| Handley Page Halifax |
| Name | Length | Wingspan | Weight | Max Bomb-load | Armament | Speed | Ceiling | Range |
| Empty | Max Take-Off |
| Handley Page Halifax | 72’ | 104’ | 38,159 lbs. | 64,865 lbs. | 13,200 lbs. | 9x .303 mg’s | 281 mph | 24,000’ | 1,240 mi. |
Handley Page Halifax Strategic Bomber
ID: Plastic “bomber†gaming piece: Handley Page Halifax strategic bomber from the game Axis & Allies Europe 40 & Pacific 40.
The Story of the Halifax Heavy Bomber: Along with the very similar and somewhat more famous Avro Lancaster, the Handley Page Halifax was a key weapons system in Great Britain’s war-time arsenal. While the use of four-engined heavy strategic bombers for long-range, heavy-load bombardment seems obvious in retrospect, both of these designs had actually evolved from smaller two-engined bombers which had been failures! The RAF, you see, had insisted on heavy bombers that could engage in dive-bombing attacks and thus insisted on two-engine designs using the Rolls Royce Vulture engine, which was essentially two vee engines back-to-back. (The Germans created a similar requirement for a heavy bomber, leading to a similar design featuring “welded-together†engines... with similarly unsuccessful results.) The winner of the contest was the Avro design, which was designated the Avro Manchester and sent into production, while Handley Page was told to try re-working their design for four engines. Losing the contract ended up being fortunate for Handley Page, however, for the Vulture engine proved a troublesome, fire-prone failure (taking the Manchester design down with it) while Handley Page’s design evolved all the more quickly into the four-engine Halifax. The only thing that saved the Avro design, in fact, is that Handley Page couldn’t make enough Halifaxes; when Avro was approached to begin making some, they offered to make instead a four-engined variant of the Manchester, which became, of course, the Avro Lancaster. The two designs had thus both come through a very similar evolution. Both soldiered on together as friendly archrivals and together formed the solid backbone of the RAF’s Bomber Command for most of the war, with 7,377 Lancasters delivering 608,612 tons of bombs in 156,000 sorties and 6,178 Halifaxes delivering 224,207 tons of bombers in 82,773 sorties!
Usage Notes: Use this piece for “Global 1939†and “Invasion of Italy†Variants as a strategic bomber unit. Other British aircraft of interest may be: the Supermarine Spitfire Fighter & De Havilland Mosquito Tactical Bomber.
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