Continuing on the question of why the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan wasted reseources training aerial gunners .... I researched the types of airplanes used to train aerial gunners: Fairey Battle IT while Boulton Paul Defiants and Westland Lysander towed targets.
Considering that turret-fighters were deemed obsolete by the time France had fallen, why didn't the RAF and Fleet Air Arm simply ship all thier turret fighters to aerial gunnery schools?
Part of the answer lies in the less than 200 Rocs built by Blackburn, so the entire fleet of Rocs (and Skyas) could easily be retired. OTOH 1,064 Defiants were built and many served as target tugs at BCATP schools. 140 Defiant TT Mark IIIs were specifically-built as target-tugs. Though I suspect that was motivated by the need to keep skilled workers gainfully-employed until the next combat airplane design was perfected. Why bother converting Defiants to target tugs when they already had turrets installed?
Why did Fairchild (of Canada) still need to install turrets in dozens (or hundreds) of British-built Fairey Battles?
Why install valuable RR Merlin engines in new-built airframes that were destined to spend their entire careers as trainers?
Did they wear out all the Defiants too early in the war?
Did Defiants use an obscure turret type?
Was it too difficult to retrain young Defiant Aerial gunners for Lancaster or Halifax?
Finally, why was an aircraft as complex as Lysander used to tow targets?
Was it simply a huge surplus of another obsolete airplane?
