Italian Carrier Aircraft (1 Viewer)

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I would guess it wouldn't be too difficult to modify CR.32 or CR.42 for carrier operations, as biplanes they had short takeoff runs. Less sure about MC 200 or Fiat G.50. The Re 2000 (2001) series was the aircraft line selected for the fighter job, right? I know they came up with a torpedo carrying G.55 which seems like it would have been a beast of a carrier plane but it came far too late.

I believe they also made a torpedo carrying version of the Re 2001. This seems to be the only provision for an Italian single engined strike aircraft I can think of, though in a way it's not necessarily a mistake not to have a specialized dive bomber or torpedo bomber, as fighter bombers were gradually taking over the strike role for naval aircraft during the war. Wiki says they built 50 of the OR Serie II specifically intended for the Aquila. I can't say it seems like a bad Naval plane by the standards of the day. In theory based on speed, range, armament, it should have been better than a Fulmar, a Skua, a Vindicator, a Vultee Vengeance, a Buffalo, or (arguably) a Swordfish or an Albacore, especially given the notorious efficacy of Italian torpedoes. Debatable but maybe in the ball park of a F4F, TBD, or SBD in at least some respects.

Probably a more effective torpedo bomber than anything the USN had available (in part due to the bad American torpedoes), and I think the Re 2001 could hold its own against Hurricanes and Kittyhawks. They (land based versions) even seem to have held their own moderately well against Spitfire MK Vs over Malta.
 
There were a number of proposals for Re 2001 variants for carrier use, some were built in ones or twos?
Actual practicality may be something else.

You have a 220sq ft wing.
Early torpedo bombers didn't use large wings because of the weight of the 2nd or even 3rd crewman, They used large wings because of the weight of the torpedoes/bombs/fuel.
A DB 601 engine has more power than the early torpedo bombers used but less than the later ones.

Wiki claims planes were built (or proposed) to use a 1300lb torpedo but NavWeapons doesn't list such a weapon. It might be possible to "cut down" a 1800-2000lb torpedo to around 1300lbs but what are you giving up?

Land based torpedo strike fighter (or dive bomber with heavy bomb) doesn't have to worry about short flight deck or cat launches.
You can also launch a land based strike group faster than a cat launched strike group which means greater practical operational radius.
 
I kinda like it, but it is rather big for a fighter, that's for sure. Those folding wings make putting it into a museum setting quite easy.

View attachment 634333Fulmar nose

It was a bit like the Boulton Paul Defiant, the guys who proposed the original idea shouldn't have been making the decisions, but the designers came up with the best design to fit what wasn't the most thought out concept. In the Fulmar's defence, 1. it was an interim design that saw use beyond its original requirement against enemies it wasn't expected to counter (like the Defiant), 2. it was expected to range far out to sea, well beyond the ranges of any existing single-seat fighter in Europe at the time, to intercept reconnaissance and bomber aircraft, against which it was deemed to be more than a match. There was logic, but in hindsight was kinda flawed.
It was the fall of France that poked the unforeseen hole in the perfectly reasonable logic. France was to be the principal counter to Italian activity and who would have expected the Germans to be able to operate out of airfields in western and southern France? Let alone Italy with no French support, but rather French bases in Syria being used by the Luftwaffe and French bombers bombIng Gibraltar.
 
There were a number of proposals for Re 2001 variants for carrier use, some were built in ones or twos?
Actual practicality may be something else.

You have a 220sq ft wing.
Early torpedo bombers didn't use large wings because of the weight of the 2nd or even 3rd crewman, They used large wings because of the weight of the torpedoes/bombs/fuel.
A DB 601 engine has more power than the early torpedo bombers used but less than the later ones.

Wiki claims planes were built (or proposed) to use a 1300lb torpedo but NavWeapons doesn't list such a weapon. It might be possible to "cut down" a 1800-2000lb torpedo to around 1300lbs but what are you giving up?

Land based torpedo strike fighter (or dive bomber with heavy bomb) doesn't have to worry about short flight deck or cat launches.
You can also launch a land based strike group faster than a cat launched strike group which means greater practical operational radius.

Interesting about the smaller torpedo. Apparently this was also the plan for the G.55 Torpedo bomber variant. From the Wiki: "Such aircraft, based near the Italian coast, could potentially have an operational range of 300–400 km (190–250 mi), would be capable of carrying a 680 kg (1,500 lb) torpedo (a shorter and more compact version of a weapon carried by the SM.79)"

Which sounds like a slightly larger version of 1300 lb torpedo for the Re 2001.

