Italy's 4 engined bomber

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daveh
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Italy's 4 engined bomber

#1

Post by daveh » 24 May 2003, 14:10

How good a bomber was the Piaggio P108?
How does it stand comparison with the Allied 4 engined bombers?
Was it only produced in small numbers because of Italt's limited production capabilities?
Did the Italian's produce any other 4 engine designs?

I am interested in the Italian AirForce, its aircraft and its combat units.

I know of

http://www.kotfsc.com/warbirds/

Can anyone suggest any other references (books or net) for Italian aicraft designs and data.

I know of Courage Alone by C Dunning and the various works of C Shores for unit operations and histories.
Can anyone suggest any other references (books or net)?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks in advance

MadderCat
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#2

Post by MadderCat » 24 May 2003, 16:11

Hi

a good online-source is for aircaft in general:
http://www.vvs-regia-avions.com/regiaindex.html

HTH

MadderCat


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SM79Sparviero
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too few, too late

#3

Post by SM79Sparviero » 24 May 2003, 19:42

One of Mussolini's greatest errors was his support to the three- engine aircraft and his refusal to the four engine heavy bomber.Maybe he remembered with an axcessive optimism the success of the SM-79 medium bombers in Spanish Civil war, but according to him the four-engined aircraft "was good only for civil passenger airlines"

A true error. In WWI the heavy bombers Caproni were one of the most powerful italian weapons.Captain Fiorello la Guardia,future New York mayor, and 200 American pilots in 1917 were in Malpensa Airport ( Milan) to learn to fly with heavy aircrafts.
Their sons in 1943-45 took their thanks to Milan several times with 100-200 B-17 and B-24.

An Italian aircraft in 1943 could bomb New york:

http://www.comandosupremo.com/article.php?sid=118

gabriel pagliarani
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#4

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 25 May 2003, 03:23

Mussolini lost a son KIA on a P108, and the choice of 3-engined airframes instead of 2 was an efficient solution to the lack of an efficient egine. PD-108 had a real problem: as usual the engines. Weak, drinker or thirsty, unable to withstand long periods without continuos adjustings in carburation and sparking, its engine was unable for long distance bombings. Another lack were turrets: american and british bombers were equipped with defensive turrets never developed in Italy. But the airframe was as much better as you can suppose. A friend of mine, Sgt. Isolica (90 years old) was motorist on a PD108. Next time I 'll speak with him I 'll ask him some details about that beauty: last time I asked him something about P108 he told me how they failed the bombing of Gibraltar by cause of an excessive fuel consumption....what about New York?

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kobold
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#5

Post by kobold » 25 May 2003, 05:00

Only pic of a 108 i have...

It reminds me a bit of the lancaster, not sure why.

Image



dave

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#6

Post by varjag » 25 May 2003, 13:09

Daveh - the Italians had at least one other 4-engined design, the Cant Z.511 FLOAT-PLANE!!! It had a loaded weight of some 32 tonnes and to get that lump in the air they provided four Piaggio P.XII's rated at 1500 hp which - even at full blast - would've struggled to get the beast into the air fully laden. Since Italy's air-industry got off on a tangent in the late thirties - it never regained 'the main stream'. But their designs are quite interesting. Their lasting achievement - must have been that THEY, not the Germans or the Japanese - managed to establish a link, ever so weak, with Japan. An Italian SM 81 did fly to Manchuria and Japan in 1942 from a base, I believe, in Ukraine - AND RETURNED.

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SM79Sparviero
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remote controlled machine guns

