Macchi C.202 Folgore
The best Italian fighter of the war — let down by pitiful firepower.
The Folgore combined Italian airframe engineering with a German-derived Daimler-Benz engine, and the result was a fighter that could match — and often outfly — the Hurricane and P-40 in North African skies. Its weakness was armament: just two heavy machine guns when Allied fighters mounted eight or more.
01Entered service with the Regia Aeronautica in North Africa in 1941, where it was immediately superior to its predecessor, the Fiat G.50, and to most of what the RAF then flew in-theatre. Against Spitfire Mk.Vs it was roughly even.
02Saw heavy service in North Africa, over Malta, and in the defence of Italy itself. Many of Italy's top aces flew the Folgore, including Franco Lucchini and Luigi Gorrini, and some continued to do so in the brief service of the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force after 1943.
03Superseded by the further-developed C.205 Veltro, which mated an even more powerful DB 605 engine and proper cannon armament to the same airframe. The Veltro is arguably the finest Italian fighter of the war, but it was produced in small numbers.
Theatres of operation
- ·Mediterranean
- ·North Africa
Principal operators
- ·Regia Aeronautica
- ·Italian Social Republic (ANR)
- ·Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force
Others in the same fight.
Supermarine Spitfire
Mk.I — Mk.24
Hawker Hurricane
Mk.I — Mk.IV
North American P-51 Mustang
P-51B / C / D / K
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
P-47C / D / M / N