Quote:
Originally Posted by Marabekm
The Ba. 65 performed well in the Spanish Civil war. As did the Cr. 32. This is what helped lull Italy into thinking its planes were good enough, and not much was designed between the Spanish Civil War and WW2.
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Yep. That, plus the inherent conservatism of the leaders of the Regia Aeronautica doomed Italian air power in WW2, although they were leaders in aviation in the 1920s and early 30s. But, to give Italy credit, its economy and industrial base wasn't that strong, so there were limits to what it could do. The Italians had some great planes, but never enough of them, and often far too late in arriving to do any good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marabekm
The Ba. 88 was useless. On paper it was an all star, but in reality, not even close.
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I think of it as being like the Brewster Buffalo - a good design destroyed by all the added equipment required to turn it into a combat aircraft.
I proposed just including it in the game as a static decoy aircraft because that was its historical role!
Were someone crazy enough to add a flyable Ba.88 to the game, I'd be more interested in the unarmed and unarmored prototype version. Potentially, it could have been used as a successful liaison or recon plane, or even as a high-speed target tug (all traditional roles for failed light bomber designs - see Bristol Buckingham). Another "what if" version is the Ba.88M with longer wings and up-rated engines. That might have potentially been a decent airplane.