Fulmar "TDR" & Defiant Naval Fighter?

(As this topic deals with naval aircraft, I am putting it here as well as in the aircraft section)...It has bugged me that the British Illustrious class armored fleet carriers had some antiquated designs.....what do you think if Fairey had produced a slight variation of the Fulmar as a Torpedo-Dive-Reconnaisance to replace the Swordfish/Albacore. This could have been done quite early in the war,
retaining some of the MG armament for strafing, and carrying the 500 SAP bomb. (Erich Brown stated in his book "Wings of the Navy" that the Fulmar was stressed for dive-bombing). Big 342 s.f. wing area for lift when carrying the 18" torpedo. And as it already had space to mount defensive MG (these were added sometimes as it was).
Part two, replacing the Fulmar fighters with those MANY Defiants that were produced. Hurricanes were converted to naval version; Defiants could too, and with standard armament instead of the turret (P.94 single-seat version of the Defiant produced in 1940, with 12 .303) would have a much longer range as there would be room for a good-sized fuselage fuel tank as in the Fulmar. And a nice wide-track undercarriage similar to the Hurricane, too. I realize the wing area is less, but so is the weight due to removing the heavy turret, and the 2nd crewman. And in order to increase wing area & lift, and to improve ditching characteristics, the underbelly radiator could be replaced with leading-edge ones as already used on the Whirlwind or Mosquito.
Now the British have, mid-war, a fleet of modern armored CV's with monoplane attack aircraft of good speed and range, plus long-range fighters inherently faster than the Hurricane, until such time as non-Merlin engined fighters (the superb Hawker Sea Fury) could be made acceptable to the powers-that-be.
What do you think?
Thanks!

 

Sounds good in theory, especially the Fulmar torpedo plane idea. I'm somewhat dubious about the single seat Defiant naval variant idea, however. Redesigning the plane to do away with the gun turret and gunner is all very well, but would the resulting aircraft have been suitable for carrier operations? Remember, carrier based planes have to meet certain tight performance criteria. And given the availability of American carrier types such as the Avenger, Corsair, and others, why go to all the bother?

 

I would have gone ahead with the Defiant naval fighter because the timeframe would be 1941 instead of 1944 in the case of the Corsair. The single-seat version of the Defiant was made in 1940, but I do not have info on it's weight; it was inherently faster than the Hurricane though with it's thinner wings. Hats off the the Royal Navy for using the Corsair on Carriers before the Americans did, such was the need for a higher performance shipboard fighter, but that was 1944. In 1940 they were using the Skua (~220 mph), then the Fulmar (~247) as a fighter.

 

Single seat Defiant

From Tony Buttler’s ‘British Secret Projects, Fighters and Bombers 1935-1950.

Prototype Defiant K8310 eventually had its turret removed and in August 1940 was flown as an unarmed flying demonstrator for a fixed-gun version called P.94, which was intended for rapid production using many complete Defiant components. The P94 had the turret replaced by 12 0.303” MG disposed in each side of the wing centre section in nests of six – 4 20mm cannon replacing 8 of the 0.303” in two nests of two each were an alternative while the MG could also be depressed 17 degrees for ground attack work. P.94 had a 1,100hp Merlin XX, which offered a maximum speed of 360mph at 21.700ft, a sea level climb of 3,250ft.min and would get to 25,000ft in 8.1 minutes. To allow the type to act as a long range fighter two 30-gallon auxiliary tanks could be carried and in production the aircraft would use standard Defiant jigs. The P94 was never ordered but Boulton Paul also proposed to convert the now single seat Defiant prototype into a 4 cannon fighter demonstrator. The Air Ministry’s rejection of this idea was recorded at a company board meeting on 26th September 1940.