Marcolin's C.R.42 CN (Germany) is a premium gift German fighter. It was introduced in Update 1.31, however it was replaced as a starter premium in the German tree by Flegel's Bf 109 A in Update 1.69 "Regia Aeronautica" and was hidden in favour of the version in the Italian tree, though still available in the German tree for those who unlocked it prior Update 1.69. The plane is painted after the camouflage scheme of Italian pilot Luciano Marcolin, the commanding officer of the 377a Squadriglia Autonoma dedicated in a night fighting role.
The CR.42 possesses exceptional manoeuvrability, speed, and durability, especially for a biplane. Armament is quite good as well, due to the Breda-SAFAT .50 calibre MGs. The CR.42 typically gets thrown in with the likes of P-36's and LaGG-3's. As such, the majority of aircraft the CR.42 will engage are faster, and more heavily armed. The best bet for survival, and securing kills, is to climb to about medium altitude, and lure fighters into turning combat. The overwhelming majority of pilots are unwilling to run from a lowly biplane, allowing you to score critical damage before they realize that they have expended all their energy and must extend away from you. By that time, the damage is usually severe enough that they cannot accelerate away from you quickly enough to escape further damage.
For the armament, the same applies to all other Italian aircraft; generally you want to use Tracers, Anti-air or Stealth belts since they deal the most damage. Shell velocity is low, hence they suffer above 300 m, so only fire at or below that range for best effects. Furthermore, much like the other Italian fighters the armament is woefully inadequate to deal with bombers, hence it is best to avoid them entirely, or focus on taking out the engines. The only exception is the very early biplane bombers, such as Swordfish Mk I, Po-2 and other light bombers.
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Belt | Belt filling | Armor penetration (mm) at a distance: | |||||
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10 m | 100 m | 500 m | 1000 m | 1500 m | 2000 m | ||
T/Ball/Ball/I/AP | 21 | 19 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 2 | |
AP/AP-I/HEF/API-T/I | 21 | 19 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 3 | |
API-T/AP-I/HEF | 21 | 19 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 3 | |
API-T | 21 | 19 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 3 | |
AP-I/AP-I/HEF/HEF | 20 | 18 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
Flight performance | |
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Survivability |
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