along the lines of the A-26 Invader.

It's job would be to go in much lower than the bombers, identify AAA sites by their muzzle flashes or searchlight sites by their beams, strafe them and/or drop small bombs all over them. Nose full of guns, lots of tubes for adapted 3" mortar bombs in the bomb bay, navigator in the former dorsal turret position with just a flex-mount K-gun, ventral turret deleted.

The sticking point for any project like this is making the solid nose. If you just paint the standard nose glazing it looks wrong. Maybe you can sand off the frame lines, but then maybe it no longer mates up with the fuselage afterwards. The only solution then is to coat it in a thin layer of filler and buckle up for some serious PSR sessions. I suppose the other way would be to claim that they did the conversion "quick'n'dirty" by just replacing the perspex with bent alloy on the existing frames, but I can't think of a real-world example of that being done.

Given that the Hampden was introduced in 1937/38, there's  the potential for  an interesting backstory about mass "field conversions"  into anti-invasion beach strafing aircraft  to make life difficult for troops landing in the first wave of Operation Sealion.  That would certainly cover the "quick and dirty"  aspect.

[kitbasher]

Plenty of scope for field conversions.

EDIT: for example (albeit in the HP Halifax context) swift development at RAF Tempsford of the Z-type nose).  Not quite a field conversion but a good example of improvisation.  In fact the SOE Halifaxes were the subject of much improvisation.

[Gondor]

The 633 Squadron Mosquitos had the perspex painted over.

And a fake plate above that with the four machine guns fitted to it.