Italian Forces

A disastrous experience

IMC Archives

Breda 88, military registration MM 4594, likely of the 19th Gruppo Autonomo Combattimento (19th Autonomous Combat Group) based at Alghero-Fertilia, Sardinia, during the first operations against the Corsica on June 1940. Clearly visible the dorsal turret Breda L1 with 7.7mm (0.303 in) machine gun which, together three nose-mounted 12.7mm (0.50 in) machine guns, made the fixed armament of this ground-attack and heavy-fighter aircraft which was a great delusion for the Italian Air Force. The Breda 88 was developed by an experimental aircraft, with the same name, employed on 1937 by the Breda’s test pilot Furio Niclot Doglio (killed in action over Malta on 1942 by the Canadian ace George Beurling) for the conquest of many speed records. Basing only on the manufacturer’s data, the Regia Aeronautica purchased 105 series aircraft: 81 Breda-made and 24 IMAM-made (the aircraft of the photo is a IMAM-made) with 1,000-hp Piaggio P. XI RC. 40 radial engines and an impressive war payload of 1,000 kg as three bombs of 50 kg (110 lb), 100 kg (220 lb) and 250 kg (550 lb) or a Nardi dispenser for 119 2 kg (4 lb) bomblets. But already during the first military tests and evaluation the aircraft revealed many serious troubles deriving most off all by the transformation of an experimental prototype in a production series twin-seat aircraft with all equipment required for an operational mission. For example a very high wing loading which prove dangerous when the plane is a fully war load, performances lower a than declared by the manufacturer (max level speed not over 490 km/h), aerodynamic problems still few known (as the flutter). The Breda 88 was a complete failure but, despite this, an operational employment was even attempted. On 10 November 1939 the Regia Aeronautica established two Gruppi Combattimento (Combat Groups) with a total of 74 Breda 88. On 16 June 1940, six days after the Italian war’s declaration to France and Great Britain, twelve Breda 88 of the 19th Gruppo, took off from Alghero, strafed the Corsican airfields of Bonifacio, Portovecchio, Travo and Ghisonaccia, mission repeated only for another time, 19 June, by nine aircraft against the same targets. The crews reported that the Breda 88 were extremely underpowered and lacked agility at full war load: first evidence of the impossibility of a correct use of this aircraft. But the evidence of the Breda 88’s failure will arrive definitively from the North Africa… Victor Sierra