Quick-reaction air defence of partner airspace and of Italian forces and interests in the Gulf, flying Eurofighter alert sorties backed by an airborne early-warning aircraft, a deployable radar and counter-drone systems. Rome presents the deployment as strictly defensive and has not authorised offensive strike missions.

The task force went out in the second half of March 2026, in the middle of the regional crisis, at the request of Gulf partners facing drone and ballistic attack. Roughly 400 Aeronautica Militare personnel are organised into Task Group Typhoon (four Eurofighter F-2000A at Ta’if), Task Group Argo (one Gulfstream E-550A CAEW for early warning), Task Group Medal (C-130J or KC-130J transport), Task Group Kuwait (an AN/TPS-77 radar and technical support) and a counter-UAS group with the ACUS-E multisensor system. An Italian Army Task Force Land – Arabia of about 300 adds a SAMP/T battery with Aster 30, Leonardo KRONOS radars and a Skynex 35mm gun battery. Crosetto has been explicit that Italy is not at war with the Houthis and that kinetic missions from United States bases would need parliamentary approval, a line that has drawn sustained criticism at home because the airfields Italy is defending are also launch points for strikes on Yemen.

Outcome The deployment is continuing. It has given the Aeronautica Militare its first sustained air-defence commitment on the Arabian Peninsula, and the 18 September 2026 strike made an Italian fighter the target of hostile fire on the ground for the first time in the force’s post-war history. The political argument in Rome over whether a defensive mission in support of belligerent partners can stay defensive has not been settled.

Reported Italian strength varies: the Aviationist and Italian defence press give about 400 air force personnel plus about 300 army personnel, while Agenzia Nova, reporting the Ta’if strike, described about 300 air force personnel split between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The official Ministry of Defence page for the operation could not be read during this research, so no authoritative figure is given here.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

King Fahd Air Base at Ta’if in western Saudi Arabia, roughly 70km east of Mecca, with Italian elements also reported in Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates; airspace over the western Arabian Peninsula and the approaches to the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb.

Alongside

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and United States

Against

Houthi movement (Ansar Allah)

Aircraft

Eurofighter F-2000A Typhoon, Gulfstream E-550A CAEW, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, Lockheed Martin KC-130J Super Hercules

Sorties

—No sortie or flight-hour total has been published. The Italian Ministry of Defence has described the composition and the task of Task Force Air – Arabia but has released no activity figures, and because the deployment is national rather than NATO there is no alliance reporting to cross-check. Nor has any Italian shoot-down or interception of a drone or missile been officially claimed.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Italian aircraft has been confirmed destroyed and no Italian personnel killed or injured. One Eurofighter F-2000A parked in an outlying area of King Fahd Air Base was hit and damaged during the Houthi attack on the night of 17–18 September 2026; Defence Minister Guido Crosetto confirmed the damage but no battle-damage assessment has been released, and Houthi claims that the aircraft was destroyed are uncorroborated, so it is not counted as a loss here. The MQ-9A destroyed at Ali Al Salem in March 2026 belonged to the separate Kuwait contingent and is counted under Prima Parthica.

Sources

Italy Quietly Deployed Eurofighters, SAMP/T And Counter-Dr · Italian Eurofighter Typhoon Struck In Houthi Attack On Sau · Houthi attack damages an Italian fighter jet in Saudi Arab · Colpito un Eurofighter italiano nella base di Ta’if · Italy Sends Eurofighter Jets and SAMP/T Air Defense to Cou · Presence and roles of Italian forces in military missions

Persistent armed-reconnaissance and maritime-surveillance flights over the sea approaches to Libya, plus the transport flights that sustain the Italian field hospital at Misurata and the bilateral training mission. There is no Italian strike mandate over Libya.

Mare Sicuro was stood up on 12 March 2015 as a national maritime-security device and renamed Mare Sicuro on 15 April; it became Mediterraneo Sicuro in August 2022. About 750 personnel and up to six naval units are committed, with Aeronautica Militare surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flying from Italian soil rather than from Libya. The remotely piloted element is the backbone: Predators from the 28° Gruppo at Amendola and the 61° Gruppo reactivated at Sigonella on 10 July 2017 watch the smuggling routes, the fishing grounds and the offshore energy platforms. In parallel, Operazione Ippocrate put an Italian field hospital into Misurata from 2016 and was reconfigured in 2018 into MIASIT, the bilateral assistance and support mission in Libya, approved by the Council of Ministers on 28 November 2018 and by both chambers that December, with about 400 personnel and two aircraft. Italian flights into Misurata have repeatedly been denied or delayed by local authorities.

Outcome The operation is continuing under the name Mediterraneo Sicuro and its patrol area has grown from about 160,000 square kilometres to roughly two million. The air component has given the Aeronautica Militare a decade of uninterrupted remotely piloted operations over a contested littoral, and the 2019 Predator loss was the first Italian aircraft destroyed in an operational theatre since the Gulf War.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

International waters and airspace of the central Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, flown mainly from Sigonella and Amendola in Italy, with a supporting air bridge into Misurata and Tripoli.

Alongside

Libya (Government of National Accord and successors), European Union naval missions and NATO partners

Against

Libyan National Army forces under Khalifa Haftar (contested) and People-smuggling and armed groups

Aircraft

General Atomics MQ-9A Predator B, General Atomics MQ-1 Predator A+, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, Piaggio P.180 Avanti

Sorties

—No cumulative sortie or flight-hour figure has been published for the air component of Mare Sicuro or Mediterraneo Sicuro. Italian Ministry of Defence material describes land-based surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft supporting the operation without quantifying them, and the mission’s published figures cover ships and personnel rather than flights. The only related figure that can be read is a fleet total: 50,000 hours flown by the 32° Stormo Predator A and Predator B force across all theatres by 2 June 2020.

Losses

1 aircraft · 0 killedOne General Atomics MQ-9A Predator B of the 28° Gruppo, 32° Stormo was lost near Tarhuna, about 65km south-east of Tripoli, on 20 November 2019 while flying a Mare Sicuro surveillance task. The Italian Ministry of Defence confirmed the loss and said the cause was under investigation; forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar claimed to have shot it down. No Italian official confirmation of a shoot-down has been published, so the cause remains open. No Aeronautica Militare personnel have been killed on this operation.

Sources

Operazione Mediterraneo Sicuro (Italian Wikipedia) · Italian Air Force MQ-9A Predator B Drone Allegedly Shot Do · Missione bilaterale di assistenza e supporto in Libia (Ita · 50.000 ore di volo per i Predator di Amendola

Tactical air reconnaissance and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the anti-Daesh coalition, plus air-to-air refuelling of coalition aircraft and tactical transport. Italy declared from the outset that its aircraft would not carry out air strikes.

The Italian air contingent arrived at Ali Al Salem in October and November 2014 and has never left. It flies as the Italian National Contingent Command Air, Task Force Air Kuwait, with the reconnaissance role passing between Panavia Tornado IDS carrying the RecceLite pod, AMX A-11 Ghibli and, from March 2019, Eurofighter F-2000A in the aerotactical reconnaissance fit. Task Group Breus operates the KC-767A tankers, Task Group Araba Fenice the MQ-9A Predator B. The political frame has been fixed since 2014: Italian aircraft gather imagery and intelligence and pass it to the coalition, and Italian tankers fill coalition aircraft, but Italian aircraft do not release weapons over Iraq or Syria. Guido Crosetto restated the principle in 2026, saying Italy had authorised only logistical, non-combat activity from United States bases and that kinetic support would require a fresh parliamentary vote. When Iranian missiles and drones hit Ali Al Salem on 15 March 2026 Rome chose not to launch or disperse its fighters, to avoid any appearance of joining the air war against Iran; the MQ-9A was destroyed where it stood.

Outcome The commitment has outlasted the territorial defeat of Daesh and has become the longest continuous fixed-wing deployment in Aeronautica Militare history. It is now being drawn down: by March 2026 the Iraq element was reported at 141 personnel against 1,270 authorised for 2025, and part of the Kuwait detachment was moved to Saudi Arabia on 6 March 2026 as Iranian strikes began.

Published accounts of which type held the Kuwait reconnaissance slot in which years do not agree. Analisi Difesa reports Task Group Devil as active from November 2014 and Task Group Typhoon from March 2019, while contemporaneous reporting has the Eurofighters replacing AMX jets in 2019 and Tornados returning to Kuwait in 2020. The sequence should be treated as unsettled.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait, flying over Iraq and, for tanker tasks, the wider coalition area; ground and training elements at Erbil and Baghdad.

Alongside

United States, United Kingdom, France, Iraq, Global Coalition against Daesh and NATO Mission Iraq

Against

Islamic State (Daesh)

Aircraft

Panavia Tornado IDS, AMX A-11 Ghibli, Eurofighter F-2000A Typhoon, Boeing KC-767A, General Atomics MQ-9A Predator B, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules

Sorties

—No sortie total has been published for the Italian contribution. The Aeronautica Militare marks the commitment in flight hours instead: Task Group Typhoon passed 10,000 hours on 20 February 2026, counted from March 2019, and the Tornado Task Group Devil was credited with 6,000 hours at the handover ceremony of 31 October 2024. Those two figures are milestones for individual task groups, not a total for the Italian air effort, and no aggregate has been released.

Losses

1 aircraft · 0 killedOne General Atomics MQ-9A Predator B of Task Group Araba Fenice was destroyed inside its shelter at Ali Al Salem on 15 March 2026 during an Iranian strike on the base; General Luciano Portolano, chief of the Italian defence staff, confirmed the destruction and said all personnel were safe. Unconfirmed reporting says two of the four Eurofighters at the base were damaged and repairable, which Italian authorities have never confirmed, so no damaged airframe is counted here. No Aeronautica Militare personnel have been killed on this operation.

Sources

10.000 ore di volo per i Typhoon italiani basati in Kuwait · Operazione Prima Parthica · Italian MQ-9A Destroyed In March Kuwait Attack After Italy · Italy · Presence and roles of Italian forces in military missions · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Holds NATO quick-reaction alert on behalf of allies that have no fighter force of their own, scrambling to identify and escort unannounced or non-compliant aircraft in alliance airspace. It is armed peacetime air defence, not combat.

