G 55: Fill & Download for Free

A few off the top of my head that don’t get as much praise as the more “glamorous” aircraft.Hawker HurricaneBristol BeaufighterHandley Page HalifaxLavochkin La-5Macchi C.205Fiat G.55Messerschmitt Bf 110 (it was at its best serving in the night fighter role, it proved lacking in the day fighter and bomber roles)

The Macchi C.205The Italians were often looked down by other major players of World War 2, and Winston Churchill once described Italy as the “soft underbelly of Europe.” Despite being the “weaker player” of the war, their newly built Macchi C.205 was an impressive aircraft and it shocked the Allies when they faced this beast in combat.The Macchi C.205 was an Italian World War 2 fighter plane built by the plane manufacturer company Aeronautica Macchi. It was one of the three new series 5 Italian fighter for the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Airforce) built around the new German-made Daimler-Benz DB 605 engine.(The Luftwaffe used the Daimler-Benz DB 605 extensively in the Bf 109, Bf 110, and Me 210c heavy fighters from 1942–1945)The aircraft could reach a top speed of 640km per hour, which was faster than the famed British fighter the Supermarine Spitfire with a top speed of 594km per hour. The Macchi C.205 was also equipped with a pair of deadly 20 mm cannons and a 12.7 mm Breda machine gun.The Macchi C.205 entered production in 1942 and a total of 250 aircraft were ordered. However, production was slowed down due to lack of strategic materials and the factories could only produce roughly 12 aircraft per month.During combat, the Macchi C.205 proved to be extremely effective capable of destroying a large number of Allied bombers over in Sicily. The Macchi C.205 was a really brilliant plane and could match the P-51D Mustang on equal terms in a dogfight. Both the Axis pilots and Allied pilots highly respected the Macchi C.205. Captain Wilfrid George Gerald Duncan Smith, an ace pilot of the Royal Air Force once said that it (Macchi C.205) posed a serious challenge to every Spitfire and far ahead of every Axis fighter at that time. It carried three 20 mm cannons, and two 12.7 mm machine guns.Being very quick and agile, the Macchi C.205 could match any Allied fighter in both manoeuvrability and speed and proved to be one of the best fighters of the Axis. Unfortunately, the Macchi C.205 and her two sister planes were introduced too late in the war. Moreover, Italy’s poor production capabilities meant that only a small batch of these planes was delivered before Italy’s surrender in the war.The Fiat G.55Macchi C.205’s sister plane, the Fiat G.55 was also a superb fighter designed by Fiat. Its top speed was recorded as 685 km per hour, which was even faster than the Macchi C.205. The Fiat G.55 was designed to be a high altitude fighter plane because the Macchi C.205’s performance decreases when it reached an altitude of 8 000 m.The Fiat G.55 was tested against the German Bf 109G and the Focke-Wulf 190. After the mock dog fight, the Luftwaffe said that the Fiat G.55 was “the best Axis fighter.” In 1944, the Fiat G.55 clashed with the Spitfire, P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-38 Lightning over at Northern Italy, and proved to be a challenge. Less than 300 Fiat G.55 were produced before Italy’s surrender in the war.Reggiane Re.2005Macchi C.205’s second sister, the Reggiane Re.2005 was an Italian fixed-wing fighter and also a fighter bomber. Out of the three Series 5 Italian fighters, the Reggiane Re.2005 was the least produced one with only 48 delivered before Italy’s armistice.The Reggiane Re.2005 was the smallest Series 5 Italian fighter out of the three and was made from light alloys. It fuselage for the plane was small even for Italian standards. It was equipped with either three 20 mm cannons and two 12.7 mm machine guns or one 2 200lb bomb (roughly 1000 kg) and two 350lb bombs (roughly 110 kg). It reached a maximum speed of 650km per hour.Due to Reggiane Re.2005’s lightweight, it had a faster climb rate than the Macchi C.205 and was designed to fight at an altitude of about 7 000 m.Duncan Smith, an ace fighter of the Royal Air Force said that“The Re.2005 'Sagittario' was a potent aircraft. Having had a dogfight with one of them, I am convinced we would have been hard-pressed to cope in our Spitfires operationally if the Italians or Germans had had a few Squadrons equipped with these aircraft at the beginning of the Sicily campaign or in operations from Malta. Fast, and with excellent manoeuvrability, the Re.2005 was altogether a superb aeroplane. Neither the Macchi 205 nor the Bf 109G measured up to the capabilities of the Re.2005 series in manoeuvrability or rate of climb. I think it was easily the best aircraft Italy produced. It is a pity that no Re.2001/5s survive this day because they were fine examples of Italian engineering craftsmanship.”

