Savoia-Marchetti SM.79

August, saw heavy attacks on the 14 merchant ships and 44 major warships of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] convoy, the second Allied attempt to resupply Malta past Axis bombers, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Nine of the merchant ships and four of the warships were sunk, and others were damaged, but only the destroyer [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and the merchant ship MV Deucalion were sunk by Italian torpedo bombers.

Although damaged, the tanker [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], a key part of the convey, was towed into [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] to deliver the vital fuel on 15 August 1942 to enable Malta to continue functioning as an important Allied base; a major Allied strategic victory.

By autumn 1942, in contrast to [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], 9 December was a successful day when four SM.79s sank a sloop and a merchant ship, with the loss of Angelucci's aircraft.

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], another prominent member of the Italian torpedo-airforce who was credited with over 90,718 tonnes (100,000 tons) of enemy shipping sunk, was shot down the day after he said that they would probably all be dead before Christmas.

The risks of attempting to overcome the effective defences of allied ships were too great to expect much chance of long-term survival, but he was later rescued from the water, badly wounded.[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]

Despite the increased activity in 1942, the results were considerably poorer than those of the previous year.

The efforts made by the bombers were heavily criticized as being insufficient.

Many debated the possibilities of torpedo manufacturing defects or even sabotage. In the first 30 used, in 1940, the reliability was excellent, but a number of later torpedoes were found to be defective, especially those made at the Napoli factory.

During Operation Harpoon, over 100 torpedoes were launched with only three hitting their targets.

SM.79 Radio controlled flying bomb

During the Italian and German effort to stop "Pedestal Convoy", enroute to [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] during August 1942, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-based [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] "Alciones", shadowing the convoy in between bombing raids, carried out a unique mission, the first attack with a radio controlled aircraft in the war ([Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]'s elder brother, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] later died during a similar mission).

General [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] had first come up with the idea of packing an SM.79 with explosives and a [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] device.

As the Pedestal Convoy was steaming off the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] coast on 12 August 1942, the SM.79 "Drone", a Z.1007bis guide plane and an escort of five [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] fighters flew out to intercept the convoy.

Once the pilot of the SM.79 had set his aircraft on a course toward the Allied ships, he bailed out leaving the Z.1007bis crew to guide the flying bomb the rest of the way by radio-or so it was hoped.

The radio controls malfunctioned, and with nothing to guide it, the SM.79 Drone cruised along until it ran out of fuel and crashed into [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on the Algerian mainland.

Raffaelli later developed a simple, more expendable single-engine guided bomb, the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], which was tested in June 1943, but the armistice intervened before it could go into production.^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]
[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}Another proposal was the use of a Macchi C.202 as a "drone director" coupled with a SM.79 or A.R.4, a remote-control guided aerial bomb similar to the German "Mistel".

1943

The year opened with attacks against allied shipping off North Africa, but still without much success.

In July, the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], with an immense fleet. Sparvieros were already obsolete and phased out from service with the bomb wings, but the SM.84 was a failure and the few Z.1007s were not enough, so the latest version of the Sparviero was retained for torpedo attacks.

This version was considerably faster than its successors.
Before the invasion, there was a large force of torpedo aircraft: 7 Gruppi (groups), 41, 89, 104, 108, 130, 131 and 132° equipped with dozens of aircraft, but this was nevertheless an underpowered force.

Except 104°, based around the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], the other six Gruppi comprised just 61 aircraft, with only 22 serviceable.

Almost all the available machines were sent to the Raggruppamento Aerosiluranti, that of almost all of the 44 aircraft, only a third were considered flight-worthy by 9 July 1943.

Production of new SM.79s continued to fall behind, and at least until the end of July, only 37 SM.79s and 39 SM.84s were delivered.

Despite the use of an improved engine, capable of a maximum speed of 475 km/h (295 mph), these machines were unable to cope with the difficult task of resisting the invasion.