The Aeronautica Militare first took Icelandic air policing from 7 June to 10 July 2013, with six Eurofighters of the 9° Gruppo, 4° Stormo and about 150 personnel; further Iceland rotations followed in 2017, 2018 and 2019 before the 13° Gruppo, 32° Stormo took six F-35A to Keflavík in October 2019, repeated the deployment in June 2020 and returned in 2022 with four F-35A and two F-35B backed by a KC-767A and a C-130J. In the Baltic the pattern runs from Šiauliai in January and May 2015, Ämari in January 2018, Šiauliai in September 2020 and August 2023, Ämari with four F-35A from July 2025 and back to Šiauliai on 31 July 2026 with four Eurofighters and about 200 personnel, relieving French Rafales and Romanian F-16s. Italy has also deployed detachments for air policing over the Balkans and Slovakia. Alongside the fighters it keeps a SAMP/T battery and a CAEW aircraft on the eastern flank.

Outcome Italy has become one of the most frequent contributors to both missions. The July 2026 changeover at Šiauliai was its sixth deployment to that base, and its Iceland rotations pioneered NATO air policing with the F-35A. The commitment is open-ended and has grown as the alliance has thickened its air-defence posture on the eastern flank.

Italy’s place in NATO’s Operation Eastern Sentry, launched on 12 September 2025, is reported inconsistently. Some accounts list an Italian contribution of two F-35A and a SAMP/T system in Estonia; Italian reporting of 18 September 2025 says Rome reversed the planned dispatch of two Eurofighters to Poland under domestic political pressure and instead extended its existing SAMP/T and CAEW commitments. No Italian fighter deployment to Poland under Eastern Sentry has been confirmed here, so none is claimed.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Šiauliai in Lithuania and Ämari in Estonia for the Baltic mission, Keflavík in Iceland for the High North mission, with detachments also sent to south-eastern Europe.

Alongside

NATO, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Sweden

Against

Russian Federation military aviation (intercepted, not engaged)

Aircraft

Eurofighter F-2000A Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II, Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II, Boeing KC-767A, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules

Sorties

—Neither NATO nor the Aeronautica Militare publishes sortie or scramble totals for Italian air-policing detachments. The one readable activity figure is for the rotation that ended at Ämari in April 2026, which logged more than 1,300 flying hours across two consecutive rotations while holding continuous quick-reaction alert. No cumulative figure exists for the whole Italian air-policing effort.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Italian aircraft has been lost and no Italian personnel killed on any air-policing rotation. The figures cover only the NATO air-policing detachments and exclude the national Gulf deployment and all expeditionary operations listed separately.

Sources

Baltic Air Policing (English Wikipedia) · Icelandic Air Policing (English Wikipedia) · Italy and Spain take lead of NATO’s Baltic Air Polic · Italian Eurofighters conclude NATO Baltic Air Policing mis · Detachments conducting the NATO Air Policing Mission in th · Allied Air Command · Operation Eastern Sentry (English Wikipedia) · Italy pulls out of Eastern Sentry but stays in NATO’ · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and close air support for Regional Command West, which Italy led, plus tactical and strategic airlift; in August 2021 the force flew the Italian evacuation out of Kabul.

The Predator A of the 32° Stormo went to Afghanistan in 2007 and the AMX A-11 Ghibli followed in 2009, both working out of Herat under a Joint Air Task Force that by 2013 numbered about 200 people, drawn from the 32° Stormo at Amendola and the 51° Stormo at Istrana. The AMX flew armed reconnaissance and close air support for Italian and allied troops across Regional Command West and released weapons on occasion, including strikes on Taliban communications masts and protective sorties over the Herat provincial elections of 5 April 2014. The AMX came home in June 2014 as ISAF ended; Resolute Support continued with a smaller Italian footprint until 2021. The end came with Operazione Aquila Omnia between 13 and 31 August 2021, in which five C-130J of the 46ª Brigata Aerea shuttled from Kabul to Kuwait and four KC-767A of the 14° Stormo carried people on to Italy: 87 flights in fifteen days lifted 5,011 people, among them 4,890 Afghan citizens including 1,301 women and 1,453 children.

Outcome Italy ran Regional Command West for most of the campaign and flew the last of its people out of Kabul on 27 August 2021, the final Italian C-130J leaving before the American withdrawal was complete. The air component came home having converted the AMX and the Predator from paper capabilities into combat-tested ones, at the cost of two decades of continuous rotation.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Herat and Kabul in western and central Afghanistan, with the strategic air bridge routed through Italy, the Gulf and Kuwait.

Alongside

NATO, United States, United Kingdom, Afghan National Security Forces and ISAF and Resolute Support contributors

Against

Taliban, Haqqani network and Al-Qaeda

Aircraft

AMX A-11 Ghibli, General Atomics MQ-1 Predator A+, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, Boeing KC-767A, Alenia C-27J Spartan

Sorties

3,3013,301 sorties and 8,477 flight hours by Italian fighter and attack aircraft to 31 December 2013, as compiled by the Istituto Affari Internazionali from defence staff figures; the count covers Tornado, AMX and naval AV-8B. Separately, the Aeronautica Militare announced 20,000 hours over Afghanistan in December 2013 for AMX and Predator together, 8,000 for the AMX of Task Group Black Cats since 2009 and 12,000 for the Predator A of Task Group Astore since 2007. No sortie total has been published for the whole 2002 to 2021 span, and none for the transport fleet.

Losses

Not publishedNo figure is given because none could be corroborated. No Aeronautica Militare fixed-wing aircraft loss in Afghanistan was found in any source readable during this research, but absence of a report is not the same as a confirmed zero. Italy’s overall military death toll in Afghanistan is published in aggregate and includes army, Carabinieri and special forces dead; no breakdown by service that would isolate Aeronautica Militare fatalities could be read, so no figure is offered.

Sources

The Role of Italian Fighter Aircraft in Crisis Management · 20.000 ore nel cielo afghano per AMX e Predator italiani · Operazione Aquila Omnia (Italian Wikipedia) · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Search and rescue, casualty evacuation, liaison and transport flying for the NATO-led Kosovo Force, together with the air surveillance and airlift that sustained the Italian brigade in the Italian-led sector.

Joint Guardian began in June 1999 as Allied Force ended, with NATO troops moving into Kosovo under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. Italy took one of the five sectors and the Aeronautica Militare put a flying detachment at Djakovica that stayed until 2013, with a second at Slatina near Pristina between July 2000 and March 2003. The core of the air force presence was the rescue helicopter cell, HH-3F Pelicans of the 15° Stormo, the same unit that had covered Somalia in 1993, Albania in 1997 and would cover Iraq from 2003, flying search and rescue and medical evacuation for the whole sector. Fixed-wing transports ran the sustainment flights and the Predator fleet of the 32° Stormo also worked over the Balkans. The mission was not combat, but it was flown in a theatre where the ground was mined, the weather in the western Kosovo valleys was unforgiving and the rescue crews were the only ones available to a multinational force spread over difficult country.

Outcome The Kosovo commitment gave the Aeronautica Militare its longest single overseas basing, fourteen years at Djakovica, and kept an Italian helicopter rescue capability inside a NATO theatre for the whole of that time. The air detachments closed in 2013 as KFOR shrank; the Italian contribution to the follow-on Joint Enterprise mission continues on the ground.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Detachments at Djakovica in western Kosovo from 1999 to 2013 and at Slatina, outside Pristina, from July 2000 to March 2003, with supporting flights from Italian bases across the Adriatic.

Alongside

NATO, KFOR contributor nations and United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo

Against

None; a peace-support deployment in a permissive but armed environment

Aircraft

Agusta-Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, Aeritalia G.222, General Atomics MQ-1 Predator A+

Sorties

—No sortie or flight-hour total has been published for the Aeronautica Militare element of KFOR. Italian defence reporting records where the detachments sat and for how long but has released no activity figures, and NATO’s KFOR reporting counts troops rather than flights.

Losses

Not publishedNo figures are given. No Aeronautica Militare aircraft loss or air force fatality in Kosovo was found in any source readable during this research, but no official casualty return for the air component could be read either, so neither a zero nor a number is asserted.

Sources

Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia) · 15° Stormo (Italian Wikipedia)

Suppression of enemy air defences, no-fly-zone enforcement, offensive counter-air, strike coordination and reconnaissance, precision attack and air-to-air refuelling. Italy also opened seven of its airfields to the coalition and put an Italian general in charge of the targeting division aboard USS Mount Whitney.

Italy joined the no-fly-zone enforcement in March 2011 but withheld its aircraft from ground attack until 28 April, when Tornado IDS pairs began striking targets around Misurata. The SEAD work fell to five Tornado ECR of the 155° Gruppo ETS, 50° Stormo from Piacenza, firing AGM-88 HARM; the 6° Stormo at Ghedi provided Tornado IDS for strike and buddy refuelling; AMX A-11 of the 32° Stormo at Amendola and the 51° Stormo at Istrana flew reconnaissance and attack; F-16A ADF of the 18° Gruppo, 37° Stormo held combat air patrol until Eurofighters of the 4° and 36° Stormo took over from 28 March. KC-767A of the 8° Gruppo, 14° Stormo joined from 20 May and MQ-9A Predator B of the 28° Gruppo from 8 August. Weapons released included GBU-12, GBU-16, GBU-24 and EGBU-24, GBU-32, GBU-38 and GBU-48, AGM-88 HARM and Storm Shadow. Air staff briefings in June 2011 claimed a success rate above 96 per cent.

Outcome Italy flew the second or third largest national share of the campaign, behind France and the United Kingdom, and provided the basing without which the operation could not have been mounted at that tempo. Gaddafi’s government fell in October 2011. Italy lost its largest energy and migration partner in North Africa and inherited the instability that its later Mediterranean deployments exist to manage.

Weapons figures are as contested as sortie figures. One Italian tally gives 313 laser-guided bombs, 345 JDAM and 25 Storm Shadow; another, citing Italian armed forces statements, gives 710 bombs and guided missiles in total, of which 520 bombs and 30 cruise missiles from air force Tornado and AMX and 160 from navy AV-8B. Both were described at the time as first and partial official data. No final audited figure has ever been published.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Flown from Trapani-Birgi, Gioia del Colle, Amendola, Sigonella, Decimomannu, Aviano, Pantelleria and Naples-Capodichino over Libya and the central Mediterranean.