That’s actually a rather complicated question. All fighters of the Serie 5 were pretty great aircrafts in general, but their strongpoints were often in different fields, and, regarding how you define “best”, your fighter of choice may change. So I will present each of the three aircraft and were they are good at, and conclude with which would be the best in specific tasks & overall.First, for the uninitiated, what is the “Serie 5”. It is a term that refers to three different Italian fighters that enterred service in 1943, that all had the common point of having a “5” in their name and using the new RC 58 Tifone 1,475hp engine, a licence-built variant of Germany’s DB 605 that was notably fitted in BF 109Gs. Those three aircrafts, the Macchi C.205V Veltro, Fiat G.55 Centauro and Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario, are generally considered to be considerable step-ups from the previous products of their companies, and very potent fighters generally. I’ll talk about the C.205 first, and then go on about the G.55 and conclude on the Re.2005Out of the three “5 series”, the one with the simplest and shortest development is assuredly the Macchi C.205. It was directly based on the previous C.202 -Folgore an already very potent fighter (though not without flaws), and, by 1942, the Italian place that was being produced in the highest numbers. The C.202 was powered by a licence-built variant of the previous main German in-line V engine, the DB 601A, that was notably featured BF 109 prior to the G variant. As such, modifying the airframe to fit the new German engine was rather simple. While some modifications were applied - notably slightly enlarging the tail, designing new flaps and making a number of fixes in the fuselage - the design remained very similar. The first re-engined C.202, at first just called C.202bis, flew as early as April of 1942.A C.205V Series III Veltro. While very graceful, the C.205 clearly didn’t hide its direct link with the previous C.202 Folgore, which was already a great and potent aircraft.The C.205V Veltro (Greyhound) was mostly known to have been a redoutable aircraft at low and medium altitudes. It reached its maximum speed of 642km/h at an altitude of about 7,200 to 7,500m, and was generally known to have been very manoeuvrable and having an impressive turn rate - something the previous C.202 was already known to have. The climb rate was also improved, taking about 5 minutes to reach 6,000 meters in series I aircraft, though that was recorded on a light load and on the lighter series I: the series III, in full combat load, took a longer but still respectacle 7 minutes to reach 6,000m. There was just a flaw of the Folgore that remained at first, and that was the weak armament: The first 99 C.205, the Series I, were armed with just two 12.7mm and two 7.7mm machine-guns, which, in terms of armament, was very weak by 1943. The Series III, that was the most produced (150 machines), resolved that problem, replacing the 7.7mm machine-guns by two MG 151/20 autocannons, one in a pod under each wing. While they slightly reduced the performances, the firepower was greatly increased. The C.205 had a range of about 950km, and a ceilling of 11,700m. Its weight loading was pretty high, with about 202kg/m2, but the aircraft remained very manoeuvrable. It peaked at lower to medium altitudes though; while it would be unfair to say it struggled at higher ones, still being a very potent aircraft all the way up to its ceilling, its advantages were far more pronounced at lower altitudes.Out of the three aircraft of the 5 Series, the C.205 was the one which was the least revolutionary in comparison to the previous model of the series, the C.202. While it vastly improved the Folgore’s performances, it was an evolution just much than a revolution, with an about 80% parts commmonality between the two. That being said, this lack of differences between the C.205 and the C.202 ended up being at the advantage of the Veltro. Out of the three new Italian fighters, it was the one which required the least development, and production was already starting, albeit at a reduced rate, by late 1942. This meant that it was by far the one which enterred service the earliest, in February of 1943. Three squadrons were able to receive the plane before the September of 1943 armistice, and it had the time to see some combat flying over Southern Italy and the Mediterranean. It was overall very sucessful, proving a very challenging enemy to the Spitfire, P-40s and P-38s operated by the allies, against which the Italian fighter generally scored more victories than losses. Several C.205 pilots