Breda Ba88 the worst plane of WW11

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Made a start on painting the undersides. I didn't have the correct shade of FS36293 Fog grey so I have used FS36463 Sky grey. I think it might be a bit light. I can't make my mind up what to do on the topsides, dark green or splotches.
 
I wonder why this aircraft failed so badly. According wikipedia, it had a weight between (empty and max) 4.650 to 6.750 kg and two powerplants a 746 kw each. The Hs 129 weighted between 4.020 kg to 5.250 kg but had two powerplants a 515 kw each. I don't know the first thing about aircraft design, so please forgive my ignorance, but might one not hope to have at least similar performance to the Hs 129 (also a ground attack craft), since while the Breda is somewhat heavier, it has considerably stronger engines?
 

I think the problem was the engines that were underpowered and not reliable. Piaggio did a very poor job of license building the Gnome Rhone 14K engine.
 
fastmongrel said:
I think the problem was the engines that were underpowered and not reliable. Piaggio did a very poor job of license building the Gnome Rhone 14K engine.
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Wikipedia mentions reliability issues. Underpowered, I have a problem with, since the engines were, as said, more powerful than the ones of the Hs 129. Unless the power-output on wikipedia is an ideal rarely if ever achieved in reality.

Another thing that vexes me, wikipedia mentions that wing-loading was too high on the Ba 88. Yet it is quoted as a wing area of 33,34 m², while the Hs 129 is given as 29 m².

So by performance statistics (weight-to-power and wing-area), I would expect the Ba 88 to outperform the Hs 129. Yet the former is listed as the worst plane of a world war, while the later is mentioned as having poor performance but nothing nearly as bad. Again, I do not know the first thing about aircraft design, so please enlighten me, only two explanations come to my mind:
1) the Hs-129 got its reputation form the Eastern Front, where it could often enough perform its ground attacks with no enemy air interference, due to the size of the front and the enemies lacking coordination. The Ba-88 meanwhile was thrown against the western allies and with their considerably better aircraft and pilots, the BReda was doomed.
2) compared to the Hs-129, the Ba-88 had considerably worse design which more than cancelled out its superior raw-performance statistics. Though I am at a loss why these would not show up on the specifications data.
 
I have read that the engines never produced the rated power unless they were hand tuned. Plus in Africa sand filters would have been required which unless carefully designed could Rob a lot of power.

It is perplexing why it was so bad it was beautifully streamlined, had a good armament for 1940 and carried plenty of fuel. I have been comparing it to the French Bloch MB174 a slightly larger heavier aircraft with virtually the same engines and a similar war load. The 174 was possibly the best French light bomber of the year and was both faster and better handling.

Sometimes a design just doesn't hit the sweet spot and the parts though good make a disastrous aircraft. Witness the Saunders Roe Lerwick twin engine flying boat it was a disaster but should have been as good as a Consolidated Catalina
SARO Lerwick
 
fastmongrel said:
I have read that the engines never produced the rated power unless they were hand tuned. Plus in Africa sand filters would have been required which unless carefully designed could Rob a lot of power.
Click to expand...
The engines not acting like advertised seems indeed most likely, with all the performance points assuming a perfectly working engine. If the engine is too temperamental to reliably do that, your performance nosedives I presume. So, unless can shed more light on the issue, I am gonna assume that the Ba88 was ultimately let down by fickle, unreliable engines. Makes you wonder how it would have done with more reliable (not necessarily otherwise better) ones.
 
Ol 45 said:
Nice work! The Breda is a pretty nice looking a/c.
Wish it was 48th scale, I'd probably do one.
Although I do 72nd on occasion.(eye sight you know).
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There is a 1/48 resin kit of the Breda. Resin though is horrible stuff to work with, I have done one resin kit and that was enough.

Breda BA88 1/48 kit
 
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