Best early Italian Monoplane fighter?

hit a Re.2000 wing and set it on fire, fuel was in the wings, right?
the Re2000 was not as durable as the Macchi, and it looks fat, so does the Re-2001, while the 2002 looks like it is in better shape, while a Re2005, in my opinion, the Re2005 was one of the nicest-looking axis aircraft.

what WAS so good about the Freccia over the other monoplanes.
i think their engines were a copy of the R-1830 i think, but without the good gas

The Macchi MC200 was the best (or less worse...)

The Fiat G50 was just a wrong aircraft, with a tricky flight behaviour not compensated by better performances vs the competitors

The Reggiane was a kind of 'improved' copy of the Seversky P35 (later 'Republic') and like this the frame had no development potential (the Seversky/Republic P47 was a brand new design)

The frame of the Macchi fighters (btw designed by Castoldi, the same guy who designed the Schneider Cup Macchis) was basically the same for the MC 200, MC 202 and MC 205V. Only the engine, weapons and some other things changed, but the modifications were less extensive than those, for instance, implemented on the Spit I-V-IX or Bf 109E-F-G

This fact accounts for the good design of the aircraft and, in my opinion, ranks it at the top of the 3 fighters in discussion.

There is a bit of confusion about the MC 205: the original Castoldi project (later identified as MC 205N) was a major redesign (wings, armament etc.) but necessity pressed to put into service a MC202 re engined with the DB 605 and a couple of wing mounted MG151 that was called MC205V and is the plane that is commonly known as MC205.
The new MC205N remained little more than a prototype, production priority being assigned to his competitor Fiat G55.

The Macchi MC200 was the best (or less worse...)

The Fiat G50 was just a wrong aircraft, with a tricky flight behaviour not compensated by better performances vs the competitors

The Reggiane was a kind of 'improved' copy of the Seversky P35 (later 'Republic') and like this the frame had no development potential (the Seversky/Republic P47 was a brand new design)

The frame of the Macchi fighters (btw designed by Castoldi, the same guy who designed the Schneider Cup Macchis) was basically the same for the MC 200, MC 202 and MC 205V. Only the engine, weapons and some other things changed, but the modifications were less extensive than those, for instance, implemented on the Spit I-V-IX or Bf 109E-F-G

This fact accounts for the good design of the aircraft and, in my opinion, ranks it at the top of the 3 fighters in discussion.

There is a bit of confusion about the MC 205: the original Castoldi project (later identified as MC 205N) was a major redesign (wings, armament etc.) but necessity pressed to put into service a MC202 re engined with the DB 605 and a couple of wing mounted MG151 that was called MC205V and is the plane that is commonly known as MC205.
The new MC205N remained little more than a prototype, production priority being assigned to his competitor Fiat G55.

This is my choice of the best Reggiane Re-2000. It also had very nice lines.

This beautiful aircraft could and did meet the American Mustang and the best German fighters on equal footing. On Aug 2, 1943 6 MC.205's did attack 20 American P-38's and P-40's shooting down 6 of them with a loss of only 1 MC.205.

Now that is a plane.

I read an article some years ago about the RE 2000s received by the hungarian Air force directly from italy. They were scathing in their assessment of them, the guns suffered continual jams, the wings fluttered very badly in a high speed dive, but the thing that I remember most were the desription of the fuel tanks. they apparently leaked profusely, allover the wings, so the craft were forced to fly into combat, covered in fuel.

MAVAG, the Hungarian aircraft concern, eventually undertook extensive modificatiuons, and produced the lions share of "Hejas" (the Hungarian equivalent of the RE 2000. This modified and re-equipped version was actually quite effective.

I dont know if the duds were just those 30 or so sent to Hungary, or if the type was generically suffering from poor QA. However, on the assumption that it was a generic problem, I would not support it as being better than the MC200, which I have also read had very high production standards.

BTW is it true that the RE2000 was basically an upgraded and re-designed P-35????

Interestingly the P-35 (the inspiration for the Re.2000) and P-43, both of which had wet wings, had similar, if not more prominant problems with fuel leaks.

The Re.2000, while resembling the P-35, was an original aircraft. (and had somewhat better performance)

And (similar to the developments of the 2 contemporaries) it evolved into the more sucessful Re.2001, 2002, and the excellent Re.2005.

I voted for Macchi MC 200, after all it was the choice of the Italian AF. G.50 was a back-up in case there would have been some development problems in Saetta.

RE.2000 main problem was IMHO the fuel tanks.

Juha

book1182 said:

But they would probably be a match for the P-39 or a Hurricane. .

Click to expand...

Hurricane I, yes. Hurricane IIC or P-39, never, if the pilots were experienced and knew how to exploit their advantages.

off topic:

cheddar cheese, do they still using the AMX in italy air force ?