After a three month wait (ordered book in august), I finally got British Secret Projects 1935-1950, no thanks to the slowness of Royal Mail Surface Shipping
And well...eat yer heart out, Rudel!
Several months later James Martin submitted his 'Tankbuster' design. This featured twin booms, a single rear-mounted Griffon II and one six pounder (2.7kg) anti-tank gun in the nose which was set on the horizontal axis of the CofG to ensure that the aircraft would not pitch when firing. Both radiator and oil tank, installed in the fuselage in front of the engine, were protected by offset armour-plated ducts to prevent bullets from being deflected inside the duct. The entire all-metal fuselage, and the engine cowling, was covered in 0.5 inch (12.7mm) thick armour which weighed approximately 4,9001b (2,223kg). The wings and tail were all-metal and a fixed tricyde undercarriage was used; maximum rate of climb would be 2,250ft/min (686m/min).
Martin-Baker's project was not attractive to the Air Staff because it carried only one big gun out of several weapons needed for low attack work, which meant it was only useable against one out of five or six types of target. It followed that to design a low attack aircraft around just this one weapon would be very uneconomical. It would probably be able to take other guns, bombs or rockets on the wings but they would make it very overloaded because it would be impossible to remove the big gun from the nose.
Specs:
48 foot wingspan
40 foot, 10 inch length
471 square ft wing area (about)
1 x Griffon II Engine of 1,760 hp
12,000 lbs Gross Weight
270 MPH maximum top speed
Hans Ulrich Rudel, Eat Your Heart Out!
Threaded Mode