The only other additions I can think of would be a BF-110C and a Blenheim I. One 110C accidentally landed in the Kingdom shortly before the outbreak of the German invasion. Some accounts state it was flown twice, another says a single time, but in either case it was destroyed on the ground at the start of the invasion. The question becomes what did it look like? It’s unclear if it was actually repainted.
Plenty of Blenheim 1s were flown, and some were installed with an Italian SAFAT 12.7 in the upper turret and a flexible gun in the windscreen, operated by the navigator. One of these variants was later used by Romania too!
Lastly, if you believed in the Ikarus B.4, that would be a fun option too. It’s a Blenheim IV with improved engines, 2 defensive SAFAT, and a slightly redesigned nose. Some sources say it was built but never received props.
It’s true Yugoslavia could get the Bf 110C, it’s already in the ‘unused aircraft’ list since it’s not a domestic design and doesn’t cover any big gap.
As for the Blenheims, the unique version with the Breda-SAFAT is in the second column of the tree as the ‘Ikarus B-1’, which was its designation. The B-4 is also in the unused list, and my understanding is it was built with the re-designed nose of the British Mk IV but probably without any of the more important modifications in terms of guns and engine.
It turns out finding the original source of that claim was very easy (Bristol Aircraft Since 1910, version from 1964). That definitely raises the Blenheim-20mm to the status of almost certainly real plane, but we still have no clue what guns they were (okay it’s almost certainly the HS.404 buuut who knows), where they were positioned or how much ammo they carried.
Oh my apologies, I should have an eye exam evidently!
I do know that as for the 20mm Blenheims, there is no chance they exist. The only mention of 20mms officially fitted to any Blenheim (not including the field modified South African examples) is a single machine that Coastal Command and the FAA had jointly considered as option against submarines in light of the low reliability of bombs. Two configurations were tried, a standard fitting and a downwards firing mount, both using the bomb bay for ammo storage / quick refitting. The inability to deal with jams made both unpopular and the difficulty of aiming the angled mount made it ineffective.
That Bristol Blenheim: The Yugoslav Story makes no mention of these supposed machines despite mentioning another fabrication - the Ikarus B2 with Perseus Engine’s sourced from Italy (who never produced them) - further confirms this.
I wouldn’t be so quick to discard the possibility. It isn’t crazy to believe the Yugoslavs did a local field modification of the sort (after all, they mounted a 20mm on Do 17s), but the dedicated book not saying a word about them is disheartening. If you have a PDF of it, I’d appreciate if you DMed it.
It is crazy to believe, though. There’s no room in a Mark I cockpit for any such mounting - the Yugoslav mounts for a light MG already had to modify the windscreen to make room. No such weapon would fit anywhere in the wings, and that just leaves under the fuselage and the same problems the British had. Then you have a matter of supply - 20mms were reserved for IK fighters and development work. There simply weren’t enough to go around to warrant even trying to attach one to a Blenheim because there both weren’t enough cannons and weren’t enough Blenheims.
Honestly with top tier being such a shitshow anyway I don’t really care if there is not even any. The main point should be the tree before that. A nation tree without top tier is preferable to one which is missing the early stuff.
Regardless, if Yugoslavia is added there will more than likely be at least the two Rafales, with the Croation one being the same as the French one in game and the Serbian one having MICA-IRs, Meteors, et cetera for when they’re added to the game.
Yeah I have no issues with that. I just said that focus should be on the rest of the tree anyway. If top tier only has a couple palnes it really does not matter.