Alongside

NATO, France, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Qatar and United Arab Emirates

Against

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya armed forces under Muammar Gaddafi

Aircraft

Panavia Tornado IDS, Panavia Tornado ECR, AMX A-11 Ghibli, Eurofighter F-2000A Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-16A ADF Fighting Falcon, Boeing KC-767A, Lockheed Martin KC-130J Super Hercules, Aeritalia G.222VS, General Atomics MQ-9A Predator B, Agusta-Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican

Sorties

—Published totals for the Italian effort disagree, so no single figure is given. The Istituto Affari Internazionali puts the Italian armed forces at 2,113 sorties and 7,255 flight hours; Italian accounts drawing on air staff briefings give about 1,900 missions and more than 7,300 flight hours. The range is 1,900–2,113. The Aviationist noted at the time that the Italian Ministry of Defence, unlike the British, French and Danish ministries, never released a full sortie and weapons breakdown, which is why the discrepancy has never been closed.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Italian aircraft was lost and no Italian personnel were killed. The figures cover air force and navy fixed-wing aircraft flown from Italian bases and from the carrier Garibaldi; they exclude Libyan casualties on the ground, for which Italy has published nothing.

Sources

Intervento militare internazionale in Libia del 2011 (Ital · La partecipazione italiana nelle operazioni Odyssey Dawn e · Guerra alla Libia con settecento super bombe italiane · Operation Unified Protector (was Odyssey Dawn) explained · The Role of Italian Fighter Aircraft in Crisis Management · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Strategic and tactical airlift into and out of southern Iraq, combat search and rescue and medical evacuation for the Italian brigade, and from 2005 the first operational deployment of the Italian Predator for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

The first Aeronautica Militare C-130J landed at Tallil on 9 July 2003, the type’s first use on an official military mission by any operator, carrying vehicles and equipment for the deploying brigade. A 15° Stormo flying cell with HH-3F helicopters had begun deploying in March 2003 and provided search and rescue cover for the Italian sector throughout. The airlift ran continuously for three years, moving roughly 3,200 Italian personnel and their equipment in and out of a landlocked province. The most consequential air force contribution came in 2005, when Italian crews trained in the United States the year before took the Predator A to Iraq for its first operational deployment, watching the roads around Nassiriya after the loss of nineteen Italians to a truck bomb on 12 November 2003 had made route surveillance the central problem of the mission. The Predator force has been deployed somewhere continuously ever since.

Outcome Italy withdrew from Nassiriya by 1 December 2006 after the Prodi government ended the commitment. For the air force the mission mattered less for what it delivered than for what it proved: the C-130J entered operational service on this deployment and the Predator flew its first combat theatre from Tallil, both capabilities that have underpinned every Italian expeditionary operation since.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Tallil airfield and Nassiriya in Dhi Qar province, southern Iraq, sustained by a strategic air bridge from Italy through the Gulf.

Alongside

United States, United Kingdom, Multi-National Force – Iraq, Romania and Portugal

Against

Mahdi Army and other Iraqi insurgent groups

Aircraft

Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, Aeritalia G.222, General Atomics MQ-1 Predator A, Agusta-Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican

Sorties

—No sortie or flight-hour figure has been published for the Aeronautica Militare element. The official Ministry of Defence and army accounts of Antica Babilonia describe ground and naval forces in detail and say almost nothing about the air component, and no air staff tally for the three years could be read.

Losses

Not publishedNo figures are given. No Aeronautica Militare aircraft loss in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 was found in the sources read, but no official air force return could be read either. Italy’s overall military death toll for the mission is given as 36, half of them in the Nassiriya bombing of 12 November 2003 which killed 12 Carabinieri, five soldiers and two civilians; some Italian accounts give 39 including civilians killed in Iraq. No published breakdown identifies any of the dead as Aeronautica Militare, so no air force figure is asserted.

Sources

Operazione Antica Babilonia · 15° Stormo (Italian Wikipedia) · 50.000 ore di volo per i Predator di Amendola · Italian involvement in the Iraq War / Operation Ancient Ba

Suppression of enemy air defences with Tornado ECR, combat air patrol with Tornado ADV and F-104S, interdiction and close air support with Tornado IDS and AMX, plus tanking and transport. It was the first time since the Second World War that Italian aircraft flew a sustained bombing campaign.

Italy was in from the first night. On 27 March 1999 Tornado ECR of the 155° Gruppo ETS fired two AGM-88 HARM against Serbian surface-to-air missile batteries. Tornado ADV and F-104S held combat air patrol over the Adriatic and on ground alert for Italian airspace; Tornado IDS flew interdiction with Paveway II laser-guided bombs; AMX Ghibli of the 103° Gruppo opened their attack account on 14 April with infra-red guided Mk 82 bombs, the type’s combat debut. Across the campaign Italian aircraft are credited with 115 HARM launches, 79 GBU-16, 517 Mk 82, Mk 83 with Paveway II kits and 39 Israeli-built Opher infra-red guided bombs. The AMX in particular came out of Kosovo with its reputation repaired. The wider political point was starker: a country that had spent fifty years framing its air force as defensive had just spent seventy-eight days bombing a European neighbour, from its own soil, without a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Outcome Italy was the third largest European contributor of aircraft and fourth by sorties, and supplied the basing that made the campaign possible from the south. Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo in June 1999. The campaign cost the Aeronautica Militare about 65.5 billion lire, close to 34 million euro, with a further 25 billion lire attributed to infrastructure wear.

The three published sortie totals count different things and none of them is documented well enough to reconcile. The Italian reference figures also carry unsourced markers in places. Treat the 1,072–1,440 range, not any single number, as the honest answer.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Flown from Gioia del Colle, Amendola, Piacenza, Ghedi, Cervia, Istrana and Pratica di Mare over Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo; Italian airfields also hosted some 450 allied aircraft.

Alongside

NATO, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands and Canada

Against

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Aircraft

Panavia Tornado IDS, Panavia Tornado ECR, Panavia Tornado ADV, AMX A-11 Ghibli, Lockheed Martin F-104S Starfighter, Boeing 707-320 tanker, Aeritalia G.222, Lockheed C-130H Hercules

Sorties

—Published totals disagree, so no single figure is given. The Istituto Affari Internazionali gives 1,072 sorties and 2,903 flight hours for Italian fighter and attack aircraft; Italian reference material gives about 1,074 sorties and 2,795 hours with a per-type breakdown that sums slightly higher; the Aeronautica Militare’s own summary gives 1,440 sorties and 6,555 hours, which appears to include transport and tanker flying and the associated Balkan operations. The range is 1,072–1,440. Only about 250 of those were war sorties in the strike sense.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Italian aircraft was lost and no Italian personnel were killed in the campaign. The figures cover Aeronautica Militare aircraft only and exclude the navy AV-8B detachment aboard Garibaldi, which also flew without loss.

Sources

The Role of Italian Fighter Aircraft in Crisis Management · Operazione Allied Force (Italian Wikipedia) · Italy at War (special report) · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Enforcement of the United Nations no-fly zone over Bosnia, then participation in the NATO bombing campaign of August and September 1995, plus maritime embargo support and ground-based air defence for the theatre.

Italy came to Deliberate Force with a political grievance and a small share. The 154° Gruppo at Ghedi was the only Italian squadron in the campaign, and its Tornado IDS crews flew a pattern of their own: no laser-guided weapons, but a 45-degree dive from height, rolling inverted to acquire and then releasing Mk 83 bombs on a computer-aided visual solution, pulling out of a near-supersonic descent. One navigator dated his war from the beginning of September to about November 1995. Across the whole Bosnian commitment the Italian contribution was broader than the fighter numbers suggest: transports on the Sarajevo airlift, Tornado ADV and AMX on no-fly-zone patrol, Nike Hercules batteries coordinating with army Hawks, and the airfields at Aviano, Ghedi, Istrana, Cervia and Gioia del Colle carrying the alliance’s air effort. Italian officers commanded NATO’s 5th Allied Tactical Air Force and the Vicenza air operations centre that ran Deny Flight day to day.

Outcome Deliberate Force broke the siege of Sarajevo and forced the Bosnian Serb leadership to the table at Dayton. For the Aeronautica Militare it was the first combat mission flown from Italian soil since the Second World War, and the beginning of the continuous Balkan air commitment that ran through Allied Force to the Kosovo detachments of the 2000s.

The two published counts for Italian sorties in Deliberate Force, 26 and 35, cannot be reconciled from the sources available; they may count different mission types or different date ranges. The range 26–35 is given rather than either figure.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Flown from Ghedi, Gioia del Colle, Istrana, Cervia and Aviano over Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Adriatic; the combined air operations centre controlling the whole effort sat at Vicenza in Italy.

Alongside

NATO, United Nations Protection Force, United States, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Turkey and Spain

Against

Army of Republika Srpska

Aircraft

Panavia Tornado IDS, AMX A-11 Ghibli, Panavia Tornado ADV, Aeritalia G.222, Lockheed C-130H Hercules

Sorties

543543 sorties and 1,288 flight hours for the Italian contribution to Deny Flight between 12 April 1993 and 20 December 1995, a figure given both by the Istituto Affari Internazionali and by the Aeronautica Militare’s own summary. A further 230 sorties and 267 hours are recorded against the Sharp Guard embargo. For Deliberate Force itself the published Italian counts disagree: 26 fighter sorties and 41 flight hours according to the Istituto Affari Internazionali, 35 sorties according to The Aviationist, which puts that at about one per cent of NATO’s 3,515 sorties. The follow-on Decisive Endeavour and Deliberate Guard operations added 1,250 and 2,974 sorties respectively to 1998.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Italian aircraft was lost and no Italian personnel were killed. The figures cover the Aeronautica Militare fixed-wing effort and exclude the Nike Hercules and army Hawk air-defence batteries that covered the theatre, and the Italian airfields that hosted allied aircraft.

Sources

The Role of Italian Fighter Aircraft in Crisis Management · 154° Gruppo operations in Bosnia · Operation Deny Flight (English Wikipedia) · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Strategic and tactical airlift of the Italian contingent and of humanitarian relief, and search and rescue and casualty evacuation from Mogadishu for a force operating in a city that turned hostile.