#7

Post by SM79Sparviero » 25 May 2003, 15:25

the first bomber that utilized remote-controlled turrets in the world was Piaggio P-108B, projected in 1937 by Eng. Pierluigi Casiraghi after two years spent in USA, working for Boeing. The maiden flight of this modern ( if related to the aeronautical italian projects in these years as Fiat CR42!) aircraft was in November 1939 at Villanova d' Albenga airport ( Liguria).
According to me the bomber reminds a B-17 more than a Lancaster.
The two turrets on the outer engine nacelles had each two SAFAT 12.7 mm machine guns they were controlled by two gunners in two domes on the upper side of the fuselage by an electric-hydraulic system. Each gunner could control in the same time the two turrets or only the one of his side, exactly as each gunner of B-29 could do with the top and bottom turret of his level.
The electric -Hydraulic system worked on the battlefield even if it was not assisted by a centralized computer for targeting as in the B-29.
Traditional ventral and front turrets had each one 12.7 mm Breda-Safat. One 7.7 mm Breda-Safat was on each side of the fuselage.
It could carry a 3500 Kg bomb load, from this point of view it was inferior than a Lancaster that carried 5000-9000 Kg but for his fire power the italian aircraft was close to a Flying Fortress and was die hard.
In 1942-43 few P-108s fought againsts the Allied ships, small patrols of 2-3 aircrafts that were not comparable to the USAF "boxes", but they quite easily destroyed some allied night fighters, 1 Mosquito and 2 Beaufighters ("Storia Militare" October-November 2002), one night a P-108 could come home with an engine and tailplanes severely damaged by 20 mm shells and the day after it was ready to fly again .
Two P-108 were lost in 1942 over Gibraltar because of the failures of their engines ,one more had to land in Spain for the same problem , a Beaufighter that could intercept a P-108 was damaged by air gunner Aviere Scelto Costantino Negro ("Dimensione Cielo "ed. Bizzarri vol 6)
The aircraft had 4 Piaggio PXII 1350 CV 18 Cyl two row engines ( the project was derived from the American Pratt & Withney Wasp series), but the prototype of a P-108 Bis ( or P-133) was ready .The bomber had to be armed with remotely controlled 20 mm mg-151 guns or , alternatively, in fuselage turrets, a 20 mm tail "stinger" , four 12.7 mm in the front turret , it was heavily armoured, its bomb load was 4800 kg, the engine were four Piaggio P XV (1700 HP) or P-XXII ( 1800 HP), for a maximum projected speed of 490 Kmh.
Attachments
p108profilo.jpg
p108profilo.jpg (62.43 KiB) Viewed 5551 times
p108torr2.jpg
P-108 remote controlled turret
p108torr2.jpg (34.16 KiB) Viewed 5545 times

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us11thairborne
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#8

Post by us11thairborne » 05 Jul 2005, 18:13

Interesting enough, it does remind me of a lancaster a bit also Kobold. Those remote controlled turrets, how accurate were they, and how was the reliability?

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#9

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 07 Jul 2005, 08:20

us11thairborne wrote:Interesting enough, it does remind me of a lancaster a bit also Kobold. Those remote controlled turrets, how accurate were they, and how was the reliability?
The reliability was extremely poor. The cause was in poor raw materials. Effectively P108B never outpassed the prototypal stage even if forced to the 1st line: the cause was not in the excellent draft but in all the line of production, not aligned with the best foreigner standards. Expecially engines.

|AXiN|
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#10

Post by |AXiN| » 20 Aug 2005, 09:38

The three-stepped front fuselage reminds me of an upsized Hind. Intriuging design

gabriel pagliarani
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#11

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 21 Aug 2005, 08:37

|AXiN| wrote:The three-stepped front fuselage reminds me of an upsized Hind. Intriuging design
Is your Hind the Soviet tank destroyer helicopter replaced by Havoc? Only to know if we are thinking the same...

|AXiN|
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#12

Post by |AXiN| » 21 Aug 2005, 13:02

I thought the Hokum won the contract?

That aside, I was referring to the posterboy Soviet/Russian helicopter of Afghanistan and Rambo fame. Are any other aircraft referred to as "Hind"?

gabriel pagliarani
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#13

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 21 Aug 2005, 14:21

|AXiN| wrote:I thought the Hokum won the contract?

That aside, I was referring to the posterboy Soviet/Russian helicopter of Afghanistan and Rambo fame. Are any other aircraft referred to as "Hind"?
No. Hind is only a NATO code. As I know Hokum won the contract as export model standard: Red Army received the havoc. I think there is the same difference existing between last MiG-xx and Su-xx. VVSS was obliged to have in charge the export models to warrant their customers about the continuos assistance and handling.

|AXiN|
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#14

Post by |AXiN| » 21 Aug 2005, 16:46

According to Wikipedia the USSR adopted the Hokum as it's new attack helicopter in 1984 but in 2003 the Russian minister said the Havok would be the new standard attack helicopter, which would explain that. Pretty off-topic though:p

Back on topic, I've also come across references to Piaggio P112 and P114 aircraft - has anyone ever heard of them? Are they Luft-46 types or did they actually get anywhere?

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Vincent S.
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Good link

#15

Post by Vincent S. » 21 Aug 2005, 16:51

Hello,Here is a Good link

Sorry but it's in dutch,except the tabels(so you can read this :D)

http://users.skynet.be/milvlieg/index.htm

Best Regards

Axisfactbook...

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