Certainly for the Italians in the early war, their land based torpedo strike aircraft were by far their most effective airborne anti-Maritime weapon, and any carrier-borne strike aircraft would likely be less effective in terms of scoring hits. However even in 1941 the SM.79, a 1930s vintage airliner adapted for military use, was showing it's age and while lethal as a launch vehicle for torpedoes, it was also vulnerable, taking increasingly grim losses during torpedo attacks in particular. Planned replacements like the SM 84 had bigger engines, more guns, and better armor etc. but no longer seemed to be in the 'sweet spot' of the successful SM. 79, and did quite poorly in combat. In theory the Italians could fill this gap with German Ju 88s, but even those high performance bombers were becoming dangerously vulnerable in the increasingly risky environment as you approach the mid-war.

An Italian carrier would itself be highly vulnerable of course and probably very difficult to protect from land based A-36s, Beaufighters and Beauforts, not to mention various fighter-bombers, or carrier based Swordfish or (US) SBDs. An Re 2001 can probably handle the carrier based attackers, but it only takes one torpedo to get through to probably at least send it back to drydock for a long time if not kill it. I would think the Italian admirals would have to stay pretty far from Allied bases in North Africa and would still be vulnerable. Assuming they managed to protect Aquila somehow , I think having strike aircraft of the caliber of an Re 2001 could be useful.

I don't know about that 'shortened' Italian torpedo, all I can say about that is that the Italians seemed to have a pretty good track record with their torpedoes, but you never know how a new one is going to work, or if the Re 2001 would turn out to be an effective delivery vehicle. An Re 2001 would certainly be faster to get to the target and less vulnerable in the target area than most strike aircraft of the early to mid-war. Once the torpedo has been launched it could defend itself a lot better than a Swordfish or a TBD I would think.

Could an Aquila equipped with 50 x Re 2001s have helped successfully disrupt the landings at Salerno? I'd say it would have been a risky bet, but who knows, I bet it would be fun to war-game!
 
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Re.2001 has a 220sq ft wing.
Early torpedo bombers didn't use large wings because of the weight of the 2nd or even 3rd crewman, They used large wings because of the weight of the torpedoes/bombs/fuel.

Land based torpedo strike fighter (or dive bomber with heavy bomb) doesn't have to worry about short flight deck or cat launches.
The large wing is also there as the attack requires flying low and slow (<60', <90kn) otherwise impact with water damages the torpedo casing/gyros and it doesn't run ?swim? straight to target. Yes, everyone figured out how to protect the torpedo for high speed/reasonable altitude launches, but that wasn't what navies were planning pre-war.

When adding a torpedo to a fighter, the load needs to be mounted so that it is balanced during flight (one also need to keep the tip of the torpedo out of the propeller). But that puts the load behind the main gear while on the runway. The major issue with tail daggers carrying heavy loads is they need to be able to lift the tail to be able to "unstall" the wing to be able to take off. Very few planes have enough tail area to do so - hence solutions like the FiSK 199. Which allowed a Me 109 to take off with 500kg bomb and pair of drop tanks (2nd drop tank is required to allow any sort of effective range as engine is going to have to run hard to overcome the weight/drag of the ordinance). Using the trapeze catapult found on RN gunships and planned for KM and RM CVs allows planes to take off at weights that would be above max overload on land (Numbers for the Ju-87C/E support that). So, there are some advantages of catapult launches, not just drawbacks.

The 250 mi range of the G.55 only allows about 50mi combat radius after accounting for forming up, flight to target, weather <headwinds, rain squalls, etc>, searching for target, maneuvering for attack and return - better than guns but not great. (You can extend the radius at risk of fuel starvation on flight back - how much risk are you willing to take?) Germans also found it very hard on engines/airframes to be operating at/above make max. weight.

IMHO, ASW work would be far more useful than attack. Italians lost a lot of ships to RN SS. Forcing the submarines down early and deep enough in the relatively clear water of the Med to avoid being visible for above makes getting into firing position difficult. And RM planes are better suited to carry a load out of depth charges than torpedoes/large bombs. Maybe not as glorious, but better return on investment.
 
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Pretty small tail - under 2.5 m^2 at distance of ~4.75m from 25% chord of main wing (which is more/less where you want c.g.) to elevator hinge line. And the tail plan form while easy to produce thanks to straight leading edge is not terribly aerodynamically efficient.

Compare with Devastator with more than 5.5m^2 at distance of almost 6m. Almost 3X the leverage.
Even Fw190F has ~3m^2 of tail area at ~5.5m and LW found they wanted the Ta.152 tail feathers and extended tailwheel to reduce the amount the tail needed to lift.
 
Too bad the Italians didn't have time to copy the P-41/43 like they copied the P-35 (Re 2000), they may not of needed the German engines; & could of had a naval variant.

