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Fokker T.V medium bomber

In the mid-1930's Fokker was requested to design a aerial cruiser (“luchtkruiser“), intended to destroy bombers. The design that became the T.V was initially built for this role, but was developed as a medium bomber with the construction of the G.I. Only 16 planes were built, entering service in 1938. While they were the most modern bombers in Dutch service and carried a formidable cannon in the nose, they had several flaws.

First, the fuel tanks were not self-sealing, resulting in the wooden wings easily catching fire when hit. The British engines also burned far more oil than expected. While the plane was armed in six positions, four of those guns were crewed by a single man. Perhaps most critically, all but two T.V's were forced to use older bomb racks (the two had modern German-built models); these older racks could only carry two 300 kg bombs or a mere 400 kg of smaller bombs.

All operational T.V's (most sources claim nine, with some as high as twelve; the rest were being repaired or refitted) were expended in the German invasion in May 1940. In their first combat mission, they were scrambled without bombs and attacked German bombers with cannon and guns. After that, they reverted to their bomber role. By the end of the battle in the Netherlands, all of the operational planes had been destroyed (two by Dutch gunners). The last T.V mission was by a single plane escorted by two fighters; it scored a direct hit with it's ordnance – which proved to be a dud and failed to explode.

There were originally plans to buy an additional 32 T.V's, but due to budgetary cuts (and the low priority given to bombers), they were never constructed.

Crew consists of a pilot, co-pilot, bombardier/gunner, (who drops the bombs and fires the Solothurn), radio operator/gunner (who fires the four 7.92mm Lewis guns in the dorsal, ventral and waist positions) and the tail gunner. The T.V uses 62.1 gallons of aviation fuel per hour at routine usage.

Subassemblies: Medium Fighter-Bomber chassis +3, Light Bomber Wings +3, two Large Weapon engine pods +2, three retractable wheels +1.
Powertrain: 2x690-kW aerial HP gasoline engine [Pods:F] with 2x690-kW props and 600-gallon standard fuel tanks [Wings].
Occupancy: 5 CS Cargo: none

Armor
Wings: 2/2W

All: 2/2

Weaponry
20mm Antitank Rifle/Steyr-Solothurn S18-100 [Body:F] (100).
5xAircraft LMGs [Body:R,L,T,U,B] (940 each).

Equipment
Body: Medium radio receiver and transmitter, navigation instruments, autopilot, 2,640-lb bomb bay.

Statistics

HT: 8
HP: 210 [body], 300 [each wing],120 [each pod], 20 [each wheel]

Design Notes
Design speed was 249 mph. The historical speed has been used, as well as the actual wing area (713 square feet). For more realistic numbers, the wing cost, weight and HP were halved.

Standard load was two 220-lb and four 110-lb bombs, but eight 110-lb bombs were sometimes carried.

The stats above assume a load of two 300 kg (660 lb) bombs. For the two planes capable of carrying the full 2,640-lb bomb load, loaded weight was 8.45 tons, payload 2.6 tons. HT 7, aMR 6.25 and Stall 67.

Some sources claim that only one waist gun was carried and moved from side to side as needed.

Variants
The 25 M.B.175's were fast bombers, enlarged to allow a 1,320-lb bomb load. Most were taken over by the Germans.

After the war, the 80 M.B. 175T's were built as torpedo bombers.