Italy returned to Somalia on 13 December 1992 as part of the American-led Restore Hope coalition, then passed under UNOSOM II command on 4 May 1993. The contingent, ITALFOR-IBIS, was built around the Folgore parachute brigade, relieved by the mechanised brigade Legnano on 6 September 1993, with navy and air force elements attached. The Aeronautica Militare ran the air bridge into Mogadishu with G.222 and C-130H transports and, between January and July 1993, deployed a flying cell of the 15° Stormo with HH-3F helicopters to the capital for search and rescue and casualty evacuation. That cell was in place through the worst of the summer: the ambush at Checkpoint Pasta on 2 July 1993, in which Italian paratroopers fought a day-long action in the Mogadishu streets, and the sniper killing of Sub-Lieutenant Andrea Millevoi. The mission ended without a formal handover, and the argument about what Italy had achieved began before the last aircraft left.

Outcome The Italian contingent withdrew between 16 January and 21 March 1994 after roughly fifteen months, having kept relief moving through its sector but having also fought a pitched battle at Checkpoint Pasta on 2 July 1993 that cost three Italian lives. Somalia remains the reference point in Italian public argument about what a humanitarian deployment turns into.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Mogadishu and the Italian sector running some 360km inland from the capital towards the Ethiopian border, supplied by an air bridge from Italy.

Alongside

United Nations, United States and UNITAF and UNOSOM II contributors

Against

Somali National Alliance militia of Mohamed Farrah Aidid

Aircraft

Aeritalia G.222, Lockheed C-130H Hercules, Agusta-Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican

Sorties

—No sortie or flight-hour total has been published for the Aeronautica Militare element. Italian official and associational accounts of Ibis describe the Folgore and Legnano brigades and the army aviation helicopters in detail but give no air force activity figures, and none could be read for this entry.

Losses

Not publishedNo figures are given. No Aeronautica Militare aircraft loss in Somalia appears in the sources read. The Italian contingent lost eleven service personnel and one Italian Red Cross volunteer nurse, Maria Cristina Luinetti; the journalists Ilaria Alpi and Miran Hrovatin were murdered separately during the mission. No published breakdown identifies any of the military dead as Aeronautica Militare, so no air force figure is asserted.

Sources

13 dicembre 1992, l’Italia torna in Somalia con la m · 15° Stormo (Italian Wikipedia) · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Night interdiction with Tornado IDS against Iraqi airfields, ammunition dumps and military installations in the coalition air campaign. These were the first Italian combat missions since the Second World War.

Italy sent eight Tornado IDS and two spares to Al Dhafra from 25 September 1990, drawn from the 6°, 36° and 50° Stormo, with an initial 239 personnel rising to about 314 including Carabinieri and military police. General Mario Arpino ran the air coordination element from October 1990 to March 1991. The first mission, on the night of 17 to 18 January 1991, went wrong before it reached Iraq. Two four-ship packages, LEGION 15 and CAESAR 05, each aircraft carrying five 1,000lb bombs, launched; one aborted on the ground with a landing-gear failure and a second immediately after take-off with the same fault. At the tanker rendezvous severe turbulence defeated almost every allied aircraft trying to take fuel from the KC-135s, and only one Italian Tornado got a full transfer. Bellini and Cocciolone pressed on alone to an ammunition depot, ran in at 250 feet on terrain-following radar, released the full load, and were hit some forty seconds later.

Outcome The detachment came home to Gioia del Colle on 15 March 1991. Locusta ended forty-five years in which Italian aircraft had not fired a shot in anger and set the template for everything that followed: a small, capable, politically constrained contingent operating inside a coalition, with the results measured in hours flown rather than targets destroyed.

The two published sortie totals, 226 and 2,326, differ by an order of magnitude because they count different things; 226 is the Tornado combat figure and is the one used here. No official reconciliation has been published.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Al Dhafra air base near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, flying against targets in occupied Kuwait and southern Iraq.

Alongside

United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, France, Kuwait and Desert Storm coalition

Against

Iraq

Aircraft

Panavia Tornado IDS, Lockheed C-130H Hercules, Aeritalia G.222

Sorties

226226 combat sorties and 589 flight hours by the Tornado IDS detachment. The count includes the sortie of the night of 17–18 January 1991 on which the detachment’s only aircraft was lost; The Aviationist records 225 further sorties after that loss, which reconciles the two figures. The Istituto Affari Internazionali gives a much larger 2,326 sorties and 4,503 flight hours, which appears to count the whole Italian air contingent including transport and support flying across the September 1990 to March 1991 deployment rather than Tornado combat missions.

Losses

1 aircraft · 0 killedOne Panavia Tornado IDS, MM7074, call sign LEGION 15, brought down by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire, reported as a ZSU-23-4 battery, about 20km north-west of Kuwait City at roughly 04:30 local time on 18 January 1991. Both crew survived: Major Gianmarco Bellini and Captain Maurizio Cocciolone ejected, were captured by Republican Guard troops and were released on 3 March 1991 after 47 days, the only Italian prisoners of war of the conflict. No Italian personnel were killed.

Sources

Operazione Locusta (English Wikipedia) · LEGION 15 · The Role of Italian Fighter Aircraft in Crisis Management · Aeronautica Militare (Italian Wikipedia)

Strategic airlift of the Italian contingent and its supplies into theatre. The Aeronautica Militare flew the Italy to Cyprus leg with military transports alongside chartered civil aircraft; the fighting role, such as it was, belonged to the army and the San Marco marines.

The mission ran in two phases: Libano 1 from 21 August to 12 September 1982, covering the evacuation of Palestinian fighters from Beirut, and Libano 2 from 20 September 1982, after the Sabra and Shatila massacres, until 6 March 1984. The contingent began at about 1,000 and grew to 2,300, with 8,345 Italian service personnel rotating through in total, bringing 97 armoured combat vehicles, six armoured cars, 125 cars, 186 trucks, 89 trailers and eight ambulances. Units included the Bersaglieri battalion Governolo, the San Marco battalion, Folgore paratroopers, Col Moschin commandos, engineers and Carabinieri. The Aeronautica Militare’s share was the lift: the Italy to Cyprus air bridge that carried the troops forward, flown by military transports and supplemented by civil aircraft. No Italian combat aircraft were committed and no Italian air operations were flown over Lebanon.

Outcome The Italian contingent left on 6 March 1984 as the Multinational Force dissolved. Italy came out of Beirut with a reputation for restraint that it has traded on ever since, and with the single lowest casualty count of the four contributing nations. It is the deployment Italian commanders still cite when arguing that presence and patience beat firepower.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

An air bridge from Italy to Cyprus feeding the Italian contingent into Beirut; the contingent itself held West Beirut, the Sabra and Shatila districts and stretches of the Green Line.

Alongside

United States, France, United Kingdom and Lebanon

Against

Various Lebanese militias; the contingent came under fire but Italy was not a declared belligerent

Aircraft

Aeritalia G.222, Lockheed C-130H Hercules, Douglas DC-9

Sorties

—No sortie or flight-hour total has been published for the Aeronautica Militare airlift. Italian accounts record that an air bridge between Italy and Cyprus was run using both military and civil aircraft, and give detailed figures for vehicles and personnel moved, but none for flights. No air force tally could be read for this entry.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Italian aircraft was lost and no Aeronautica Militare personnel were killed. The contingent as a whole lost one man, Filippo Montesi of the San Marco battalion, who died on 22 March 1983 of wounds received in an ambush, and recorded 75 wounded. The figures exclude the far heavier American and French losses in the barracks bombings of 23 October 1983.

Sources

Missione Italcon Libano (Italian Wikipedia)

Tactical air transport for the United Nations Operation in the Congo, carrying supplies, equipment and personnel to blue-helmet garrisons scattered across a country the size of western Europe with almost no usable roads.

ONUC had been deployed since August 1960 to hold the Congo together after independence in July that year, and Italy supplied C-119 transports and crews from the 46ª Brigata Aerea at Pisa. On the morning of Saturday 11 November 1961 two aircraft left Léopoldville for Kindu with supplies for the small Malaysian garrison holding the airfield. About 300 Congolese soldiers loyal to the Stanleyville authorities were at Kindu, on edge over rumours that mercenary paratroopers were about to drop in support of the Katangese secession. Seeing two transports land, they took them for Katangese aircraft full of paratroops. The soldiers stormed the United Nations mess where the Italian crews were eating; Lieutenant Francesco Paolo Remotti tried to get out through a window and was shot at once. The other twelve were taken to the town prison and machine-gunned in their cell that night. A prison guard moved the bodies to spare them desecration and buried them in the forest, and it was weeks before anyone in Léopoldville knew what had happened.

Outcome The bodies were found in a common grave at Tokolote cemetery in February 1962 by an Austrian Red Cross convoy escorted by Ethiopian blue helmets, identified, flown to Léopoldville and returned to Italy aboard an American C-130. Kindu remains the single worst loss of life the Aeronautica Militare has suffered on operations since 1945, and the date is still marked as the force’s day of remembrance for the fallen of international missions.

Flying for

Aeronautica Militare

Where

Transport flying across the Congo from Léopoldville, supporting United Nations garrisons at outlying airfields including Kindu in the east.

Alongside

United Nations and ONUC troop contributors including Malaysia, Ethiopia, Ireland and Sweden

Against

Congolese National Army troops loyal to the Stanleyville authorities (the killings at Kindu were a case of mistaken identity, not a declared engagement)

Aircraft

Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar

Sorties

—No sortie or flight-hour total has been published for the Italian ONUC air detachment. Italian accounts record that the crews had been operating in the Congo for over a year by November 1961 and were due home on 23 November, but neither the Aeronautica Militare nor the United Nations has published an activity figure for the Italian transport element.

Losses

13 killedThirteen Aeronautica Militare airmen of the 46ª Brigata Aerea, Pisa, were murdered at Kindu on 11 November 1961: the crews of two C-119G transports, seven men in one and six in the other. The toll, the date and the unit are confirmed by the Italian Ministry of Defence and by the brigade’s own commemorations; the call signs and serial numbers that circulate in the secondary literature are not corroborated by any official source we could read, so they are left out. No aircraft figure is given because no source read here records what became of the two C-119s, which were on the ground and undamaged when their crews were seized.

