Combat aircraft. Humpbacked hawk as a symbol

2024 Author: Matthew Elmers | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:49

Well, yes, here we have a real symbol of the Royal Air Force and at the same time the most massive Italian bomber during the Second World War. A very peculiar creation by Alessandro Marchetti, released in a very decent (for Italy) circulation of almost one and a half thousand units (1458 to be exact).

The Italian station wagon was used as a bomber, torpedo bomber, reconnaissance aircraft and transport aircraft. For his time he was very good in terms of flight characteristics, before the start of World War II he repeatedly participated in air races and (importantly!) Won them! Well, the SM.79 has several world records for speed and carrying capacity.

In general, he was still "Hawk". In the mid 30s of the last century. But in the Royal Italian Air Force the plane was named "the hunchback". So - "Humpbacked Hawk".

The three-engine scheme was not something so outstanding in those days, but it was not very common either. Dutch Fokker F. VII / 3m, German Junkers Ju52 / 3m, Soviet ANT-9 and SM.79. There were three-engine developments in other countries, but somehow they did not take root. Preference was given in favor of two and four-engine configurations.

Yes, three engines provided some advantage over two in terms of reliability and range, but by the forties, due to the increase in the power characteristics of aircraft engines, three-engine aircraft began to disappear from the fleets of all countries.

Only in Italy, until the very end of the war, three-engine bombers remained in combat formation. True, this was due not so much to the outstanding characteristics of the aircraft as to the state of finances in fascist Italy.

The SM.79, like many of the warplanes that gained prominence during World War II, had a completely civilian heritage. In 1933, Marchetti conceived of creating a high-speed passenger plane that could take part in the international races planned in 1934 on the London-Melbourne route.

The SM.73 was used as a platform, also a three-engine aircraft, which was also produced in the military version of the SM.81.

In this project, he clearly made a start from his previous car, also three-engine: S.73 (military version - S.81), built in 1934 using many similar design solutions. The frame of the fuselage is made of steel pipes with a sheathing of duralumin sheet, plywood and canvas, a cantilever wooden wing, an almost identical plumage.

The place where all the ideas were united was the company Societa Idrovolanti Alta Italia - SIAI, better known under its trademark Savoy.

In general, SIAI was actively engaged in the production of flying boats and was known all over the world in this regard. Flying boats "Savoy" S.16 and S.62 were in service with the Soviet Air Force, and the large S.55 were operated on the airlines of the Far East even during the Great Patriotic War.

An experimental aircraft with the civil designation I-MAGO made its first flight on October 8, 1934. True, the races are long gone, the winner was the English De Havilland DH.88 "Comet".

But the plane from Marchetti and "Savoy" turned out to be more than successful. It was necessary, however, to immediately install other engines, in the case turned out to be an Alfa Romeo 125RC35 with a capacity of 680 hp. pp., licensed "Bristol Pegasus". And with them the plane reached a speed of 355 km / h, and later - 410 km / h. As a result, the SM.79 became the fastest multi-engine aircraft in Italy, ahead of the S.81 bomber, which began to enter service.

In 1934 g.a competition was announced for a new twin-engined medium bomber for the Italian Air Force. The requirements of the competition stipulated that the bomber must be twin-engine.

Eight projects were submitted for the competition. SIAI offered its S.79B aircraft. The project did not pass, as it was a rough conversion of the passenger S.79P into a bomber with two French Gnome-Rhone K14 engines. Plus the commission did not like the placement of machine guns and bomb bays.

However, the company ordered 24 aircraft. In principle, there were grounds for such a step, the design of the SM.79 was quite simple in terms of technology and actually made it possible to quickly deploy, if necessary, mass production of aircraft. It made sense to test the plane in a pre-production batch, because Italy was preparing for the war. For which - it was not yet entirely clear, but I was preparing.

The first SM.79 was equipped with bomb racks and a test cycle was carried out on it. The tests were successful. The wide and not very aerodynamically sleek fuselage of the passenger car was retained, but the hump with machine guns appeared above the pilot's cabin. One fixed "Breda-SAFAT" caliber 12.7 mm looked forward, and the shooter had the same, but movable machine gun to defend the rear hemisphere.

Another large-caliber machine gun was installed in the rear of the fuselage, in a gondola, for back-down firing. And there was a machine gun "Lewis" caliber 7, 69 mm, it was mounted above the gondola inside the fuselage on a special installation. The machine gun could be thrown from side to side and fired from it through large rectangular hatches on the left and right sides.

