Scale Plastic & Rail

FIAT CR.32 - ACES OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

FIAT CR.32 - ACES OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

By Alfredo Logoluso

Osprey Aircraft of the Aces Series - 94

Illustrated by Richard Caruana

Author, Alfred Logoluso is an aeronautical engineer, formerly an officer with the air defence section of the Italian Air Force, and has been researching the aeronautical history of the Spanish Civil War for a number of years. The illustrator, Richard Caruana instils a feeling of confidence in his work in much the same way as I am always pleased to see the the name 'Cartograf' on a sheet of decals - if you get my drift!

Richard has produced 36 superb full colour profiles and four separate top views of the various marks and configurations of the CR.32. Speaking personally, two of my all time favourite 'between the wars' aircraft are the Fiat CR.32 and the Russian Polikarpov I-16 both of which are featured in combat on the book's front cover artwork by Mark Postlethwaite.Those of you who were fortunate enough to attend the 2010 'Flying Legends' air display at Duxford would have witnessed the marvellous flying display of the diminutive Polikarpov I-16 and one could only imagine how the CR.32 would have compared. Imagine, that is, until I read this very informative book - it compared very well indeed.

I will have to plead 'guilty' here and confess that I ashamedly knew very little about this conflict, overshadowed as it was by the events of 1939. However, I was aware that the Spanish Civil War proved to be an ideal 'stamping ground' for the Luftwaffe pilots who were fine tuning their aerial combat skills in readiness for the future global hostilities.

"At the heart of the Italian Regia Aeronautica throughout the 1930's, the CR.32 was both a handsome and a highly manoevrable biplane fighter. Some 400 were in service in 1936 when General Franco asked Germany and Italy for air support in his fight with the Republicans for the control of Spain. By the end of that year, 120 CR.32's had been sent to help protect Nationalist transports and bombers, and by dint of their numbers and superior performance over the German He 51, the Fiat fighter was soon tallying up numerous successes in aerial combat. Initially, CR.32's were flown exclusively by Italian volunteers, and by late 1936 the first all Spanish unit had also been formed. In the thick of the action through to the end of the civil war in April, 1939, no fewer than 477 CR.32's were involved in the conflict. Italian pilots flying the fighter were credited with an astounding 709 confirmed aerial victories, and an additional 320 kills were claimed by Spanish and other non-Italian Nationalist pilots. In return, just 118 Fiat fighters were lost to all causes."

So says the resumé on the outside back cover of this very informative book. Fiat CR.32 fans are in for a treat as, together with Richard Caruana's beautiful artwork, there are 92 mono photographs, many of them depicting the Aces who are the subject of this book, plus a very useful group of 1/48 scale 5 view drawings by Mark Styling.

I won't spoil the fun of reading this book, but suffice to say there were 33 pilots accredited with the title of 'Aces' - 19 Spanish, 13 Italians and 1 Belgian!

So what do we think?
Excellent. I am sure that I am not alone in my ignorance of the Spanish Civil War in detail but this book certainly goes a long way to opening up that dark period in Spain's history especially in respect of the beautiful Fiat CR.32 and it's pilots. This is just one in the Osprey series 'Aircraft of the Aces' and the complete list can be viewed and ordered from their website www.ospreypublishing.com. At UK£12.99 this represents excellent value for money for historians, enthusiasts and modeller's. A very welcome addition to the reference library.

Overall: 10/10

Our thanks to Osprey Publishing for this sample.

Peter Buckingham