Sources

Ministero della Difesa · Difesa Online · Eccidio di Kindu (Italian Wikipedia)

Home defence interception of USAAF Fifteenth Air Force formations and their escorts, plus a residual torpedo-bomber and transport effort under German operational control. It never flew against the Co-Belligerent Air Force.

The republic rebuilt a fighter arm from what was left in the north. A decree of 27 September 1943 backdated the force to the 9th, and Colonnello Ernesto Botto’s radio appeal of 12 October brought in perhaps 300 pilots. The 1° Gruppo Caccia "Asso di Bastoni" opened its account on 3 January 1944 when Sergente Maggiore Francesco Cuscunà shot down a Lockheed P-38 near Cuneo. The fighting was against the Fifteenth Air Force’s bomber boxes and their escorts, at first on Macchi C.205 Veltro and Fiat G.55 Centauro, then from June 1944 on German Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6 machines. A second Gruppo, "Gigi Tre Osei", formed in April 1944 and carried the entire load alone from October 1944 to February 1945; a third, named for Francesco Baracca, never became operational. The torpedo Gruppo "Buscaglia-Faggioni" flew eight Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero machines and is credited with two results in all: a British steamer damaged north of Benghazi and a cargo ship off Rimini. Botto gave way to Generale Arrigo Tessari in March 1944 and Tessari to Colonnello Ruggero Bonomi in August. The last interception missions went up on 19 April 1945.

Outcome The ANR fought a losing attritional defence against overwhelming Allied numbers for sixteen months and was extinguished with the Italian Social Republic in April 1945. Its two fighter Gruppi together claimed 227 confirmed and 93 probable victories, claims never reconciled with Allied loss records. Its best-known pilot, Maggiore Adriano Visconti, surrendered near Malpensa on 29 April 1945 and was shot after being taken away for interrogation.

Victory totals are Italian claims recorded by the units themselves and repeated by Arena; they have not been matched against American and British loss returns, and claim inflation in a defensive battle against large formations is normal in every air force. The English and Italian Wikipedia articles also differ on the date of the torpedo unit’s Rimini success, giving 5 February 1945 and 5 January 1945 respectively.

Flying for

Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana

Where

Airfields in the Po valley, Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia, flying against American and British bomber streams crossing northern Italy, with a small torpedo-bomber effort over the Adriatic and Ligurian seas.

Alongside

Germany and Italian Social Republic

Against

United States and United Kingdom

Aircraft

Macchi C.205 Veltro, Fiat G.55 Centauro, Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6, Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10, Messerschmitt Bf 110, Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero

Sorties

—No consolidated sortie total for the ANR was found in any source that could be read. The Italian Wikipedia article, drawing on Nino Arena’s 1996 history, gives 46 combat actions for the 1° Gruppo Caccia between 3 January 1944 and 19 April 1945 and 48 for the 2° Gruppo Caccia between April 1944 and April 1945; those are counts of engagements, not of sorties, and should not be read as one.

Losses

Not publishedNo service-wide loss figure was found. For the 1° Gruppo Caccia alone, the Italian Wikipedia article citing Arena gives 55 aircraft and 49 pilots lost. Equivalent figures for the 2° Gruppo Caccia, the torpedo Gruppo and the transport Gruppi were not published in any source read here, and the ANR’s very large anti-aircraft branch, quoted at roughly 72,000 personnel, is a separate matter again.

Sources

National Republican Air Force (English) · Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (Italian) · Adriano Visconti · Regia Aeronautica (English)

Transport, supply dropping to Yugoslav and Albanian partisans, escort, armed reconnaissance, air-sea rescue and limited tactical ground attack under Allied operational direction.

The armistice of 8 September 1943 split the air force in mid-air. Generale Renato Sandalli met Air Commodore Foster on 15 September; Italian roundels were replaced by plain tricolour markings on 21 September and the new insignia became operative on 15 October, two days after Italy declared war on Germany. The surviving units flew from fields in the south: the 10° Gruppo of the 4° Stormo on Bell P-39 Airacobras, the 20° Gruppo of the 51° Stormo with four squadriglie of Spitfire Mk Vc, the 5° Stormo Tuffatori on Reggiane Re.2002 Ariete, a Stormo Notturno raised in May 1944 and the Stormo Baltimore formed on 1 July 1944 around the 28° Gruppo. Seaplane work fell to the 82° Gruppo Idrovolanti on CANT Z.506B Airone machines. The Allies restricted operations to the Balkans, partly for political reasons and partly so that Italian crews would not meet Italian crews; as a result the two halves of the old Regia Aeronautica never fought each other once.

Outcome The Co-Belligerent Air Force bought Italy a seat in the war against Germany at the cost of a year and a half of unglamorous work over the Balkans. Its transport and supply-dropping squadrons, and later its Baltimore and Spitfire units, were absorbed straight into the republic’s post-war Aeronautica Militare, which took that name formally on 18 June 1946.

The mission count is disputed in scale. Around 11,000 missions is the figure in the Italian literature; the National Museum of the United States Air Force gives over 4,000. The two are not obviously reconcilable, and neither publishes what it counts as a mission, so the true figure lies somewhere in that range.

Flying for

Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force

Where

Airfields in liberated southern Italy, principally in Apulia, flying over Yugoslavia, Albania and the Adriatic and Aegean islands. It deliberately never operated over Italian soil.

Alongside

United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union and Yugoslav Partisans

Against

Germany and Italian Social Republic

Aircraft

Macchi C.202 Folgore, Macchi C.205 Veltro, Reggiane Re.2001 Falco II, Reggiane Re.2002 Ariete, Bell P-39 Airacobra, Supermarine Spitfire Mk V, Martin Baltimore, Savoia-Marchetti SM.82 Marsupiale, CANT Z.506B Airone

Sorties

11,000Roughly 11,000 missions flown between October 1943 and the end of the war, the figure carried by both the English and Italian Wikipedia articles and traced there to D’Amico and Valentini’s pictorial history of the Regia Aeronautica. The US Air Force’s National Museum fact sheet gives "over 4,000 missions" for the same period, which is either a narrower count or a conservative one; see the caveat.

Losses

Not publishedNo aircraft or aircrew loss total for the Co-Belligerent Air Force was published in any source that could be read for this entry. What is recorded is the input side: 203 Italian aircraft flew to Allied bases after the armistice, made up of 39 fighters, 117 bombers and transports and 47 seaplanes, and by 15 October 1943 the force held 281 aircraft of which 165 were serviceable.

Sources

Italian Co-belligerent Air Force (English) · Aeronautica Cobelligerante Italiana (Italian) · WWII Royal Italian Air Force (National Museum of the Unite · Regia Aeronautica (English)

Fighter cover and offensive sweeps over the Italian sector of the front, escort of German and Italian bombers, low-level strafing of Soviet troops, and tactical reconnaissance for the CSIR and its successor the Italian Eighth Army.

The air component that went east with the Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Russia in August 1941 was small: 83 aeroplanes in all and about 1,900 personnel. Its fighter strength was the 22° Gruppo Autonomo Caccia Terrestre with four squadriglie and 51 Macchi C.200 Saetta machines; reconnaissance and light bombing fell to Caproni Ca.311s, and Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello trimotors did the hauling. In May 1942 the newly formed 21° Gruppo Autonomo Caccia Terrestre, with the 356a, 361a, 382a and 386a Squadriglie, relieved the 22° and brought eighteen fresh C.200s; a handful of Macchi C.202 Folgore fighters followed in mid-1942. The highest-scoring unit, the 362a Squadriglia, claimed 30 Soviet aircraft shot down and 13 destroyed on the ground. The Saetta, obsolescent over the Mediterranean, did comparatively well over Russia against early-war Soviet types, and the campaign produced the Regia Aeronautica’s best claimed ratio of the whole war. It also produced Generale Pezzi’s death on an airlift into the Chertkovo pocket, the most senior Italian airman lost in the war.

Outcome A small, well-flown detachment that achieved a respectable claimed exchange rate and then lost its reason to exist when the Eighth Army was destroyed on the Don in the winter of 1942-43. The air element was withdrawn in January 1943 with the rest of the expeditionary force.

The 88 claimed victories are official Italian claims and have not been checked against Soviet loss records, which are themselves incomplete for this sector.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Airstrips in Moldova and eastern Ukraine, moving east with the ground army through the Donets basin towards the Don and the approaches to Stalingrad.

Alongside

Germany, Romania and Hungary

Against

Soviet Union

Aircraft

Macchi C.200 Saetta, Macchi C.202 Folgore, Caproni Ca.311, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello

Sorties

—No single agreed sortie total exists. The English Wikipedia article on the Macchi C.200 gives, within the same passage and inconsistently, either 1,983 or 1,938 escort missions alongside 2,557 offensive flights of which 511 carried bombs, and 1,310 strafing attacks. Those components sum to something close to 5,800 sorties, but because the article contradicts itself on one of the terms and the relationship between the 511 and the 2,557 is stated two different ways, no total is entered here.

Losses

66 aircraftSixty-six Italian aircraft lost on the Eastern Front up to January 1943, all causes, as against 88 aerial victories claimed by official Italian figures. Aircrew deaths were not separately published in any source read. The most senior loss was Generale Enrico Pezzi, commander of the Italian air component in Russia, killed flying a supply mission to the surrounded garrison at Chertkovo.

Sources

Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia · Macchi C.200 · Regia Aeronautica (English) · Italian participation on the Eastern Front

Close support and interdiction for an invasion that stalled in the mountains within a fortnight, bombing of Greek ports and communications, and a running fight with the Royal Hellenic Air Force and the RAF squadrons sent to Greece.

The Regia Aeronautica committed some 380 aircraft against Greece from 28 October 1940, of which roughly half were fighters: 64 Fiat CR.42 Falco biplanes, 23 already obsolete Fiat CR.32s and 50 Fiat G.50bis monoplanes. The bomber force was 60 CANT Z.1007 Alcione trimotors, 72 Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello veterans of Spain and 31 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparvieri. Harassing attacks on Greek shipping had begun months before the invasion, on 12 July 1940 against warships at Kissamos and again on 31 July and 4 August. The Royal Hellenic Air Force fielded only 45 fighters, 24 light bombers and nine reconnaissance machines, but the mountains, the Albanian mud and the arrival of the RAF cancelled the numerical advantage. No. 30 Squadron’s Blenheims reached Athens-Eleusis in late October and No. 80 Squadron’s Gloster Gladiators moved up to Trikala in November, where they inflicted significant losses; fourteen Gladiators were handed to the Greeks in December. Winter conditions at the forward fields did as much damage as the enemy, which is reflected in the disproportion between aircraft lost and aircraft damaged.

