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Breda Ba.88 (Lince)

1938 WORLD WAR 2

History

After the proposed Bredaba failed. 75 products (only one example completed), designed to perform reconnaissance/ground attack missions for Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force), the service issued a new requirement in 1936 for a heavy fighter with a top speed of 329 mph and a range Up to 1,240 miles, standard armament consists of a 20mm automatic cannon.

This will become a powerful high-speed heavy artillery platform that will surpass all other platforms of its kind and become a real "bomber killer" for the Italian Air Force. To suit the heavy fighters of the day, a two-seat twin-engine monoplane wing layout with full metal skins was envisioned.

The resulting design became the Breda Ba. 88, which debuted in 1937 and proved promising early on. The plane is so streamlined that its engines are housed in nacelles along the leading edges of the wings. The cockpit is located along the fuselage, behind the nose cone assembly.

The fuselage then tapers to the stern with a pair of circular vertical fins attached. A conventional rear tow landing gear arrangement was used, with all legs fully retractable into the design. Internally, the aircraft was given a load-bearing structure that dates back to its advanced form. Self-sealing fuel tanks are standard inside, although the interior is so large that a modest bomb load has to be brought outside.

Standard armament is a 3 x 12.7mm heavy machine gun in the nose, while the second crew member has a trainable 7.7mm machine gun mounted in the rear cockpit. Provision was made to install a 20mm autocannon in place of a nose-mounted 12.7mm accessory.

The prototype is powered by 2 x Isotta-Fraschini K14 series engines, but the production mold comes with 2 x Piaggio P. XI RC. 40 "Stella" air-cooled 14-cylinder radial piston engines, 1,000 hp each. These drive a three-blade engine. The brand has a top speed of 304 mph, a range of up to 1,019 miles, and service is capped at 26,250 feet.

It takes about 7.5 minutes to reach 10,000 feet.

In testing, this stripped-down base aircraft proved to be a quick installation, setting multiple international land speed records for aircraft in its class. However, its fortunes changed when the airframe was equipped with the necessary military hardware, as performance began to degrade significantly.

Nevertheless, mass production of the design continued and it entered service in 1938, with the first Italian units equipped with this type in June 1940. Production ran from 1936 to 1940, with 149 units completed.

In actual service, ba. The 88 was opposed by Italian pilots because it was underpowered and overweight, resulting in reduced handling and agility - and combat conditions showed that these weaknesses increased with casualties. By the mid-1940s, the aircraft had been replaced into front-line service, forcing Royal Air to rely on more outdated carriages for the fighter-bomber role.

Bachelor's degree. '88 was fully retired in 1941 - a rather short service record for such an acclaimed aircraft.

The original production form, called "Lince" ("Lynx"), or simply "Ba. 88", was used for ground attack and reconnaissance missions. The three aircraft that appeared in late 1942 were designated "Ba 88M" and were modified using Fiat A.74 RCs.

38 series engine plus 4 x 127mm heavy machine guns for ground attack. This also includes increased wing surfaces and dive brakes for pressure dive attacks. The trio came too late in the war to comply with Italy's September 1943 surrender.