Quote:
Originally Posted by mondo
Thats not true. It excelled in allot of different roles. It was only initially intended as a fast bomber but in fact was an outstanding plane in a number of different roles it was never intended for use in. It was probably the most versatile aircraft of WW2.
It did everything by night or by day from ground attack to high level bombing to anti shipping to being a night fighter (and a number of other roles). It even passed its carrier trials. The only thing it couldn't excel at was being a dive bomber, pure fighter or interceptor (unless you count V1's) but it pretty much covered every other role imaginable and better than most designs intended for those roles.
It was probably the first true multirole combat aircraft that could operate by night or by day.
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My mistake, I should have said "roles" instead of "role". One thing it was never designed to do (nor any of it's various marks and it would have been quite inadequate at) was strategic bombing which was the role of the big 4 engined bombers that could carry a bomb load that could do the job.
Cheers!