The United States Army Air Forces awarded Beechcraft a contract in December 1942 for two prototypes of their model 28 nicknamed "Destroyer", with the requeriment of it being a powerful ground-attack aircraft that could replace the Douglas A-20 Havoc, with the ability of destroying armoured targets like tanks and bunkers. It was achieved through a 75mm cannon with 20 rounds fixed on the nose, as well as two forward-firing 0.5in (12.7mm) caliber M2 Browning Machine guns. It was armed also with two remotelly controlled dorsal and ventral turrets, each of them armed with two 0.5in (12.7mm) machine guns. It was expected to have a crew of two, a pilot and an oberserver/gunner in the rear cabin, using periscope sights to aim the guns.
On 7th May 1944 it flew for the first time at the company's airfield in Wichita, at the hands of Vern Carstens, Beechcraft's test pilot. It proved to be satisfactory in all aspects and even better than expected in others, included the top speed delivered by its two Wright R-3350-43 air cooled radial engines which yielded 2300hp (1716Kw) each.
During testing it was also tested by USAAF's pilots and serviced by military personnel, proving to be reliable and establishing a high level of serviceability.
It was going to have a payload of two underwing bombs plus an undetermined number of rockets. This armament configuration showed good results and effectiveness and if wartimes priorities didn't shift in 1944, it would've probably been mass produced, although the B-29 had priority for the Wright R-3350 engines, therefore, as it lost interest for the USAAF, the prototype was scrapped and the other, expected for the USAAF museum, had an unknown fate.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_XA-38_Grizzly
2. https://www.plane-encyclopedia.com/ww2/us/beechcraft-xa-38-grizzly/
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