A lame “Lynx”

In the mid-1930s, war clouds began gathering and the world’s military powers began looking at modernizing their weapons inventories, especially their combat aircraft inventory, and Italy, under its Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, was no exception.

At that time, Italy had an air force roughly the size of France, but the Italian air force – “Regia Aeronautica” – was badly in need of new, modern aircraft. In 1936, the Italian air force issued a requirement for a high speed, twin engine, two seat fighter bomber with a heavy forward firing armament and a range of more than 1,000 miles.

The Breda Company responded quickly and in October 1936 rolled out its answer to the requirement, the Breda Ba. 88 “Lince,” (Lynx), which certainly looked the part of an advanced fighter. It was a slim, sleek, streamlined aircraft of all metal construction, with a shoulder mounted wing and two 1,000 Piaggio P. X1 radial engines. It carried a partially powered rear turret, the latest avionics, self-sealing fuel tanks and fully retractable landing gear.

Its performance was also promising. In February 1937, a racing version of the prototype set a world speed record of more than 322 mph on a 100 kilometer course, and April 10, 1937, it set another record by averaging 295 mph over a 1,000 kilometer course and then broke its own record in December 1937 by averaging 326 mph over the 1,000 kilometer course.

There were, however, hidden problems in the modern design. The fuselage was not stressed skin, which produces a light but fairly strong fuselage, but rather a framework of steel tubes with aluminum skin stretched over them, reinforced with a winding of alloy over the skin. While this was very strong, it was heavy and hard to manufacture. It was also impossible to fit a large bomb bay because it would weaken the complex structure. The result was the Lynx had to carry most of its bombs in drag-producing external mounts.

Additionally, its P. X1 engines, while powerful, were proving to be unreliable.
When armor and armament were added to make the production version, the performance began to drop precipitously, and the extra weight gave the aircraft a very high wing loading and made it hard to maneuver. There was an initial decision not to produce the aircraft, but Mussolini was enamored of the Lynx because of its world records (and because of the need to keep Breda’s assembly line opened) and he ordered it into production.

When Italy declared war on France in May 1940, more than 100 Ba. 88s were in service. There were 74 Ba. 88s based in Sardinia and they participated in the first attacks on French bases on Corsica. They suffered no loses in brief action, but the crews reported back that the aircraft were underpowered and unsuited for combat missions.

But on Sept. 9, 1940, there was no choice but to use them when Italy invaded the British protectorate of Egypt.

Thirty-two Ba. 88s of the No. 7 “Gruppo Autonomo” moved to Libya and were fitted with sand filters on their engines, but these sand filters, which in the process of filtering the sand cut down on the airflow to the engine, proved to be the last straw for the Lynx.

On Sept. 12, the Ba. 88s tried to make their first sortie against British positions at Sidi Barrani. To keep their weight down they carried a minimum amount of fuel and did not carry the gunner and his gun. But even then, several of the attacking aircraft were unable to take off because the engines did not produce enough power.

Those that took off found their engines only produced about half power, which forced them to fly at a few thousand feet and at a top speed of about 150 mph. They could not fly in formation, and after a short time the engines began to overheat. The attack was aborted.

Later, Regina Aeronautica analysis showed the Ba. 88 had a rate of climb of just over 300 feet a minute. One story – perhaps apocryphal – says that one Lynx had to find a field directly ahead of it to land because it could not climb high enough to do a banked turn.

This left the Regia Aeronautica with a full group of aircraft that were totally unsuited for combat. Left to decide how to best use them, the base commander stripped them of all usable equipment and spread them around the base as decoys for marauding Royal Air Force aircraft.

But inertia is a powerful force. It took time for the production line to grind to a halt and some 65 more Ba. 88s were produced. They were immediately scrapped as part of Italy’s national critical material recovery plan, thus ending the career of what was probably the most disappointing aircraft in Italian aviation history.

(Dr. Michel is currently deployed downrange.)