reached the status of ace. After the Italian armistice, the type was used by both sides, both the kingdom in the South and the “Social Republic” of the north; the North’s aviation, the ANR, reported 115 confirmed and 45 probable kills for its C.205, while losing 55 aircrafts. The aircraft was retired after Macchi’s facilities in Northern Italy were destroyed in May of 1944, resulting in Northern Italian fighter units converting to the G.55 in the summer. Just six aircraft served in the Southern co-belligerent air force, being retired in the favor of P-39s and Spitfire in 1944. That being said, some C.205 were used by the new Italian air force in the new post-war year, and some newly manufactured ones (as well as refurbished C.205Vs and Folgores) were even sold to Egypt, which used them in the Arab-Israeli wars.It should be noted that another version of the C.205 existed: The C.205N “Orione”, which included much more in-depht modifications in comparison to the C.202 and was supposed to be a fighter supporting an heavier armament and optimized for higher altitudes. It was rather unsatisfactory in comparison to Fiat and Reggiane’s designs for high-altitude fighters though.The Fiat G.55 shared a common point with the C.205 in its development process: the Fiat fighter was also created by fitting the new DB 605 engine on an older airframe. However, unlike Macchi, Fiat did not manufacture any fighter with a DB 601 outside of a prototype (the G.50V). Therefore, the fuselage had to be redesigned to a much larger extent, to the point where the G.55 would share little with the older G.50 Freccia. The result was an aircraft which was quite larger than the C.205, with a lenght of 9.4m, a wingspan of 11.15m, and an eight of 3.17, while the Macchi design had a lenght of 8.85, a wingspan of 10.58 and an eight of 3.04. The G.55 was overall a graceful design, recognizable thanks to a rather large air intake that was located under the cockpit. The first prototype had its first flight in April of 1942.To the uninitiaded eye, a G.55 must look remarkedly similar to a C.205, both aircraft sharing the same engine. There are several ways to differenciate them though, my personal favorite being the longer space between the engine and cockpit on the G.55.The G.55 was another aircraft with formidable performances. It was actually not as fast as the C.205, with the maximum speed of the G.55 being 620 km/h at 7,400m. The Fiat fighter had one key advantage though, climb rate. It had a very good climb rate for the era, reaching 6,000m in six minutes, whereas a series III Veltro needed seven. Unlike the C.205, though, the G.55’s performances peaked at high altitude: while still capable at low-to-medium ones, the Fiat was a particularly great interceptor and a very good opponents for P-51D and late Spitfires in high altitudes. Its ceilling was a fair bit higher than the C.205, with 12,700m. The wing load was of 166kg/m2 at standard load, which was higher than on Spitfire, but lighter than on BF-109s. It was reportedly an excellent and very stable shooting platform, helped in that by its armament that was, from the start, heavier than the Veltro’s (The G.55 Centauro’s series 0 was armed with a 20mm MG 151 autocannon and four Breda-SAFAT, the series I used three MG 151/20 and two Breda-SAFAT 12.7mm machine-guns). While not without flaws (the durability and ruggedness of the Centauro was reportedly mediocre), it remained a very high-altitude fighter, something Italy had been lacking heavily since the outbreak of the war.Production did take quite a lot more time to start than for the C.205 though, mostly because of rather devastating raids by the RAF on Fiat’s facilities in Turin in 1942, whereas Macchi’s Milanese facilities had not been hit. Not only that, but re-tooling the facilities to switch from the older G.50 Freccia to the new G.55 Centauro was a long and hard process, considering the huge technological gap separating those two aircrafts. As a result, the first serial-produced G.55 Centauro only started to roll out of the production lines in june of 1943. By the time Italy signed an armistice on the 8th of September, just 35 G.55 had been delivered, most of which were not yet fully operational. Just one surrendered to the allies, most being eitheir scuttled or captured by the Germans and put in service of their puppet Social Republic’s air force, the ANR. Production resumed, and quickly one of the two fighter groups of the ANR operated on G.55, the other using C.205s. Italian pilots were very satisfied with their aircraft, and, briefly, the G.55 Centauro was pretty much the only operationnal fighter of the ANR, as it replaced