Very dubious frontal armament is entirely on the conscience of Marchetti. The designer considered that if the plane is fast, then it is unlikely that they will often attack it head-on. This means that one machine gun above the pilot's head is enough for the eyes. A strange approach, but that's how it happened.

The bomb bay was very original. It was located in the central part of the fuselage and, as it were, shifted to the right of the aircraft axis. This was done in order to preserve the passage to the tail section.

The bomb compartment could be loaded with up to 1250 kg of bombs in different combinations (2 x 500 kg, 5 x 250 kg, 12 x 100 kg or 12 clusters with small fragmentation bombs of 12 kg each). All bombs were suspended vertically, except for the 500 kg, which were installed obliquely.

The crew consisted of four people: two pilots (the co-pilot was also a bombardier), a flight mechanic and a radio operator. The bombardier was usually located in the very nose and had to have the best view. But in our case there was a second motor. Therefore, in SM.79, the bombardier was placed in a gondola made under the fuselage in the tail section. The front wall of the gondola was transparent, which, in general, provided a working view. This is why the passage to the tail section was needed.

From his gondola, the bombardier could carry out not only aiming, but also turning the aircraft using the steering wheel during bombing.

The first serial SM.79 bombers appeared in October 1936. And by January of the following year, the company had completed the same order for 24 aircraft. On production aircraft, the "hump" lengthened, teardrop-shaped protrusions appeared on its sides, and the glazing from above disappeared. The World War I Lewis was replaced by a more modern SAFAT of the same caliber.

Officially, the bomber was put into service under the name SM.79 Sparviero - "Hawk", but this name did not catch on, and in parts it was simply called "gobbo" - "hunchback".

Starting from the 2nd series, the "hump" was shortened (before it reached almost to the front door), drop-shaped protrusions were removed from it, but additional windows were made for the radio operator and flight mechanic.

The bombardier's nacelle was slightly deepened, the exhaust pipes of the engines were bent (away from the nacelles), and additional stabilizer extensions were introduced. In this form, almost unchanged, the SM.79 was in mass production for seven years.

Seven years - here it is not about some particularly outstanding characteristics of the aircraft. There were simply no competitors. All the planes that were offered by the same Fiat or Caproni just turned out to be much worse.

Meanwhile, in 1937, a plan for the expansion of the Italian Air Force was adopted, according to which in 1939 it was supposed to have about 3,000 bombers. Mussolini's plans were more than gigantic, but the practice turned out to be somewhat different. Italy was simply not able to produce so many aircraft in two years, plus the planes participating in the plan (Fiat BR.20, Caproni Sa.135, Piaggio R.32) stubbornly refused to enter the required condition …

So the bet was quite justified on the three-engine SIAI. And the pilots began to be transferred to training from fighters, this was required by the really high speed of the bomber and rather easy control.

Yes, made on the basis of a passenger aircraft, the SM.79 had many shortcomings generated by the alteration: inconvenient placement of the bombardier, a small bomb bay with a rather large fuselage, defensive armament in the side hatches. All this aroused quite reasonable criticism. Nevertheless, there was nothing to choose from.

Meanwhile, the civil war in Spain began, and it became possible to test the bombers in combat conditions. The SM.79 fought both Italian pilots, whom Mussolini "borrowed" Franco, and the Spaniards.

SM.79 with Italian crews operated near Seville, Bilbao, participated in the battles of Brunete and Teruel. In May 1937, five Italian bombers damaged the Republican battleship Jaime I in the port of Almeria.

It turned out that the speed of the SM.79 allowed them to fly unaccompanied during the day. Of all the republican fighters, only the I-16, of which there were not so many, could catch up with the Hawk. And the car turned out to be very tenacious. Of almost a hundred delivered bombers, 16 were actually lost: the Spaniards lost 4 aircraft, the Italians 12.

In general, SM.79 was used more than successfully. The Spaniards gave him the nickname "Horobado", that is, "the hunchback."

Generous Italians transferred the remaining 61 "hunchbacks" to the Spaniards. In the Spanish Air Force, they survived World War II, and the last of them flew in the Spanish North African colonies of Ifni and Rio de Oro until the early 60s.

While the combat SM.79 was dropping bombs on Spanish soil, their counterparts in Italy carried out propaganda tasks, participating in flights and setting records. It was necessary to show the whole world the achievements of the fascist regime of Mussolini, so in fact SM.79 took part in many flights. In the flight Marseille - Damascus - Paris SM.79 took the first three places. The Italians also took part in the flight Rome - Dakar - Rio de Janeiro. One of the pilots was Mussolini Jr.

