The
Defiant was a concept that probably looked great on paper but in practice fell
far short of its design expectations. The initial engagements with the enemy
were good but as soon as the Germans figured out this was no Hurricane and that
it had no forward mounted guns things got ugly for the Defiant crews. By August
of 1940 over half of the 120 aircraft delivered had already been shot down by
the Luftwaffe! By September the Defiant had been switched primarily to night
operations and it was here that the Defiant gave fairly good results. The Mk II
was powered by the superb RR Merlin XX giving the aircraft 1280 HP. The 210 Mk
IIs built can be distinguished by the "fishtail" engine exhausts,
deeper oil cooler fairing and broader chord propeller. The chord of the upper
rudder was increased also, but I find the difference difficult to spot at a
glance. At its peak, the Defiant equipped 13 night fighter squadrons.
MPM now offers both
the Mk I and Mk II versions of the Defiant in 1/72 scale and I chose to
build the latter. I have a Pavla Defiant Mk I but I must say I think the MPM kit
is much better. Pavla's kit got the nose a bit wrong and the quality of the
moldings falls short of MPM's work. I cannot speak to the "buildability"
of the Pavla kit, however, as it still sits in its box on my shelf.
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I have to say I was
very impressed with this kit. The fit was very good except for the fuselage
halves which needed some coaxing and filler to match up. The cockpit detail is
superior to most Hasegawa kits and the overall accuracy seems very good. The
canopy and turret are injected and well done though the turret come as a two
piece affair. I had an old Scale Models magazine that featured three view line
drawings of the Defiant and the parts matched up very well. I did add photo etch
seat belts and cut the aft fuselage fairing off and covered the space with
plastic card to represent it in the retracted position. Some rescribing was
needed here and there as well. The many small aerials of the AI Mark IV radar
require careful handling but they went on without a hitch.
