[Cruver Collecter]

Originally Posted by Rush104

So what's the story behind the Ba.88?

It was a designed to fill the roles of ground attack and long range reconnaissance. Aircraft started having instability problems when armament was added and the twin Piaggio radial engines never really performed up to expectations. To be honest it does look like a sharp looking aircraft, but in this case looks can be deceiving.

[Folgore]

Gee, good-looking Italian design that doesn't live up to expectations. Imagine that...

[Epapazian]

The Ba.88 was used operationally in Lybia where results, due to its underpowered engines and sand clogging, were disastrous. After that the Italians scattered these planes around their airports to divert Allied ground attack planes which expended large amounts of ammo on them.

[djjeffhall]

Rush104,
In my (feeble and warped) mind it has always been the Italian version of the Devastator. Only without the heroics of Ensign George Gay.

[Epapazian]

Originally Posted by djjeffhall

Rush104,
In my (feeble and warped) mind it has always been the Italian version of the Devastator. Only without the heroics of Ensign George Gay.

While the Devastator's performance at Midway has always been cited as poor to awful, it seems to me that they, like the RAF's Battles at Sedan, were ill-used. Sent in to attack the Japanese fleet without fighter coverage, the TBDs were cannon fodder for the Zeros, but would the results have been the same if a mess of F4Fs had been there---as was planned? I wonder if anyone knows how the TBDs did at the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier? Did they sink that Japanese carrier and damage the other, or was it the SBDs?