Outcome Italy’s air arm could not rescue a ground offensive that had been launched in the wrong season into the wrong terrain, and it lost control of the air over Albania to a much smaller Greek force stiffened by RAF Gladiators and Blenheims. Greece fell only when Germany intervened in April 1941; the Yugoslav campaign that ran alongside it cost Italy five aircraft.

The English Wikipedia articles on the Greco-Italian War and on the Regia Aeronautica give 64 and 65 Italian aircraft lost respectively, and the committed strength is variously given as 380 aircraft for the campaign as a whole and 193 combat aircraft available at the outset, which are probably different measures rather than a contradiction.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Albanian airfields over the Epirus and Macedonian mountains, the Greek ports and the Adriatic; from April 1941 over Yugoslavia as well.

Alongside

Germany, Bulgaria and Hungary

Against

Greece, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia

Aircraft

Fiat CR.42 Falco, Fiat CR.32, Fiat G.50 Freccia, CANT Z.1007 Alcione, Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello

Sorties

—No sortie total for the Albanian and Greek campaign was found in any source read. The Regia Aeronautica flew continuously from Albanian fields from 28 October 1940 to the Greek capitulation in April 1941, but the operational statistics have not been published in an accessible consolidated form.

Losses

Not publishedSources give 64–65 Italian aircraft lost over Greece and Albania, with a further 495 damaged, plus five lost in the eleven-day Yugoslav campaign of April 1941. Because no single published total covers both operations, and the two Greek figures differ, no number is entered. Aircrew casualties were not published in any source read.

Sources

Greco-Italian War · Regia Aeronautica (English)

A political expeditionary force, sent so that Italy could claim a share in the air assault on Britain. It flew a handful of night and daylight raids on Harwich, Felixstowe and Ramsgate and a few fighter sweeps over the Channel.

The Corpo Aereo Italiano was raised on 10 September 1940 under Generale di Squadra Aerea Rino Corso Fougier, drawing on the 1a Squadra Aerea at Milan, and its bombers reached Melsbroek on 25 September. The 13° and 43° Stormo flew Fiat BR.20 Cicogna twin-engined bombers; 50 Fiat CR.42 Falco biplanes of the 18° Gruppo sat at Ursel and 45 Fiat G.50 Freccia monoplanes of the 20° Gruppo at Maldegem, both Gruppi belonging to the 56° Stormo. A 172a Squadriglia provided CANT Z.1007bis reconnaissance machines and Caproni Ca.133 transports. The first raid, on Harwich and Felixstowe on the night of 24-25 October, cost three BR.20s in accidents without a shot fired. On 29 October fifteen BR.20s hit Ramsgate and were mauled by anti-aircraft fire. On 11 November fifteen bombers with about forty fighters went for Harwich and were intercepted: three BR.20s and two fighters were shot down and more than twenty Italian airmen were killed, wounded or missing. On 23 November, 29 fighters swept towards South Foreland and lost two CR.42s to Spitfires. Italian pilots insisted the CR.42 could out-turn anything the RAF had, which was true and beside the point.

Outcome A short, futile and embarrassing deployment. The Fiat BR.20 Cicogna had neither the range nor the bomb load for the job, the Fiat CR.42 Falco was a biplane facing Hurricanes and Spitfires, and the Fiat G.50 Freccia had no radio worth the name. Three bombers and two fighters were shot down on 11 November 1940 alone. The bombers and CR.42s went home in January 1941 and the last G.50s in mid-April.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Three airfields in German-occupied Belgium — Melsbroek, Ursel and Maldegem — flying over the North Sea against the Essex and Kent coasts.

Alongside

Germany

Against

United Kingdom

Aircraft

Fiat BR.20 Cicogna, Fiat CR.42 Falco, Fiat G.50 Freccia, CANT Z.1007bis Alcione, Caproni Ca.133

Sorties

—No single total is published that does not double-count. The English Wikipedia article on the Corpo Aereo Italiano gives 454 offensive and 480 defensive fighter sorties between October 1940 and January 1941, the latter said to include 113 bomber-escort sorties, plus 662 further defensive sorties by Fiat G.50s between January and April 1941, and 97 bomber sorties in the Harwich area between October and December 1940 delivering 44.87 tonnes of bombs. Because the escort sorties are counted inside one of those buckets and the categories are defined differently, adding them would produce a false total.

Losses

36 aircraft · 43 killedThirty-six aircraft lost in all, of which 26 were lost in accidents rather than to enemy action, and 43 aircrew, on the figures given in the English Wikipedia article on the Regia Aeronautica. The same source records no confirmed air-to-air victory for the whole deployment.

Sources

Corpo Aereo Italiano · Regia Aeronautica (English)

The main effort of the war: close support and fighter cover for the desert army, the three-year bombardment of Malta, escort of the Axis convoys to Libya, and a torpedo-bomber campaign against British warships and merchant shipping.

The first bombs fell on Malta on 11 June 1940, the day after the declaration of war: 55 bombers and 21 fighters dropped 142 bombs on the three airfields. In Libya the 5a Squadra Aerea mustered about 300 serviceable aircraft to cover the advance into Egypt in September 1940, and lost 39 on the ground to one RAF airfield attack on 7 December during Operation Compass. Over Bir Hakeim in May and June 1942 the Macchi C.202 Folgore returned a claimed kill-to-loss ratio of 4.4 to 1, better than the Bf 109s alongside it. The most distinctive Italian contribution was the aerosiluranti, the torpedo squadrons raised from 25 July 1940 under Colonnello Moioli on the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero. They damaged HMS Kent on 18 September 1940 and HMS Liverpool on 8 October, and in 1941 sank nine ships of 42,373 tons and damaged twelve of 75,841 tons. Against Operation Harpoon in June 1942 they launched over a hundred torpedoes for three hits, one of which sank the destroyer HMS Bedouin; against Pedestal in August they sank the destroyer HMS Foresight and the merchantman MV Deucalion. By 1943 defective torpedoes and radar-equipped escorts had cut crew survival to about three missions.

Outcome Italy lost the Mediterranean air war slowly rather than suddenly. Malta was bombed for three years and never neutralised; the convoy route to Libya was cut; the desert army lost its air cover as Allied numbers and aircraft quality told. Tunisia fell in May 1943 and Sicily followed in July, and the Regia Aeronautica had some 1,200 aircraft left, about half serviceable, when the armistice came.

Italian loss totals for the Mediterranean are not cleanly separable from the Regia Aeronautica’s global wartime figures, and Malta loss figures differ between what Italy admitted contemporaneously and later compilations. The Bir Hakeim exchange ratio is an Italian claim.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily, Sardinia, Pantelleria and the Dodecanese, over the Western Desert, Malta and the central Mediterranean convoy routes.

Alongside

Germany and Vichy France

Against

United Kingdom, United States, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Free France and Greece

Aircraft

Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, Savoia-Marchetti SM.84, CANT Z.1007 Alcione, CANT Z.506B Airone, Fiat CR.42 Falco, Fiat G.50 Freccia, Macchi C.200 Saetta, Macchi C.202 Folgore, Macchi C.205 Veltro, Reggiane Re.2001 Falco II, Reggiane Re.2002 Ariete, Breda Ba.65, Caproni Ca.309, IMAM Ro.37

Sorties

—No theatre total was found. Two partial figures are firm: 7,410 Italian sorties against Malta from 11 June 1940 to the end of that year, delivering some 550 tons of bombs, and 2,455 Italian sorties over Malta in February and March 1942 in support of the German effort. The Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 torpedo squadrons flew 225 sorties in 1941 and 221 in 1943.

Losses

Not publishedNo figure covering the whole theatre was found that is separable from the Regia Aeronautica’s overall wartime loss. For Malta alone, Italy admitted 23 bombers and 12 fighters lost in 1940 with 187 bombers and seven fighters damaged, admitted a further 100 aircraft lost in action between January and 8 November 1942, and the Siege of Malta casualty table gives 175 Italian aircraft lost over the island. The Regia Aeronautica’s total loss on all fronts between 10 June 1940 and 8 September 1943 is given as 5,201 or 6,483 aircraft depending on the source.

Sources

Siege of Malta (World War II) · Malta in the Second World War (Imperial War Museums) · Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 · Western Desert campaign · Regia Aeronautica (English) · Regia Aeronautica (Italian)

Reconnaissance, bombing of British bases in Sudan, Kenya and Aden, attacks on Red Sea convoys, and fighter defence of an isolated colony that could not be reinforced once the Suez Canal was closed to Italian traffic.

Generale Pietro Pinna’s command at Addis Ababa held 323 aircraft in June 1940, 183 in the front line and 140 in reserve, many of the reserves unserviceable, organised into three sector commands matching the land fronts. Six squadrons flew Caproni Ca.133 light bombers, seven the Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello, two the SM.79 Sparviero; four fighter squadrons shared 36 Fiat CR.32 and CR.42 machines, and one reconnaissance squadron flew the IMAM Ro.37. Stocks at the outbreak of war were 10,700 tonnes of aviation fuel, 5,300 tonnes of bombs and 8,620,000 rounds of ammunition, and there would be no more. The cadre was experienced — a good many were Spanish Civil War veterans — and produced the outstanding biplane fighter pilot of the Second World War, Capitano Mario Visintini of the 412a Squadriglia, credited with sixteen confirmed victories, all on the Fiat CR.42. Visintini was killed on 11 February 1941 when he flew into Mount Bizen near Nefasit in bad weather, searching for his downed wingman, hours after claiming a Hurricane over Keren.

Outcome An air force strangled by geography. Cut off from Italy, the Comando Aeronautica AOI could repair only about fifteen badly damaged aircraft and engines a month and had to cannibalise machines to keep others flying. Strength fell from 183 front-line aircraft to 67 by 31 January 1941, 42 by the end of February and thirteen serviceable by April. The last Italian aircraft in East Africa, a Fiat CR.42, was shot down on 24 October 1941.

