Quote:
Originally Posted by majorfailure
Maybe the Italians should have given all of their Ba88 to the Finnish Airforce, the would have turned into some kind of super ground attack, best pilot destroying more tanks than Rudel.
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Perhaps the Ba.88 could have been a useful light bomber, but only if it carried nothing but a light bomb load and a pilot, and had just about all the combat equipment stripped from it.
It's good points were an overbuilt, very heavy structure (stressed to 12 G), 3 12.7 mm guns, and very good range for a ground attack plane (12 self-sealing fuel cells, 1640 km range). The bad points were that it was overweight not just due to combat equipment, but also utter lack of attention to weight reduction during design and production.
At best, if a team of very clever Finnish engineers got their hands on it, they'd turn it into something a bit like the Hs-129, but with less armor, lighter bomb load, and considerably less firepower. The obvious places to save weight would be to get rid of the rear gunner and remove at least half the fuel cells. Perhaps, they'd use captured Soviet engines with more power.
Even then, it would probably have ended up like the G.50 - an inferior plane kept in service long after its useful life, upgraded in small but clever ways, and used to maximum effect by a small but highly professional air force, along a quiet sector of the Eastern Front.