Short Stirling Castle

[tigercat]

As the RAF started using the 4000-lb (1,815 kg) "cookies" and even larger "specials the Stirling was increasingly relegated to secondary duties. Short Brothers decided to rework the design to give the Stirling a new lease of life. The Stirling was mated with a new weapons system the "Little John" Rocket Projectile  System  150 lb (68 kg) high explosive warhead, and had a maximum range of 1,800 metres.  On Short range missions 16 of these projectiles could be carried although for missions deep into Germany or Italy a smaller load of 8 was carried.

Shorts Brothers upgraded the armament and the tail. The existing engine was replaced with

Bristol Hercules 734 14-cylinder sleeve-valve radial piston engine, 1,980 hp (1,476 kW) each to cope with the extra weight of the armament.

In a nod to the Flying Fortress the plane was renamed the Stirling Castle as a reflection of its increased firepower.

Crews called it the Flying Hedgehog in a nod to it's stablemate the Sunderland 's nickname of the Flying Porcupine or more commonly just the "Hog"

The improved Stirling wenton to prove itself on Anti-shipping and ground attack missions. It was particularly useful in the Flak supression role .


The Stirling Castle is perhaps most famous for Operation Brooklands the sucessful attempt to sink the Tirpitz in its Norwegian hideyhole in August 1944 where the Little John RP proved itself  beyond a doubt being much easier to get on target than a similar weight in bombs

[Jschmus]

Wow.  I think I counted twenty guns on there.  That's massive defensive firepower.  I wouldn't want to be tasked with intercepting that monster.

[tigercat]

  I think it's 22 and I'm toying on putting some 20mm cannons under the wings on the site of the wing bomb cells that could be converted to fit the gun and for ammo storage.