Initial strength is given as 323 aircraft by the East African campaign article and as 195 combat aircraft plus 25 transports by the Regia Aeronautica article; the difference is probably serviceable front-line strength against total holdings. Visintini’s score is given as sixteen confirmed by some sources and twenty by others.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Eritrea, Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland, flying against Sudan, Kenya, British Somaliland, Aden and the Red Sea convoy route.

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

United Kingdom, South Africa, India, Australia, Free France, Ethiopian Arbegnoch and Belgium

Aircraft

Fiat CR.32, Fiat CR.42 Falco, Caproni Ca.133, Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello, IMAM Ro.37, Savoia-Marchetti S.73, Caproni Ca.148, Fokker F.VII

Sorties

—No sortie total for the East African campaign was found. The best measure of declining activity in the sources read is that the Regia Aeronautica managed only six attacks on Red Sea convoys in October 1940 and none after 4 November.

Losses

250 aircraftApproximately 250 aircraft lost over the whole campaign, on the figure given in the English Wikipedia article on the East African campaign; most were destroyed on the ground, cannibalised or abandoned rather than shot down. For the first three months of hostilities alone, the Regia Aeronautica article gives 84 aircraft lost, 143 aircrew killed and 71 wounded. No campaign total for aircrew deaths was found, so none is entered.

Sources

East African campaign (World War II) · Mario Visintini · Regia Aeronautica (English)

Bombing of French airfields, ports and Alpine fortifications in support of a two-week offensive across the Alps, and long-range attacks on Corsica, Tunisia and Bizerte.

Italy declared war on 10 June 1940 and the fighting in the west lasted to the armistice of 25 June. Three air commands carried it: the 1a Squadra Aerea in northern Italy, the strongest, supporting the Alpine front; the 2a Squadra Aerea in Sicily, Pantelleria and Sardinia, facing Malta and North Africa; and the 3a Squadra Aerea in central Italy against shipping off the French coast, with the 4a Zona Aerea in the south-east flying floatplanes against Tunisia. Malta was attacked on 11 June by 55 bombers in the morning and 38 in the afternoon. From 13 June Italian bombers hit French airfields, ports and cities, and on 17 June a raid on the centre of Marseille killed 143 people and wounded 136. Twelve Savoia-Marchetti SM.81s made the first Italian attack on Alexandria on the night of 22-23 June. The heaviest air fighting came over southern France on 15 June, when a Fiat BR.20 Cicogna and several Fiat CR.42s were shot down by Dewoitine D.520s and Bloch MB.151s. Italian reconnaissance had badly overestimated French aircraft strength throughout.

Outcome The Regia Aeronautica claimed ten aerial victories and forty French aircraft destroyed on the ground, and the Armee de l’Air was in no state to contest the Alps seriously. Against that, bombing accuracy against fortified positions was poor, coordination with the ground forces was minimal, and French bombers from North Africa struck back at Cagliari, Trapani and Palermo, killing twenty civilians at Trapani and 25 at Palermo.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Northern Italian and Sardinian bases over the Alpine front, the Côte d’Azur, Corsica and Tunisia; simultaneously the first raids on Malta and Alexandria.

Alongside

Germany

Against

France and United Kingdom

Aircraft

Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello, Fiat BR.20 Cicogna, Fiat CR.42 Falco, Breda Ba.88, CANT Z.506B Airone

Sorties

716716 bombing missions flown, delivering 276 tons of ordnance, on the figure in the English Wikipedia article on the Regia Aeronautica for the June 1940 campaign. A narrower measure tells the same story better: of 285 bomber sorties flown against the Alpine fortifications between 21 and 24 June, only 115 found their targets and they dropped 80 tonnes of bombs.

Losses

10 aircraft · 24 killedTen aircraft lost in aerial combat and 24 aircrew killed. The figure covers combat losses only and does not include accidents or aircraft written off, and the campaign lasted just over a fortnight.

Sources

Italian invasion of France · Regia Aeronautica (English)

An overwhelming display of force in support of a five-day occupation: reconnaissance, overflight of the main towns and the dropping of surrender leaflets. There was no air opposition and no strategic bombing.

The plan called for 400 aircraft and 51 naval units in support of an eventual 50,000 troops; in the event some 22,000 men went ashore under Generale Alfredo Guzzoni, with the 400 aircraft overhead. Albanian resistance was weak and uncoordinated, King Zog’s mountain defence having been quietly sabotaged by the Italian advisers embedded in his own army. The air component’s work was almost entirely psychological: a hundred machines over the three main towns showering leaflets, and constant visible presence above the coastal road. No paratroop drop and no bombing campaign are recorded. The aircraft types employed are not itemised in the sources read, so none are listed here rather than guessed at. What mattered was the infrastructure: from April 1939 the Regia Aeronautica had forward fields on the eastern side of the Adriatic, and the Comando Aeronautica Albania that grew out of them would carry the whole weight of the Greek campaign from October 1940 onwards.

Outcome Albania was occupied between 7 and 12 April 1939 and Victor Emmanuel III took the Albanian crown. For the Regia Aeronautica the operation was a rehearsal with no enemy, and its role was described afterwards as limited. The Albanian airfields it inherited became the base for the invasion of Greece eighteen months later, which is the operation’s real significance for the air force.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Apulian airfields across the Strait of Otranto over Tirana, Durrës, Vlorë and the Albanian coastal plain.

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

Albania

Aircraft

—

Sorties

—No sortie figure was found. What is recorded is that 100 Italian aircraft flew over Tirana, Durrës and Vlorë dropping leaflets telling the population to submit, out of the roughly 400 aircraft committed to the operation.

Losses

Not publishedNo Italian air losses are recorded in the sources read. Albania had effectively no air defence; the fighting that did occur was at Durrës, where about 500 defenders under Major Abaz Kupi and naval sergeant Mujo Ulqinaku held out for a few hours against naval gunfire. Overall Italian casualty claims for the operation range from 12–25 killed to as many as 700 on independent estimates, but those are ground and naval figures, not air.

Sources

Italian invasion of Albania · Regia Aeronautica (English)

A full expeditionary air force fighting for the Nationalists: fighter cover, close support, anti-shipping strikes, and a sustained campaign of bombing against Republican cities and ports.

Italian aircraft began leaving for Spain in August 1936 and the Aviazione Legionaria was formally constituted on 28 December 1936, lasting until 10 March 1939. In all 764 aircraft were supplied, among them 376 Fiat CR.32 fighters, 100 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparvieri, 84 Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrelli, 25 IMAM Ro.41s and 23 Breda Ba.65 ground-attack machines, with roughly 6,000 aviation personnel. Its commanders included Ruggero Bonomi, Vincenzo Velardi, Mario Bernasconi, Giuseppe Maceratini and Adriano Monti. The heavy bomber units, notably the 21° Stormo da Bombardamento Pesante and the 251a and 252a Squadriglia "Pipistrelli delle Baleari" at Son Bonet on Mallorca, put the Spanish east coast within easy reach. Italian bombers struck the Renteria bridge at Guernica before the Condor Legion’s attack on the town in April 1937, and in 1938 mounted the campaigns against Barcelona, Alicante, Granollers and Valencia that made the Balearic-based Savoia-Marchettis notorious. The Legionaria also claimed 224 ships destroyed, of which 115 Spanish and 51 foreign merchantmen are attributed to aircraft.

Outcome Spain was the making of the Regia Aeronautica’s self-image and the source of most of its false lessons. The Fiat CR.32 dominated a war in which the opposition was thin, which persuaded Rome that the manoeuvrable biplane fighter still had a future; four years later that belief killed a great many Italian pilots. The bomber force learned to hit cities and ports and drew conclusions about strategic effect that did not survive contact with Britain.

Victory claims are badly inflated. Italian official returns give 943 enemy aircraft destroyed in the English-language sources and 903 in the Italian, while the Italian Wikipedia article itself notes that about 500 is the realistic figure; the English Regia Aeronautica article also says approximately 500. Personnel losses are given as 171 killed on the Aviazione Legionaria page and as about 200 flying personnel on the Regia Aeronautica page, a difference that probably turns on whether ground crew are included.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands, principally Son Bonet on Mallorca for the bomber force, flying over the Aragon and Ebro fronts and the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona to Valencia.

Alongside

Nationalist Spain and Germany

Against

Spanish Republic, Soviet Union and International Brigades

Aircraft

Fiat CR.32, Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello, IMAM Ro.41, Breda Ba.65, IMAM Ro.37

Sorties

5,3185,318 operations flown, across 135,265 flying hours, on figures repeated in both the English Wikipedia article on the Aviazione Legionaria and the article on Italian military intervention in Spain, the latter citing Sadkovich. The same figures give 11,524 tons of bombs dropped in 728 raids.

Losses

86 aircraft · 171 killed86 aircraft destroyed or shot down in action — 74 fighters, eight bombers, two ground-attack and two reconnaissance machines — with 171 Italian air personnel killed and 192 wounded. The Italian Wikipedia article gives a total of 186 aircraft lost, 86 in combat and 100 to accidents and other causes, so the figure entered here is combat losses only.

Sources

Aviazione Legionaria · Italian military intervention in Spain · Regia Aeronautica (English) · Regia Aeronautica (Italian)

Reconnaissance, close support, interdiction of Ethiopian columns and water points, and the aerial delivery of mustard gas against troops and civilians. With almost no opposing air force, it operated as unrestricted aerial artillery.

Mussolini authorised the use of chemical weapons on 28 December 1935 and the Regia Aeronautica began spraying and dropping mustard gas immediately, releasing some 330 tons over the following four months in open violation of the Geneva Protocol Italy had signed. Over 2,000 quintals of gas fell on Tigray during the Christmas offensive between 22 December 1935 and 18 January 1936 alone. The aircraft were the colonial types of the early 1930s — Caproni Ca.97, Ca.101 and Ca.133 trimotors, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrelli, IMAM Ro.1 and Ro.37 reconnaissance biplanes — flown against an enemy with nine serviceable transport aircraft and three obsolete Potez 25 biplanes. The Ethiopians had no anti-aircraft guns worth the name, so losses came mostly from rifle fire, engine failure over country with nowhere to land, and the highland weather. After the occupation the air force stayed on: in October 1936 there were 8,600 aviation personnel and 250 aircraft in the colony, and a bombing effort against the guerrillas that was still dropping 126 tons in January 1937.

