Regia Aeronautica history |
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Regia Aeronautica (italian for Royal Air Force) was officialy created as an independent army in 1923, after the end of WWI. In a few years it became a very well organized army and, in the twenties, obtained many successes in air races and aerial competions. The red-painted italian planes won the Schneider Cup in 1920 (Savoia S.12), 1921 (Macchi M.7), 1926 (Macchi M.39); the final evolution of these great race-planes, the Macchi M.C.72, missed the final 1931 edition but obtained the greatest result three years later, reaching the still unbeaten speed record for seaplanes, 709 km/h, Garda Lake, october 23, 1934.
In 1933 Air
Minister Italo Balbo commanded a group of 25 Savoia-Marchetti sm55x Flying
Boats on a 6000 mile-flight from Orbetello seaplane base to Chicago, the
first flight of a formation across the Atlantic Ocean.
Another famous competition took place in 1937: the Istres-Damasco-Paris air race. In this international competition 3 italian SM79c planes obtained the first 3 places, overperforming the british and french competitors. This planes had a nice insignia that became famous: three Green Mice talking of trifles.
During the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War Regia Aeronautica performed again very well. The S.M.79 fast bombers were able to hit their targets and easily escape the enemy reaction; the Breda 65 were successfully used in dive-bombing and strafing missions; the C.R.32 biplane fighters, in the hands of high-skilled pilots, obtained air superiority against the faster Polikarpov I-16 monoplane fighters.
At the breakout of WWII (Italy entered the war on june 10, 1940) Regia Aeronautica was in a transition period; the bombers (S.M.79, B.R.20) were now an easy prey for the new british monoplane fighters; the new monoplane fighters (G.50, C.200) were generally inferior with respect to enemy (Hurricane, Kittyhawk, Spitfire) and allied (bf 109) ones.
Soon after the war breakout an important event happened, the first flight of an italian jet. The Campini-Caproni flew on august 27th 1940, just one year after the Heinkel 176, the very first jet plane ever flown.
This was the
strenght and weakness of Regia Aeronautica on june 10,
1940: Regia Aeronautica 1940 Fiat
C.R.32 177 Fiat
C.R.42 143 Fiat
G.50 118 Macchi
C.200 144 Breda
65 154 Breda
88 81 S.M.81 293 S.M.79 612 B.R.20 172 Ca
309/310/311 280 C.Z.501/506 198 others ~700 Total ~3000 Being poorly
equipped Regia Aeronautica operated on almost all fronts: North Africa,
Greece and Jugoslavia, Mediterranean, France and even the Battle of
Britain and the russian front. More than this
Regia Aeronautica received from industry only 10,000 planes during the war period; too few if compared with british (120,000), german
(120,000) or american (300,000) numbers.
This is the total
of planes built 1935-1945: Airplane production Fighters
& fighter-bombers Fiat
C.R.32 1180 Fiat
C.R.42 1780 Fiat
G.50 785 Fiat
G.55 180 Macchi
C.200 1500 Macchi
C.202 1100 Macchi C.
205 312 Reggiane
2000 28 Reggiane
2001 243 Reggiane
2002 249 Reggiane
2005 36 Heavy
fighters, fighter-bombers and CAS Breda
65 218 Breda
88 148 S.M.
85 34 Fiat CR
25 12 CANSA FC
20 12 IMAM Ro
57 52 Bombers S.M.81 535 S.M.79 1370 S.M.82 411 S.M.84 309 Fiat
B.R.20 534 CANT Z.
1007 561 CANT Z.
1018 17 Caproni
135 72 Piaggio
32 29 Piaggio
108 24 Recon &
Transport Caproni
111 153 Caproni
133/148 433 Caproni
309/310/311/313/314 1350 IMAM Ro
37 619 IMAM Ro
43/44 228 CANT Z.
501 455 CANT Z.
506 379 Fiat RS
14 186 S.M.
73/74/75/83 129 Fiat G.
12 104 Training
& Auxiliary roles Caproni
100 675 Caproni
164 281 Breda
25/28 766 IMAM Ro
41 718 Nardi Fn
305/315 337 Saiman
200/202 534 Avia
L.3 336 Cansa
C.5 62 Total ~18000 |
This is a list of italian aces posted by VF2_Rolf at CFS2Online; don't know the source but looks quite interesting and accurate!