the C.205s in the 1st fighter group inJune of 1944. However, production of the G.55 and its part was struggling, mostly due to allied bombings, and, under German pressure, the type was retired and replaced by BF-109Gs: from August of 1944 onward, the 2nd Group, which was the one equipped with G.55s at first, started to replace those by 109s, followed by the 1st starting in November of 1944. The main motive behind this replacement was not performance, as the G.55 was as good as the BF-109G - Italian pilots actually mostly preferred the Centauro to the Messer. After the end of the war, a Merlin-powered Centauro, the G.59, that also included a bubble canopy, was produced, and used by the new Italian air force as well as Syria and Egypt. Classic G.55 were also used by the Italian air force as well as Argentina, which bought 45 G.55s, including 15 G.55B, a new, two-seated trainer variant.Argentinian air force G.55A (the designation given to standard, series III G.55s after the war) in the early 50s. I’ve alwasy found the export successes of the C.205 and G.55 after the end of WWII rather interesting, as the world’s aircraft market at that point was flooded by thousands of surplus US and British aircrafts: the fact that air forces were still interested in Italian aircrafts at that point is, in my eyes, a rather interesting testimony of the 5 series’s great performances.The G.55 Centauro would serve as the basis for Italy’s first fighter aircraft designed in the cold war, the Merlin-powered G.59. While those actually had worse performances than the G.55 in most regards, they offered the new Italian air force with a good advanced trainer that could double as a fighter. Two main models existed, the single-seated G.59A (in the forefront) and the two-seated G.59B. Production started in 1948, after a few tens of G.55 had been completed from 1946 to 1948.The third, and last of the 5 series design, was designed by the firm Reggiane. Reggiane is, in comparison to Fiat and Macchi, often overlooked; indeed, it never designed a fighter that was produced in numbers as high as the G.50 or C.200/202. Reggiane did have a rather successful series of fighter though, the Re.2000/2001/2002. While those did not reach performances as high as the C.202, nor were they as manoeuvrable as it was, they proved potent design in more secondary fighter roles, such as fighter bomber or night fighter, whereas the C.202 was more concentrated on being a simple air-superiority fighter. Italy’s 5-series fighter wasn’t based on those previous models though, despite the Re.2001 using a DB 601. It was an entirely new design, taking at most just inspiration from the previous Reggiane fighters’s fuselage. It had its first flight in May of 1942, the prototype apparently being damaged on the second flight.The Sagittario, arguably one of the most beautiful aircrafts of the war. Smaller and lighter than the G.55 and even the C.205, it still had a superior payload, perhaps thanks to the greater experience Reggiane had in fighter-bomber design in comparison to Macchi and Fiat.In comparison to the G.55, the Re.2005 Sagittario was a smaller aircraft, with a lenght of 8.73m and a wingspan of 11m. It notably had a very thin fuselage, making it look a lot slimmer and aerodynamic than the G.55 and C.205 despite sharing the same engine. It also had the lightest maximum take of weight, with about 3,600kg whereas the G.55’s was about 3,700, and the C.205’s 3,900. Data is rarer than for the G.55 and C.205 Veltro, but the Re.2005 could reportedly have a climb rate of about 1,200m by minute, which would make it the best climber of the series 5 - something Italian reports on the aircraft tend to confirm. Its maximum speed of 628km/h at about 7,000m was comparable to the G.55, and its ceilling was sightly lower, with 12,000m. The Re.2005 was reportedly excellent at high altitudes, being extremely manoeuvrable and very hard to get into a spin - Italian reports from early 1943 tend to show the Re.2005 was considered the most high-performance of the bunch, being as manoeuvrable as the C.205 but at the same high altitudes as the G.55, where it could threaten allied bombers. While the prototype was armed with a 20mm MG 151 and four 12.7mm Breda-SAFAT, the series aircraft all featured three 20mm MG 151, one firing through the propeller hub and two in the wings, as well as two Breda-SAFAT 12.7mm in the engine’s cowling. Surprisingly enough, for the lightest of the 5-series at maximum take-off weight, the Reggiane had the highest potential bomb load, with a rack for a 640kg bomb under the fuselage, and one for a 160kg bomb under each wing, the C.205 and G.55 