Outcome Italy took Addis Ababa on 5 May 1936 and the air force went on supporting ground troops against Ethiopian guerrillas for another thirteen months. The campaign cost 72 aircraft and 122 aircrew and gave the Regia Aeronautica a reputation for efficiency that a war against an enemy with no air force did nothing to test. It also left Italy in breach of the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

Committed strength is given as 595 aircraft in the English Wikipedia article on the war and as up to 386 operating from Eritrea and Somalia in the article on the Regia Aeronautica; the larger figure probably counts every airframe in the theatre, including colonial transports and reserves.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Airfields in Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, flying over the Tigray highlands, the Ogaden and the road to Addis Ababa.

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

Ethiopian Empire

Aircraft

Caproni Ca.133, Caproni Ca.101, Caproni Ca.97, Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello, IMAM Ro.37, IMAM Ro.1

Sorties

—No sortie total was found for the campaign. Individual actions are recorded instead: twenty aircraft attacking Ethiopian forces found on 18 November 1935; 120 fighters and bombers dropping 63,600 kilograms of explosive, mustard gas and incendiary bombs on 3 and 4 March 1936; and 700 quintals of bombs, gas included, dropped on retreating Ethiopian troops on 4 April 1936.

Losses

72 aircraft · 122 killed72 aircraft and 122 aircrew lost, on the figure in the English Wikipedia article on the Regia Aeronautica. Given that the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force had fifteen transport aircraft of which nine were serviceable, almost all of these were losses to ground fire, accident and the terrain rather than to air combat.

Sources

Second Italo-Ethiopian War · Regia Aeronautica (English) · Regia Aeronautica (Italian)

Reconnaissance and liaison over enormous distances, bombing and strafing of Senussi encampments, wells and fleeing civilians, and from about 1930 the delivery of mustard gas against Bedouin villages.

The Second Italo-Senussi War ran from 26 January 1923 to 24 January 1932 and was the longest continuous operational commitment the young Regia Aeronautica had; the service became independent of the army on 28 March 1923, two months into it. Generale Pietro Badoglio authorised chemical warfare against the Bedouin, and the traveller Knud Holmboe recorded tribal villages being bombed with mustard gas by the spring of 1930. Under Rodolfo Graziani, lieutenant governor of Cyrenaica from 27 March 1930, the air arm became the instrument of a deliberate campaign of deportation and starvation: when Italian columns took the Kufra oasis in 1931, Senussi refugees were bombed and strafed by aircraft as they fled into the open desert. In Somalia the effort was tiny by comparison — the Campaign of the Sultanates of 1925 to 1927, under Governor Cesare De Vecchi, listed three aircraft in the Italian order of battle — but the pattern was the same. Aircraft types are not specified in the sources read, so none are listed rather than guessed at.

Outcome The reconquest of Libya was completed on 24 January 1932 with the destruction of Senussi resistance, and Omar al-Mukhtar was hanged in September 1931. The Somali sultanates were subdued between 1925 and 1927. For the air force these were the campaigns in which colonial aviation doctrine was formed — mobility, terror and the punishment of oases — and in which chemical weapons were first used from Italian aircraft, three years before Ethiopia.

These campaigns are poorly served by accessible sources on the air side. Unit designations, aircraft types, sortie counts and loss figures are all absent from the material that could be checked, and the figures that do exist describe the campaigns as a whole rather than the air force’s part in them.

Flying for

Regia Aeronautica

Where

Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and the Fezzan, including the deep Sahara as far as the Kufra oasis; and the Majeerteen and Hobyo sultanates of northern Italian Somaliland.

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

Senussi Order, Libyan resistance, Majeerteen Sultanate and Sultanate of Hobyo

Aircraft

—

Sorties

—Not published. No sortie or flying-hour figures for the Libyan or Somali colonial campaigns were found in any source that could be read for this entry, and none is estimated here.

Losses

Not publishedNot published. Italian air losses in the colonial campaigns of the 1920s and early 1930s are not given in any source read. Nor are aviation-caused casualties among the population itemised: total deaths in the Second Italo-Senussi War are put at between 20,000 and 100,000, with about 40,000 of 100,000 internees dead in the camps by September 1933, but the share attributable to air attack is not separable.

Sources

Pacification of Libya (Second Italo-Senussi War) · Campaign of the Sultanates · Corpo Aeronautico Militare (English)

Artillery observation and photographic reconnaissance for a static mountain war, fighter defence of the Venetian plain, and a strategic bombing campaign with the Caproni heavy bombers that was among the first anywhere.

The Corpo Aeronautico Militare was established on 7 January 1915, four months before Italy entered the war, by amalgamating the aeroplane, airship and balloon battalions. It began with 86 aircraft, of which 75 were operational in twelve squadriglie, and 70 qualified military pilots with twenty more in training. By 1 September 1916 it had 42 squadriglie, 369 pilots, 162 observers and 123 gunners; by June 1918, 65 squadriglie and nine sections with 770 pilots. Its best-known figure, Maggiore Francesco Baracca, scored 34 victories with the 70a, 1a and finally the 91a Squadriglia on Nieuports and SPADs, and was killed by ground fire near the Montello on 19 June 1918 during a low-level strafing sortie. Its most theatrical operation was the flight over Vienna on 9 August 1918, when eleven Ansaldo SVA machines of the 87a Squadriglia "La Serenissima" flew more than 1,200 kilometres from Due Carrare and back, after failures on 2 and 8 August, to drop 50,000 leaflets written by Gabriele D’Annunzio and 350,000 by Ugo Ojetti in German. Italy also operated some 60 airships, a fleet second only to Germany’s.

Outcome Italy ended the war with 64 squadriglie and six sections at the front, 78,624 personnel and around 600 aircraft in service, having built 12,000 aeroplanes and more than 24,000 engines from a largely agricultural economy. The Corpo Aeronautico Militare claimed 633 aerial victories and produced the industry, the doctrine and the officer corps out of which the independent Regia Aeronautica was created on 28 March 1923.

Victory totals differ in the detail: the English Wikipedia article gives 633 victories in all, the Italian article more than 600 enemy aircraft shot down. Both are claim totals of the period and have not been reconciled with Austro-Hungarian loss records. The number of SVA aircraft that reached Vienna is given as eleven by the article on the flight and as seven in one contemporary account, since some turned back.

Flying for

Corpo Aeronautico Militare

Where

The Isonzo and Piave fronts, the Trentino, the Carso and the Adriatic; long-range bombing over Austria-Hungary as far as Pola, Ljubljana and Vienna.

Alongside

United Kingdom, France, United States and Serbia

Against

Austria-Hungary and Germany

Aircraft

Caproni Ca.3, Caproni Ca.5, Ansaldo SVA.5, Nieuport 11, Nieuport 17, SPAD S.VII, SPAD S.XIII, Macchi M.5, Pomilio PE, SAML S.2

Sorties

—Not published in a consolidated form. The Italian Wikipedia article, which draws on Ufficio Storico dell’Aeronautica Militare publications by Fraschetti and by Gentilli and Varriale, gives detailed strength returns but no total sortie or mission count for the war, and no such figure was found elsewhere.

Losses

1,784 killed1,784 Italian aircrew killed between 1915 and 1918, counting combat, accidents and training, on the figure in the Italian Wikipedia article drawing on Ufficio Storico sources. No corresponding total for aeroplanes lost was found; for the airship arm, ten dirigibles were lost in action and four in accidents.

Sources

Corpo Aeronautico Militare (English) · Corpo Aeronautico Militare (Italian) · Francesco Baracca · Flight over Vienna

The first military use of aeroplanes anywhere: reconnaissance over enemy lines, artillery spotting, aerial photography and the first bombing of a ground target from an aircraft.

Aircraft were written into the Italian expeditionary contingent on 28 September 1911, the day before war was declared, the first time in history that aeroplanes were assigned to a force with bombardment among their tasks. Nine machines went to Libya: two Blériot XI two-seaters, three Nieuport monoplanes, two Farman biplanes and two Etrich Taube monoplanes, backed by wireless telegraphy stations set up to pass their reports. On 23 October 1911 Capitano Carlo Piazza flew his Blériot over the Ottoman lines between Tripoli and Azizia on the first aerial reconnaissance mission ever flown; the Blériot had a 25-horsepower three-cylinder engine, no instruments of any kind and Wright-style wing warping. Nine days later, on 1 November, Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti carried four Cipelli grenades in a leather pouch, each about the size of a grapefruit and weighing roughly four pounds, took his Taube to 600 feet and dropped three on the oasis of Tajura and one on the Ottoman camp at Ain Zara. It was the first air raid in history, and the Ottomans protested that a hospital had been hit.

Outcome Italy won the war and took Libya under the Treaty of Ouchy on 18 October 1912. The aviation detachment mattered far beyond its size: within six weeks of arriving it had carried out the first aerial reconnaissance and the first aerial bombardment in the history of warfare, and it produced the first aircraft downed by ground fire and the first captured aviator.

Gavotti’s own letters and later accounts differ on the order and the exact targets of the four grenades, and no Italian operational record of the flight was consulted here; the account given follows the sources cited.

Flying for

Battaglione Aviatori (Regio Esercito)

Where

Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, flying from Tripoli, Benghazi and Derna over Ottoman and Senussi positions in the coastal oases and the desert behind them.

Alongside

No allied air arm

Against

Ottoman Empire and Senussi Order

Aircraft

Blériot XI, Nieuport monoplane, Farman biplane, Etrich Taube

Sorties

—No flotilla total was published. The only firm sortie figure found for any individual is Capitano Riccardo Moizo, decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Military Order of Savoy for 59 wartime flights, which gives some sense of the tempo of a nine-aircraft detachment over about eleven months.

Losses

Not publishedNo loss figures were published in any source read. What is recorded is that Ottoman troops with rifles were the first in history to bring down an aeroplane, and that Moizo suffered engine failure over enemy territory on 10 September 1912, force-landed, was captured by Arab irregulars and handed to the Ottoman army, becoming the first pilot in history held as a prisoner of war. He was released at the end of hostilities in poor physical condition.

Sources

Italo-Turkish War · Giulio Gavotti · Riccardo Moizo · The World’s First Warplane (Air & Space Magazine)