WOW426 Fairey Battle

Description

The Fairey Battle was a British single-engine light bomber designed and manufactured by the Fairey  Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the RAF as a successor to the Hawker Hart & Hind biplanes. The Battle was powered by the same high-performance Rolls Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various contemporary RAF fighters such as the Hurricane and Spitfire. As the Battle, with its three-man crew and bomb load, was much heavier than these fighters, it was therefore much slower. Though a great improvement over the aircraft that preceded it, its relatively slow speed, limited range and inadequate defensive armament of only two 7.7 mm machine guns left it vulnerable like the Stuka to enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

On 2 September 1939, during the Phony War, 10 x Battle squadrons were deployed to pre-selected airfields in France to form a portion of the vanguard of the British RAF Strike Force. Once the Battles arrived, the aircraft were dispersed and efforts were made to camouflage or otherwise obscure their presence; the envisioned purpose of their deployment had been that, in the event of German commencement of bombing attacks, the Battles based in France could launch retaliatory raids upon Germany, specifically in the Ruhr Valley region, and would benefit from their closer range than otherwise possible from the British mainland.

On 20 September 1939, a German Me 109 BF 109 was shot down by Battle gunner Sgt F. Letchford during a patrol near Aachen; this occasion is recognised as being the RAF’s first aerial victory of the war. Nonetheless, the Battle was hopelessly outclassed by faster Luftwaffe fighters, being almost 100 mph slower than the contemporary Bf 109 at 14,000 ft. That same day, three Battles were engaged by German fighters resulting in two Battles being lost.

On 12 May, a formation of five Battles of 12 Squadron RAF attacked two road bridges over the Albert Canal; four of these aircraft were destroyed with the final aircraft crash-landing upon its return to its base. Our model PH-F was one of the aircraft involved in this attack and did not return, its crew were captured by the Germans and became prisoners of war.

We have five 1/30 scale models in stock priced at $950 plus shipping. The figures and mat are only shown for scale comparison purposes and are not included. This model comes with full interior and bombs fitted under the wings.