Dumbest military weapons

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

my issue with the Defiant is not so much the turret as the fact that it had no forward firing guns, so could only engage bombers from its sides and was useless against fighters.

Almost every plane designed at that time, even light bombers like the SBD, VAL or IL-2 had forward firing guns.

It was a carry over from the Bristol fighters from the First World War...yeah, we did a lot of carry overs from the First World War, some worked and some didn't. The Defiant did work initially, she had a reasonable kill ratio in the Battle of France, knocking down six 109s for three Defiants in one battle and then some nineteen Stukas, nine 110s, eight 109s and a Ju-88 over two sortees with the loss of one Defiant gunner after he bailed out but the aircraft itself made it back to base.
However, then the Luftwaffe recognised the Defiants weaknesses and stopped engaging it from the rear, and the new Defiant pilots refused to follow the strategy adapted by 264 Squadron of flying a tight Lufberry circle (like the 110s did when they were attacked by our fighters) they would sacrifice speed and height but gain a 360 degree coverage on the turret guns, thus combining the firepower of the aircraft in the Lufberry to bring down an aircraft which tried to approach from behind or got into the arc of fire.
Of course, ultimately she wasn't right for the job, like the Ju-87 and Me-110 as the Luftwaffe would find out during the course of the battle, and she was transferred to Night fighter duties and used as an experimental aircraft for ECMs and jamming against the German radar network until the Beaufighters took over the role in '43, and she did quite a good job as a night fighter but technology overtook her and that was that.
I wouldn't have said the Defiant was dumb...just tactically outdated, like a great deal of British equipment at the beginning of World War Two.