Tons of facts on italian aces available also at Hakans Aviation Pages
Italian Aces WW2
Name Kills Franco Lucchini 26 Teresio Martinoli 23 Leonardo Ferrulli 22 Franco Bordoni-Bisleri 19 Luigi Gorrini 19 Mario Bonzano 17 Mario Visintini 17 Ugo Drago 16 Duilio S. Fanali 15 Adriano Mantelli 15 Luigi Giannella 14 Brunetto di Montegnacco 14 Corrado Ricci 14 Mario Bellagambi 13 Germano La Ferla 13 Vittorio Minguzzi 13 Guido Presel 13 Luigi Baron 12 Giovanni Dell' Innocenti 12 Attilio Sanson 12 Claudio Solaro 12 Gianlino Baschirotto 11 Carlo Magnaghi 11 Angelo Mastroagostino 11 Carlo Romagnoli 11 Carlo Maurizio Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa 11 Pietro Serini 11 Giorgio Solaroli di Briona 11 Ennio Tarantola 11 Mario Veronesi 11 Adriano Visconti 10 Amedeo Benati 10 Fernando Malvezzi 10 Guido Nobili 10 Giulio Reiner 10 Giuseppe Roberto 10 Massimo Salvatore 10 Giulio Torresi 10 Emanuele Annoni 9 Giovanni Barcaro 9 Guiseppe Cenni 9 Guido Fibbia 9 Walter Omiccioli 9 Ferruccio Serafini 9 Natalino Stabile 9 Andrea Zotti 9 Giuseppe Biron 8 Giovanni Bonet 8 Ernesto Botto 8 Antonio Camaioni 8 Antonio Longhini 8 Orfeo Mazzitelli 8 Aroldo Soffritti 8 Raffaele Valenzano 8 Tito Valtancoli 8 Ranieri Piccolomini Clementini Adami 7 Bruno Biagini 7 Carlo Canella 7 Antonio Canfora 7 Vittorino Daffara 7 Fausto Filippi 7 Luigi Filippi 7 Dino Forlani 7 Ettore Foschini 7 Roberto Gaucci 7 Filippo Guarnaccia 7 Orlando Mandolini 7 Carlo Miani 7 Olizio Nioi 7 Giuseppe Oblach 7 Vincenzo Sant' Andrea 7 Angelo Savini 7 Enzo Lombardo Schiappacasse 7 Virgilio Vanzan 7 Osvaldo Bartolacchini 6 Osvaldo Bartolozzi 6 Livio Bassi 6 Pietro Bonfatti 6 Aldo Buvoli 6 Agostino Calentano 6 Cesare Di Bert 6 Armando Francois 6 Amedeo Guidi 6 Domenico Laiolo 6 Antonio Larsimont Pergameni 6 Felice Longhi 6 Giuseppe Manconcini 6 Mario Mecatti 6 Amleto Monterumici 6 Giuseppe Mottet 6 Furio Doglio Niclot 6 Luciano Perdoni 6 Alvaro Querci 6 Diego Rodoz 6 Giuseppe Ruzzin 6 Pier Giuseppe Scarpetta 6 Ricardo Emo Seidl 6 Alberto Spigaglia 6 Giorgio Tugnoli 6 Alberto Veronese 6 Paolo Arcangeletti 5 Guiseppe Aurili 5 Loris Baldi 5 Luigi Bandini 5 Giuseppe Baylon 5 Duilio Bernardi 5 Lucio Biagini 5 Manfredo Bianchi 5 Pietro Bianchi 5 Alessandro Bladelli 5 Egidio Buogo 5 Gilberto Caselli 5 Evasio Cavalli 5 Guglielmo Chiarini 5 Tullio Covre 5 Carlo Cucchi 5 Francesco Cuscuana 5 Rinaldo Damiani 5 Enrico Degli Incerto 5 Domenico Facchini 5 Giuseppe Farazzani 5 Giuliano Fissore 5 Fausto Fornaci 5 Iacopo Frigerio 5 Antonio Giardina 5 Eber Giudice 5 Giorgio Graffer 5 Mario Guerci 5 Luigi Iellici 5 Eugenio Leotta 5 Luigi Mariotti 5 Sergio Maurer 5 Mario Melis 5 Elio Miotto 5 Gianfranco Montagnani 5 Luigi Monti 5 Enrico Moretto 5 Raffaello Novelli 5 Dante Ocarso 5 Enzo Omiccioli 5 Antonio Palazzeschi 5 Francesco Pecchiari 5 Constantino Petrosellini 5 Mario Pinna 5 Mario Pluda 5 Giorgio Pocek 5 Aldo Remondino 5 Riccardo Roveda 5 Giovanni Sajeva 5 Carlo Segandi 5 Olindo Simionato 5 Vittorio Squarcia 5 Annibale Sterzi 5 Renato Talamini 5 Arrigo Tessari 5 Luigi Torchio 5 Celso Zemella 5 Nicola Zotti 5