Locomotives and machine guns

Ernesto Breda founded his company in Milan in 1886 to build locomotives and railway machinery. Like several Italian engineering houses, it drifted into weapons and then aircraft. Its machine guns, the Model 30 and Model 37, became standard issue for the Royal Italian Army in Abyssinia, Albania and the Second World War, and at its wartime peak Breda employed 26,000 people. In 1935 it bought the railway works of Officine Ferroviarie Meridionali and soon afterwards that company’s aircraft division too. Breda’s early aircraft included the Ba.25 trainer, first flown near Milan in 1931.

Ba.65: the attack plane that went to war

The Breda Ba.65 was a single-seat attack aircraft that flew in September 1935. Breda and Caproni built 218 before production ended in July 1939. More than 150 served with Italian forces, including in the Spanish Civil War, where 12 of those sent were lost, and 55 were exported to Iraq, Chile and Portugal. A plan to licence-build 30 in China at the Sino-Italian works in Nanchang was abandoned in December 1937 when the Italian technicians were withdrawn.

The Lynx that could not hunt

Its successor promised far more. The twin-engine Ba.88 Lince first flew in October 1936 and in April 1937 took world speed records over 100 km and 1,000 km circuits from France. But once guns, armour and military equipment were fitted, the Lince became unstable and its performance collapsed, and it was a failure in wartime service. After the war Breda returned to trains and trams. It was nationalised into the EFIM state group in 1962 and liquidated in the 1990s; its rail arm merged with Ansaldo to form AnsaldoBreda.

工場

• Milan works · Milan (Sesto San Giovanni area) — Main industrial complex

人々

• Ernesto Breda · founder

記録と初記録

• Ba.88 prototype: world speed record over a 100 km circuit, 1 April 1937
• Ba.88: 475 km/h over 1,000 km, 10 April 1937