Anyway, the SM93 would of made a great naval divebomber, if they sorted out the seating arrangement.
Sm93.jpg
 
Too bad the Italians didn't have time to copy the P-41/43 like they copied the P-35 (Re 2000), they may not of needed the German engines; & could of had a naval variant.

Anyway, the SM93 would of made a great naval divebomber, if they sorted out the seating arrangement.
What use is copying an American airframe is you don't have the engine/turbocharger? And I didn't know those Seversky/Republic aircraft were naval airframes.

And what good is a plane which 1st flies in '44 for a CV in '39?
 
What use is copying an American airframe is you don't have the engine/turbocharger? And I didn't know those Seversky/Republic aircraft were naval airframes.

And what good is a plane which 1st flies in '44 for a CV in '39?
The P-35 had quite a few variants, including the 2PA-B3 for the IJN (AV81) and the NF-1 for the USN.

The Severskys may not have gone into service as such for different reasons, but they did exist.
 
Too bad the Italians didn't have time to copy the P-41/43 like they copied the P-35 (Re 2000), they may not of needed the German engines; & could of had a naval variant.

Anyway, the SM93 would of made a great naval divebomber, if they sorted out the seating arrangement.
View attachment 637359

Good lord, that has got to be the weirdest looking WW2 aircraft I have ever seen. I had to look it up to be sure it wasn't a joke - it looks like a bad photoshop of an Re 2005 with a London double decker bus. Reading the wiki doesn't make it much less zanier.... the pilot must get hot laying on top of that DB 605!

Another angle to prove the thing is real...

dgXbj3S.png
 
It was the fall of France that poked the unforeseen hole in the perfectly reasonable logic. France was to be the principal counter to Italian activity and who would have expected the Germans to be able to operate out of airfields in western and southern France? Let alone Italy with no French support, but rather French bases in Syria being used by the Luftwaffe and French bombers bombIng Gibraltar.
Gibraltar from Former French bases in Syria? What French or German Bombers had that range with a bomb load?
 
Good lord, that has got to be the weirdest looking WW2 aircraft I have ever seen. I had to look it up to be sure it wasn't a joke - it looks like a bad photoshop of an Re 2005 with a London double decker bus. Reading the wiki doesn't make it much less zanier.... the pilot must get hot laying on top of that DB 605!

Another angle to prove the thing is real...

View attachment 637368

It had a crew of eight, not including the steward.
 
S Schweik S Shortround6 D don4331 As noted in an earlier post, I have the sneaking suspicion that the super multirole carrier fighter/bomber/torpedo plane Re.2001 variant is the result of the attributes of several different Re.2001 variants getting mixed together in someone's imagination. My impression from Aircraft Profile #244 by John F. Brindley (admittedly a rather dated source) is that only a few specialized Re.2001 variants carried 600kg+ loads and that 250kg was more typical. But if anyone's got a high crediblity source that proves that Aquila's aircraft were intended for use with heavy ordnance I'd be happy to be proven wrong. (I wish I had a copy of the book wiki cites for that claim, both so that I could evaluate its general credibility and so that I could see exactly what it says.)

I'm also under the impression that Aquila was authorized primarily to provide the Italian surface fleet with air cover though to be fair that's just something I've read online, I don't have any particularly solid sources to back it up.

Too bad the Italians didn't have time to copy the P-41/43 like they copied the P-35 (Re 2000), they may not of needed the German engines; & could of had a naval variant.

Anyway, the SM93 would of made a great naval divebomber, if they sorted out the seating arrangement.
View attachment 637359

I have to question where there's enough room behind the engine on that thing for a conventional cockpit. Maybe if you made it a single seater. There's also the question of structural strength and handling characteristics though those of course evaluating those from what little we know about the aircraft is a tall order (I'm mostly just hoping that some of the more knowledgeable members of this forum can take a quick look at some of the designs that have been mentioned and see if they can spot any relatively obvious issues that might nonetheless escape the notice of an amateur like me).
 
Assuming there was an Re 2001 variant which carried a 600 kg load, why couldn't it have been used as the carrier aircraft, or one of two types, perhaps? Or are you saying it never passed the prototype stage and wasn't a proven design? I would think fleet defense would be the primary goal regardless. If there were indeed two types, something like 30 fighters and 20 strike / fighters might be a good plan. As I pointed out previously, keeping the Aquila safe from bomber and fighter-bomber attack would have been a major challenge, as witnessed by the perils faced by UK carriers in the Med. I think the US Carriers got lucky the few times they briefly ventured near enemy held areas.

