Reggiane 2000 for RAF!

[Muscateer]

In "Avions" No. 170 in an article about the Italian AF in the Battle of France

it is stated that 'end of January 1940 the RAF ordered 300 Reggiane 2000

but they could not be delivered once Italy sided with Germany in the war'.

Apart from seeming most unlikely does anybody know anything about this ?

I know we were pretty desperate! 300 Hawk 75's would have been logical

but not the Re. 2000.

Rgds, Muscateer.

[Mikael Olrog]

Not only Reggianes where on the table for RAF but also some 200(?) Caproni Ca 313 if I remember correctly.

Like many other countries at the time, you where indeed desperate to beef up numbers.

[Graham Boak]

They did order Hawk 75s, or at least adopt all they could get. As far as ordering was concerned however, it had already been replaced by the Hawk 81 on Curtiss's sales list. Although not a great fan of the Reggiane fighter, I think it was the equal of many others available on the open market (such as it was) at that time. The closely equivalent (masterly understatement there) P-35 and P-43 were to see combat into 1942, if not successfully. I suspect the Re2000s would have been allocated to OTUs, or perhaps (after the May 1940 experiences) into Army Air Cooperation squadrons. Or, indeed, in the Middle and Far East?

[Juha]

IIRC there was in one of early AEs (late 70s) an article on Re 2000 from where I read first time that GB had plans to acquire Re 2000s from Italy.

Juha

[DavidIsby]

The operational utility of the aircraft was seen as very much secondary to the economic impact and the political demonstration to Italy that there was an alternative to going to war with Hitler.

Greenhill books has done a series of "alternative histories" of essays in which different authors look at counterfactual situations. I did one in which italy stayed neutral. In that the RAF Re 2000s were committed to the defense of Singapore. Didn't help.

[Muscateer]

How very interesting! Something I have never come across before. Thanks

so much for all the contributions.

Has any paper work ever emerged on such transactions, i.e. Reggiane or

Caproni ? The Air Ministry seems to have kept quiet about them. Was the

RAF perhaps a bit shamefaced subsequently when it was revealed in the

light of operational experience that Italy hadn't much to offer.


Regards, Muscateer

[DavidIsby]

It wasn't the RAF's idea. Most of the documentation in the NA (Kew) is in FO files. The policy did not get far enough along for the Air Ministry to be seriously engaged in operational details.

Of course, the Air Ministry was ordering massive amounts of anything that promised results. Like Avro Manchesters off the drawing board, Or creatures like the Brewster Bermuda dive-bomber.

[Muscateer]

Originally Posted by DavidIsby

It wasn't the RAF's idea. Most of the documentation in the NA (Kew) is in FO files. The policy did not get far enough along for the Air Ministry to be seriously engaged in operational details.

Of course, the Air Ministry was ordering massive amounts of anything that promised results. Like Avro Manchesters off the drawing board, Or creatures like the Brewster Bermuda dive-bomber.

Not only the above but Botha's (hideously bothasome!), Barracuda's,

Battle's (long after their annihilation in France), Blackburn B.20's etc. It is

miracle the Mossie emerged at all but like another success story against

all odds, the later Viscount, it was a private venture! What might have

been the story if at least half of that wasted effort had been spent instead

on the Martin Baker project.

Rgds, Muscateer.

[Graham Boak]

The Mossie was not a private venture: it followed on from prewar studies of unmanned bombers from Handley Page and the RAE, and was supported throughout by the Air Ministry. It was DeH who made such a good job of it, but anything more is myth.

There are a lot of claims made about private ventures, even in the Official History, but few of them bear up under study of the records of the time.

The Martin Baker designs were supported, but there was an inability to deliver on time. There must be some doubt that any real product was ever expected, but it kept a clever designer happy at fairly small expense. Given that the Typhoon flew prewar, and the Tempest was in service in mid-1944, there was never any real chance that they were going to be converted into production machines in useful timescales. The real future was in jets.

[Bill Walker]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

Given that the Typhoon flew prewar, ...

February 1940 according to most sources. You're not using the American definition of "the war", are you?