New planes requests (from other threads/please pin it)

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Marabekm

The Ba. 65 performed well in the Spanish Civil war. As did the Cr. 32. This is what helped lull Italy into thinking its planes were good enough, and not much was designed between the Spanish Civil War and WW2.

Yep. That, plus the inherent conservatism of the leaders of the Regia Aeronautica doomed Italian air power in WW2, although they were leaders in aviation in the 1920s and early 30s. But, to give Italy credit, its economy and industrial base wasn't that strong, so there were limits to what it could do. The Italians had some great planes, but never enough of them, and often far too late in arriving to do any good.

Originally Posted by Marabekm

The Ba. 88 was useless. On paper it was an all star, but in reality, not even close.

I think of it as being like the Brewster Buffalo - a good design destroyed by all the added equipment required to turn it into a combat aircraft.

I proposed just including it in the game as a static decoy aircraft because that was its historical role!

Were someone crazy enough to add a flyable Ba.88 to the game, I'd be more interested in the unarmed and unarmored prototype version. Potentially, it could have been used as a successful liaison or recon plane, or even as a high-speed target tug (all traditional roles for failed light bomber designs - see Bristol Buckingham). Another "what if" version is the Ba.88M with longer wings and up-rated engines. That might have potentially been a decent airplane.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I think of it as being like the Brewster Buffalo - a good design destroyed by all the added equipment required to turn it into a combat aircraft.

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.

[Marabekm]

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.

lol. Its true. Actually I think it had more to do with the fact that the Finnish Buffalo did not have all the extra armor for the pilots and self sealing tanks. RAF and Americans added all these extra features and performance dropped.

[Marabekm]

Not a new aircraft, but would be nice to be able to add France to the axis side for mission building. Vichy aircraft did fight against the RAF and initially against the American during the allied landings of Operation Torch.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Marabekm

Not a new aircraft, but would be nice to be able to add France to the axis side for mission building. Vichy aircraft did fight against the RAF and initially against the American during the allied landings of Operation Torch.

+1.

The "All Nations" mod is one of the handiest mods out there. Among other things, it gives the options of Vichy France as an Axis nation, and Hungary and Italy as Allied nations.

[HBPencil]

It has already been mentioned but I too would like to see the Blenheim IV made flyable seeing as it saw a lot of service in many theaters around the world during the early and mid war periods.

Likewise it'd be great to see (even if they're 'just' ai) the Lockheed Hudson as well as the B-34, PV-1 and PV-2 family, these types seeing a lot of service with many airforces in a number of theatres.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by HBPencil

Likewise it'd be great to see (even if they're 'just' ai) the Lockheed Hudson as well as the B-34, PV-1 and PV-2 family, these types seeing a lot of service with many airforces in a number of theatres.

B-34 wouldn't be needed since it didn't see combat, PV-2 was built in limited numbers during WW2 and didn't see much action. +1 for the other suggestions.

[Pursuivant]

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.

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.