Whatever strike capability they had with an Re 2001 would be something to augment capabilities they already had with land based aircraft such as the SM 79 (and via the Germans, Ju 87 and 88). You could make the argument that an Re 2001 would perhaps have a lower attrition rate in an attack role than one of these other types but that isn't certain. Having CAP capability would certainly be helpful and I think the Re 2001 compares quite well in that role to say, Skuas, Sea Gladiators or Fulmars, and is probably at least as good as Sea Hurricane.

Perhaps the Italian Navy would have gotten an opportunity to use some of their heavy warships in action.
 
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I am rather mystified in just what the Aquila was supposed to do.
As in what it would allow the Italian navy to to do that they could not do already.

With Tunisia in Axis hands and it only being about 120 miles from Tunisia to Sardinia and around 210 miles from the southern tip of Sardinia to Sicily and about 200 miles from Syracuse on Sicily to Misrata in Libya and with the Axis holding the Greek Islands and Crete it would seem that lack of air cover should not be problem for the Italian navy unless for some far fetched scheme like trying to bombard Gibraltar or Alexandria with battleship guns. And for the last it is around 350 miles from Crete to Alexandria so it is only the last 150-200 miles that the Italian ships would be without aircover.

And 50 fighters would not be enough to protect a sizable Italian force for very long.

There just isn't much of the Med that wasn't covered by land based axis aircraft to begin with except the most eastern and western ends and trying to use 50 aircraft to force your way to those ends against Allied land based air power probably wasn't going to end well.

This seems to be a case of " If the Jones have one then we need one too " envy rather than a realistic assessment of needs/capabilities.
 
Well, if you think about it a little bit, the following may occur to you:

1) While Italian land based maritime strike capabilities were significant (if very costly to use, in terms of attrition), their options for land based maritime defensive (i.e. fighter) protection was far more limited, partly due to the short range of the best available land-based fighters (G.50, MC 200, MC 202, Re 2000 series), and partly because they would have to fly out to any fleet they were supposed to be protecting, and then fly back. Which would further drastically limit their range and loiter time.

2) The Re 2001 had almost twice the range of a Macchi 200 and about 150% of the range of a Macchi 202. More importantly, in a CAP role, it would be taking off from the carrier itself, presumably within the fleet it was meant to protect. So this would mean a significant enhancement of CAP capability.

3) So for this reason alone, I would suggest that having the Aquila available would have been an advantage and would have considerably enhanced the viability of the Italian surface fleet.

4) Depending on when Allied strike capabilities in the Med were not insurmountable. FAA Naval aircraft like the Swordfish, Skua, Albacore etc. would be highly vulnerable to relatively modern fighter protection, IMO. SBD dive bombers were only rarely in Theater, and the land based bomber force, while formidable, did not include a lot of dive bombers or precision-guided weapons. Experience in the Pacific shows us that level bombing attacks against surface vessels were not very successful. For the Allies in the Med it was largely the Swordfish, and fighter-bombers which were most effective against shipping. Most of the land based fighter bombers also had limited range, so depending where a theoretical fight was taking place, 50 fighters might be able to protect Aquila (and perhaps, Sparviero) and any other surface ships. The biggest threat would probably be from Beaufighters and A-36, but there were limited numbers of them available. They also might have started using B-25s and A-20 / DB-7s in a skip-bombing role which could be dangerous.

5) As we know very well, several of the British convoys to Malta barely made it, and some were turned back. Adding in a surface attack or a carrier borne torpedo strike capability could have made a difference in some key moments, had it become available early enough. Battleships could move close enough to be able to bombard Malta at night, much as the Japanese fleets did at Guadalcanal, and possibly engage RN fleets on the surface at night. This could have been decisive.


Of course, none of this happened - the Italians gave up on Sparviero and didn't have Aquila ready before the invasion of the Italian mainland and capitulation, and it was probably already too late by then. But I think it's a stretch to say that had they moved more quickly and gotten it into action, it wouldn't have had any value. I do agree however, that protecting Aquila would have been a major challenge, and I doubt it could have survived long. Most likely it would have spent most of the time in port up in Genoa or somewhere, and it's real value would have been realized only if it had been used at just the right moment, something naval forces often struggled to do. Submarines, as has been mentioned, would still be a major threat, even if they could survive for a few days in the general vicinity of say, Malta (close enough for Battleships and Cruisers to dash in at night).

I'd still love to play this out in a war-game...
 
Gibraltar from Former French bases in Syria? What French or German Bombers had that range with a bomb load?
Hence the 'and' being as Gibraltar is at the mouth of the Mediterranean with France itself to the north west and French Morocco and Algeria to the south and south east. The French were spoiled for choice. The two raids of about 95 sorties dropped about 100 tons of bombs.
 

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