In addition, the SM.79 with P.11 engines from Piaggio set a series of world speed records in the category of aircraft with payloads of 500, 1000 and 2000 kg.

In general, in the pre-war period, SIAI, by that time already renamed "Savoie-Marchetti", very aggressively burst into export markets. Marchetti believed that a twin-engine aircraft would be better suited for export. And he even created a prototype SM.79V ("Bimotor").

Therefore, despite the rejection of the S.79B project ("Bimotor") by the Ministry of Aeronautics, he continued work in this direction, bringing the project to the construction of a prototype.

Meanwhile, the three-engined SM.79 became the main striking force of the Italian Air Force. And with them Italy entered the Second World War. In addition to the combat experience gained in Spain, these aircraft were used for the landing of troops during the capture of Albania in 1939, as well as during the attack on Greece.

Immediately after Italy declared war on England and France, Italian bombers attacked their assigned targets. Taking off from airfields in Sicily, the Italians bombed Malta. Aircraft based in Libya attacked French bases in Tunisia. From Italy they flew to Corsica and Marseille, from Ethiopia to Aden.

In North Africa in September 1940, four S.79 regiments assisted the Italian offensive against Egypt. At first, they even tried to use them as attack aircraft to support troops on the battlefield and hunt for British tanks and armored cars. It did not work, the British anti-aircraft gunners very quickly disappointed the Italians.

But the plane, despite the heavy losses of both combat plan and technical, won back the entire African campaign up to the defeat of the Axis countries.

The campaign revealed many of the weaknesses of SM.79. Primitive turrets limiting the sectors of fire, low rate of fire of large-caliber machine guns and their unreliability, weak armor and the absence of protected gas tanks. It turned out that parades and real combat use are still different things.

There were difficulties with repairs in the field, because of which the Allies got more than 30 aircraft in varying degrees of malfunction. It was especially difficult with a one-piece wing.

In addition, in 1941, a new generation of faster fighters began to appear in the air, and the speed of the SM.79 was no longer the same protection as before. And by mid-1941, the number of Hawks in the Italian Air Force began to decline. Moreover, the more advanced (and also three-engine) bomber Kant Z.1007 arrived in time.

And the Hawks were firmly registered in the naval aviation, where they fought until the very end of the war.

On July 8, 1940, SM.79 attacked the cruiser Gloucester and damaged it. This was the first success of the Hawks, the Italians did not achieve direct hits, but the ship was well patted by close explosions.

Torpedo bombers based on SM.79 celebrated their success on the night of September 18, 1940, when two SM.79 torpedoes hit the cruiser Kent. The crew defended the ship, but the cruiser was dragged to Gibraltar, where she stood for almost a year under repair.

The list of successful attacks by SM.79 torpedo bombers was supplemented by the cruisers Liverpool, Glasgow, Phoebus, Aretusa, which were damaged as a result of the actions of the SM.79 crews. And for the destroyer "Quentin" it all ended sadly, on December 2, 1942, she sank after meeting with torpedo bombers.

In 1943, the aircraft carrier Indomitable (not fatally) and a number of transport ships from the Maltese convoys received torpedoes. The destroyer Yanus was sunk by an aviatorpedo destroyer.

On September 8, 1943, Italy surrendered and split in half: in the north, under the control of the Germans, a puppet Italian Social Republic was created, and the British and Americans occupied the south. A significant number of SM.79 remained at the airfields, which the Allies converted into transport. There were enough cars for a whole regiment (3rd Transport Aviation Regiment), equipped with SM.79.

So the "Hawks" began not only to carry cargo and passengers, but also to scatter leaflets, to throw out paratroopers and cargo behind the front line. And after the complete end of the war, all SM.79s became transport aircraft.

By 1950, almost all of the Hawks had reached their end of life. The record-holders for the duration of service were the aircraft, which Lebanon acquired in 1949 for its own needs. These machines served until 1960. One of the Lebanese SM.79 is now in the Italian Museum of Aviation History.

The S.79 was built more than all other Italian multi-engine bombers combined. We can say that the Humpbacked Hawk became the face of the Italian strike aviation, having fought on almost all fronts. Even on the Eastern Front, near Stalingrad, where the Romanian air units fought, which were armed with these planes.

But by 1941, this machine was so outdated that it practically did not represent combat value. Not Marchetti's fault, but progress. For which Italy could not keep up with all its desire.