G.55: Best of Its Kind

In the early 1940s, Italian fighter aviation had a serious problem on its hands. Its main fighters, the Fiat G.50 and the Macchi C.200, had good maneuverability but were clearly inferior to the newest aircraft in speed, climb rate, and altitude performance. Some of the issues were alleviated by the modernization to “Serie 2” and using licensed copies of the German DB 601 engine. But those were only temporary measures that still didn’t improve them enough to engage targets at high altitudes — altitudes now occupied by strategic bombers. Besides, the Italian fighters were mostly armed with machine guns, and that was another point for improvement.