Now I wanna start a simple photografic outlook - with a brief and easy technical support - to the most and less famous italian aircraft in ww2.
Let's start with the oldest biplane of the ww2.
By the late 1930s, most of the world's major air forces were gradually re-equipping with low-wing monoplanes fighters. Fiat still believed that there was a place for the biplane and designed the CR.42, with the prototype making its maiden flight in January 1939. It was instantly ordered into production for the Italian air force. With a number of export orders following, some 1784 had been built by 1943.
In service with the Regia Aeronautica, CR.42 were used as day fighters and escort fighters in the Mediterranean theatre and as night fighters for home defence.
They were used like assault planes too with wing attached bombs og 50 or 100 kgs.
By 1942, Fiat had managed to raise the top speed tp 518 km/h (322 mph) but the design still fell short in other respects. Biplane fighter production was at an end.
By the late 1930s most of the leading warplane producers were abandoning open-cockpit, fabric covered biplane designs in favour of stressed skin monoplanes with a retractable landing gear. But in Italy, Celestino Rosatelli of Fiat believed there was still a role for a highly manoeuvrable biplane fighter. Fiat thus produced the CR.42 Falco, the best fighter available to either side in North Africa from the start of the war unitl the arrival of the RAF's Hawker Hurricane.