making a roomy fuselage is contradicted by the use the Stirling was designed for
Yes - but the Stirling was badly designed in many respects, AND its design parameters
constrained by various factors - like the oft-repeated need to use existing hangars at the start of the war restricting wingtip-to-wingtip length.
British bombers took to evasion as a tactic
when the right bombers came along - the Stirling and the Lancaster could be flown like a fighter, but few others....but the reason WHY they did so had
nothing to do with the presence (or not) of rear-firing defensive armament...
An LW nightfighter had to chase a bomber across its Kammhuber Box...and from
cruising speed orbiting inside the Box overhaul a bomber...
THEN - with only maybe a few more mph in hand - they had to manage to ATTACK the target bomber!
Flame baffles over the exhaust ports cut power, antenna arrays for the onboard radar cut power...
So they were 99% of the time reduced to attacks from the rear
because they simply didn't have the speed in hand or obtainable to get around the bomber to attack it from any other direction!
So...what was the most practical defence once a fighter was spotted to stern???
Throw the Lanc or Stirling into a diving spiral - during which the
heavier bomber would accumulate speed
faster...and when it came out of its dive it would have left the fighter behind
A nightfighter pilot
COULD have decided to chase him again...but -
1/ he'd be WELL out of his
own Kammhuber Box by then, and would have to get back to it;
2/ He'd have used a great deal of his limited fuel on that stern chase across the sky...and it would imapct how many
more attempted interceptions he could perform on that sortie! Better to cut his losses and get back to his Box and hope for more trade!
Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs....
Lord, please keep Kevin Bacon alive...