Hurricane

The Hawker Hurricane was an infamous aircraft that served in British and British Dominion air forces. It was also used as Lend Lease aid to the Soviets, and is a unit available in Flames of War. The Hurricane is in many ways similar to the P-40 Warhawk, though is more fondly remembered due to it's ability to do just about anything that you asked it to do, and do it decently

IRL

The Hawker Hurricane first started as one of the first monowing fighter designs in British Service. At the time the aircraft was judged "inferior" due to the RAF believing at the time that Strategic Bombing would be the decisive medium of air war that could knock enemy forces out of battle. This explains why most sides had some manner of a "Heavy" Fighter, and sometimes even two seat fighters with turrets that were designed to hunt enemy bombers. In short: the heavy fighters were "fine", but the turreted ones sucked balls. This allowed the Hawker and Supermarine to step into the limelight during the Battle of Britain.

Early Hurricanes were equipped with eight .303 Machine guns, but were later variants after the MK11C upgraded to use either 20mm or 40mm autocannons, and could take two or four, depending on whether or not the pilots/commanders wanted to save weight or milk more distance out of the aircraft. The Hurricane early on earned a likeable reputation by the pilots equipped with them, due to their ease of piloting, reliability, ease of maintenance, and stability as a gun platform. While the Spitfire was undoubtedly a better fighter, the Hurricane was easier to construct, and as such was the perfect aircraft for lend-lease and to mass produce after the outbreak of war until the Spitfire factories could ramp up production.

The Hurricane did suffer downsides though, in that these fighters tended to not be nearly as maneuverable as the FW-190 or BF-109, and while the overall design was good, it was not nearly as flexible for engine upgrades and other improvements like the Spitfire or the Bf-109. The outdated fabric cover also tended to catch fire after being shot by incendiaries enough, and before self-sealing fuel tanks were introduced the aircraft had a nasty habit of having a jet of flame flash through the instrument panel. In spite of this, Hurricanes performed well against the poorly constructed Luftwaffe, Japanese, or Italian Bomber craft, and got a new lease on life as an effective ground attack aircraft. The Soviets found the aircraft particularly useful in this role to the point where they were begging the RAF to hand over the MKIVs and MKIIDs.

During the 1941-1942 Battle of the Atlantic, British convoys were vulnerable not only to U-boats, but Luftwaffe FW-200 Naval Bombers that would hunt convoys and supply ships. The somewhat mad solution was to strap a catapault onto some cargo vessels to allow them to launch from the convoys to intercept raiders, then fly to the nearest land. If none was available, they were to bail out near the convoy and hope to God that they weren't left in the Atlantic. The end result was likely marginal, as the British soon better positioned their convoy routes to in a way that would force enemy aircraft to fly within range of land fighters and in particular heavy fighters like the Beaufighter or Mosquito.