The size of these aircraft was too large to allow them to evade detection by the enemy defences, and the need for large crews resulted in heavy human losses.

In the first five days, SM.79s performed 57 missions, only at night, and failed to achieve any results, with the loss of seven aircraft.

Another three aircraft were lost in the night in which the British aircraft carrier was damaged.


The Italians co-ordinated their attacks with the German forces, and succeeded in hitting an [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] for the first time, Indomitable, on 16 July 1943, but this was more by accident than design.

^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}SM.79s were not equipped with [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], so the attacks had to be performed visually, hopefully aided by the light of the Moon, while the enemy had ship-borne radar and interceptor aircraft.[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]

The damaging of the Indomitable was due to an error of identification, because the incoming aircraft had been picked up on the ship's radar whilst still 8 km (4.9 mi) away, and failed to be identified as a threat.

The ship had seven dead, but the flooding was limited due to the 102 mm (4 in) armoured belt, which was damaged so badly that it disintegrated at the impact point, but nevertheless prevented the ship from structural damages.

Despite their depleted state, the Regia Aeronautica attempted a strategic attack on [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on 19 July with 10 SM.79GAs, but only two managed to reach their target, again without achieving any result.

The last operation was in September 1943, and resulted in the damaging of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], on 7 September 1943.<sup>[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]</sup>Following the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], the SM.79s based in southern Italy (34 altogether) were used by the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] as transports in support of the Anglo-American military; those that remained in the North (36) fought with the German forces as part of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], or were used by the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

A small number of SM.79s remained in service in the new [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] after the war.

There they served as passenger transports into the early 1950s.

RSI service, 1943-45

After the Armistice, there was still hope of using torpedo-bombers, and, for example, some missions were attempted to oppose the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], near [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

On one of these missions, Faggioni died, and the following year another mission over Gibraltar was planned by Commander Marini.

On 6 April, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] intercepted seven SM.79s of RSI Torpedo group near Perugia with four SM.79s shot down, while the other three crash-landed.

A total of 27 men were killed in this action.^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}

For this action, 12 SM.79 bis models were used.

They had enhanced engines, armoured shields for the lateral machine guns, an additional 1,000 L (264 US gal) fuel tank in the bomb bay, and had the bombardier's nacelle removed.

Even these modifications could not provide sufficient range to achieve the necessary distance that the mission required, and so all the weapons except one were removed, one member of crew was left behind, and the fuel load was increased to 5,000 L (1,320 US gal).

To reach Gibraltar, it was necessary to take off from Istres, in Southern France, and then fly for a total of 2,700 km (1,680 mi).

Of the 12 aircraft that departed from Istres on 5 June 1944, 10 reached their target.

The defenders were taken by surprise, and all the aircraft successfully launched their torpedoes, but three SM.79s ran out of fuel and were forced to land in Spain.

Initial claims by the Italians were that four ships, totalling 27,216 tonnes (30,000 tons), were sunk. British sources however stated that no ships were lost, due to an effective system of defence.

Regardless, this was the largest enemy incursion over Gibraltar in four years of war.[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]

The following data shows the changes in effectiveness of the SM.79 as a torpedo bomber:

• In 1940, two squadrons made 39 sorties and 17 attacks, with 27,578 tonnes (30,400 tons) of shipping damaged.
  
• In 1941, 14 squadrons made 225 sorties and 87 attacks, sinking nine ships (42,373 tonnes/47,700 tons), with another 12 damaged (75,841 tonnes/83,600 tons).
  
• In 1942, 24 squadrons, comprising 307 aircraft made 60 attacks, sinking 10 ships (27,624 tonnes/30,450 tons) and damaging three 29,157 tonnes (32,140 tons).
  
• In 1943, 18 squadrons made 221 war sorties, sinking three ships (12,519 tonnes/13,800 tons) and damaging another four (32,024 tonnes/35,300 tons).^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}