italian aircraft production
 

Hello Everyone!
It Is Well Known That Italian Aircraft Production Rates Were Very Low Compared When Compared To Other Combatants. Even So, There Doesn't Seem To Be 'official ' Figures For Individual Types; The Sources I've Come Across In Some Cases Vary Considerably From One Another. What I'm Really Looking For Are Monthly Production Numbers For All The Major Types, Like The Cr42(the Most-built Aircraft, It Seems) Or The Macchi Fighters In Particular. Even Yearly Production Figures Would Suffice. Can Anyone Assist Me? Thanks. Anthony.

Re: italian aircraft production
 

dear Anthony,
data I-m giving you came from the books of DIMENSIONE CIELO series, published in the early seventies by the roman editor EDIZIONI BIZZARRI and written by the team of historians EMILIO BROTZU, MICHELE CASO and GHERARDO COSOLO. The authors made a terrible effort to prepeare this series that covers all the Italian types of the second world war (and after) and produced a kind of small classic on the subject, that is still one of the most reliable sources on Italian aircraft.
Regarding production numbers the sources generally differ because sometimes they considered machines ordered sometimes those actually produced and this gives different totals -particularly for those models built well into 1943 when the war came to an abrupt end for Italy and many production orders were not completely fulfilled, another problem is the loss of original documents, so it is possible that complete production batches were not recorded.
Back to the production numbers we have

Fiat CR 42 (Regia Aeronautica)
two prototypes
February-December 1939 200
December 1939-March 1940 101
March 1940-August 1940 200
August 1940-September 1940 39
September 1940-October 1940 40
October 1940 20
October 1940-November 1940 50
December 1940 45
February 1941-March 1941 100
March 1941-September 1941 200
September 1941-January 1942 94
February 1942-July 1942 152
July 1942-October 1942 160
November 1942-June 1943 150
That makes a grandtotal of 1553 Italian CR42s

According to other sources there were also
60 additional CR 42 in 1940 and 40 additional CR 42 in 1942.

To these its necessary to add
40 planes for Belgium, 68 planes for Hungary in three batches, 72 planes for Finland/Sweden, 112 planes for the Luftwaffe in 1943.

Hope this helps

Ludovico

Re: italian aircraft production
 

Ludovico,

I note you mention the books edited by Bizzarri.

Does this series make any mention of costs or prices of aircraft?

I ask as I am studying costs of military aircraft.

Cheers

Alan

Re: italian aircraft production
 

Dear Alan,
inside the books of the DIMENSIONE CIELO series it is possible to find (generally for the most popular types) the information of the cost of a single plane in Italian liras with the year to which this price is referred. This is only for the bombers not for the fighters.
Regarding the cost of a CR 42 I have from another source (a monography written by NINO ARENA) that it was around 315.000 Liras in 1939.
Regards

Ludovico.