only having the option for two 160kg bombs - In March of 1943, before the aircraft truly enterred service, it was decided that it would mainly serve as the fighter-bomber of the 5 series, the G.55 taking on the role of interceptor and the C.205 of low to medium-altitude air superiority fighter.But while the Re.2005 had stellar performances, it also had a more complicated design. It enterred service in March and April of 1943, being used against allies air raid and sporadically scoring victories against American bombers, but some notably flaws were found during the operation of the aircraft: when diving, it started to get incredibly shaky over 660 km/h, though at the same time having an incredibly good resistance - a Sagittario reportedly reached 988km/h without breaking in a dive. Nonetheless, the operational aircraft were suspended from flying on the 26th of August 1943, as it was decided to fix the aircraft’s structucal problems. The Italian armistice was signed before the aircraft resumed service: most were captured by German troops, with 13 being taken in by the Luftwaffe and reportedly a few others by the ANR, which used those as advanced trainers. The aircraft, however, had a particularly complicated production, which led to the aircraft not seeing continued production under the Italian Social Republic, unlike the C.205 and G.55. As such, just 32 Re.2005 Sagittario were ever built, making it by far the rarest of the 5 series. Unlike the C.205 and G.55, production did not resume postwar, and no complete Re.2005 survives for the world to see: the best we have are the remains of one’s tail.If I was to judge Italy’s 5 series fighter, I would do it with two different criterias; the first being the aircraft’s performances, how good they were tactically, and the second being how easy to produce they where for the rather small Italian aircraft industry; how good they were strategically.From a tactical point of view, I would consider the Re.2005, with its stellar high-altitude reported performances, as the best of the 5 series. While the Germans actually preferred the G.55, the Italians viewed the Re.2005 as the most performing of the 5 Series, and if it indeed had the incredible high-altitude manoeuvrability and climb rate it is said to be, I would consider it somewhat superior to the G.55. The worst, though still not bad at all, would be the C.205, which was not as good at reaching and fighting at high altitudes, though it was still a very potent fighter and redoutable enemy at medium and lower altitudes. The G.55 occupies the middle-ground, having very good performances, but still somewhat inferior to the Re.2005 at high altitudes.Strategically, however, the roles are reversed. While there were some problems in its production, the C.205 Veltro was still by far the one that the Italian aircraft industry could adapt to the fastest and in the easiest way, being already very similar to the C.202 Folgore. The Re.2005, however, being a complicated design that still required improvements by the summer of 1943, was too ambitious for the small Italian aircraft industry, which was being damaged by enemy bombings. Once again, the G.55 Centauro occupies the middle-ground: not as overly complicated as the Re.2005 Sagittario, but still requiring a lot more re-tooling and being a little bit more complex than the C.205. As sad at it may be to abandon such a beauty of an aircraft, I feel like the best solution for Italy would have been to ditch the Re.2005 and concentrate on the G.55 and C.205 as its mainstay fighters - the G.55 notably having an extroardinary evolutionary potential in the form of the G.56, powered with the DB 603 and reportedly reaching a speed of 680km/h, with excellent high-altitudes performances.If one was to ask me which one of the 5 series was the best visually, though, I’d have little to no doubt - It’s the Reggiane. The C.205 and G.55 were still some very graceful aircraft, and would have a place in the list of my favorites… But the Re.2005 would definitly be a contender with the French Arsenal VG.33 for being my very favorite.The Sagittario was a beauty of an aircraft… but, being complicated and expensive, it most likely just wasn’t the right choice for the exhausted aircraft industry of an under-industralized Italy. It still is a shame none were manufactured after the war though - Sweden, which had already bought Re.2000s, was reportedly interested in the Re.2005, but no licence-production deal could negociated before September of 1943, and, by the end of the war, the Saab 21 and P-51D Mustang ended up being much cheaper alternatives than re-starting the production of the Reggiane