WAR ATLAS MILITARY HISTORY MAGAZINE · WWI — WWII
Macchi C.205 Veltro
1. Lead
The Macchi C.205 Veltro — the Greyhound — was the most numerous and the most widely used of Italy’s three “Serie 5” fighters, and the aircraft that carried the Italian fighter force through the last two years of the Second World War.
Developed from the Macchi C.202 Folgore, the C.205 replaced that aircraft’s Alfa Romeo engine with the German Daimler-Benz DB 605, and the result was a fighter that could match the best Allied aircraft of 1943 and 1944: fast, agile, heavily armed and, by the standards of Italian fighters, well built.
It fought over Sicily in the summer of 1943, in the defence of Rome and Naples, and, after the armistice of September 1943, on both sides of a divided Italy — with the co-belligerent air force of the south, flying alongside the Allies, and with the fascist air force of the north, flying against them.
About 262 C.205s were built, a small total by the standards of the war, but a large one by the standards of Italian fighter production, and the type’s combat record was the most extensive of any Italian fighter of the period. Its pilots included some of Italy’s leading aces, and its opponents — the Spitfires, Mustangs and Thunderbolts of the Allied air forces — respected it as a dangerous and capable fighter. The C.205’s story is the story of Italian aviation at its best and at its most tragic: a fine aircraft, built in too few numbers, fighting a war its country had already lost, and ending its career in the civil war that followed the armistice.
2. Key Facts
| Role | Single-seat fighter (also fighter-bomber) |
| Manufacturer | Aeronautica Macchi, Varese, Italy |
| Designer | Mario Castoldi / Mario Castoldi |
| First flight | 19 April 1942 |
| Introduced | February 1943 |
| Produced | About 262 |
| Crew | 1 |
| Engine | 1 × Daimler-Benz DB 605A-1 V-12, about 1,475 hp |
| Maximum speed | About 640 km/h (398 mph) at 7,000 m |
| Range | About 1,040 km (646 miles) |
| Armament | 2 × 20 mm MG 151 cannon; 2 × 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns |
| Main users | Regia Aeronautica (Italy); Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana; Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force |
| Fate | Withdrawn 1947; one complete original survives in a museum |
3. Origins and Requirements
From the C.202 to the C.205
The C.205 was a development of the Macchi C.202 Folgore, the fighter that had been Italy’s best in 1941 and 1942. The C.202, designed by Mario Castoldi, was a beautiful and agile aircraft, but it was underpowered: its Alfa Romeo RA.1000 engine, an Italian-built copy of the German DB 601, produced only about 1,175 horsepower, and by 1942 the C.202 was outclassed by the newer Allied fighters.
Castoldi’s answer was simple: keep the C.202’s airframe, which was excellent, and fit the more powerful DB 605 engine, which produced about 1,475 horsepower. The result, which first flew on 19 April 1942, was the C.205, and its performance was immediately impressive: it was faster than the C.202 by more than 40 km/h, it climbed better, and it carried a heavier armament.
The Italian Air Ministry ordered the C.205 into production, and the first aircraft reached the squadrons in February 1943. Production was slow — the Macchi factory at Varese was small, the DB 605 engines had to come from Germany, and the Italian aircraft industry was struggling with shortages of materials and with Allied bombing — but by the summer of 1943, the C.205 equipped several squadrons, and it was the aircraft the Italian fighter force relied on for the defence of Sicily and the mainland.
The C.205 was, with the Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario and the Fiat G.55 Centauro, one of the three “Serie 5” fighters built around the DB 605, and of the three it was the one that saw the most combat, with a wartime production run comparable to the G.55’s.
The Serie 5 programme
The Serie 5 programme was Italy’s attempt, in 1942 and 1943, to field a fighter that could match the best Allied aircraft, and it was, in design terms, a success: all three Serie 5 fighters were excellent aircraft, and the C.205 was, in the judgement of the pilots who flew them, the most practical of the three — easier to build than the Re.2005, easier to maintain than the G.55, and with a performance that was, in most respects, the equal of either.
The programme’s failure was not one of design but of production: Italy could not build the Serie 5 fighters in the numbers the war demanded, and the three designs competed with each other for engines, materials and factory capacity that were all in short supply.
4. Design and Development
Airframe and the Folgore heritage
The C.205’s airframe was, in essence, the C.202’s airframe with a new engine installation, and it retained the C.202’s most distinctive features: a low-wing monoplane of all-metal construction, with a semi-monocoque fuselage, a wing of about 10.6 metres span, and a retractable landing gear that folded inward into the wings.
The changes were concentrated in the nose, where the larger DB 605 engine required a redesigned cowling and a new propeller, and in the armament, where the C.205 carried two 20 mm MG 151 cannon in the wings, in place of the C.202’s machine guns, together with two 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns in the nose.
The cockpit was set well back, with a good view, and the aircraft’s tail was conventional, with a large rudder that gave the pilot good control.
Easy to build, easy to fly
The aircraft’s construction was, by Italian standards, straightforward, and the C.205 was easier to build than the Re.2005, whose wing required skilled hand work. This was one reason the C.205 was built in larger numbers than its Serie 5 rivals, and it was a practical advantage that mattered in a war in which Italy’s industrial capacity was stretched to the limit. The C.205’s handling was widely praised: it was stable, responsive and forgiving, with a gentle stall and a turning ability that Italian pilots rated as excellent, and it was, in the judgement of the Allied pilots who flew captured examples, a first-class fighter.
Engine and performance
The DB 605A-1 was a twelve-cylinder, liquid-cooled, inverted-V engine of about 1,475 horsepower, the same engine that powered the German Bf 109G and the Re.2005. In the C.205 it gave the aircraft a maximum speed of about 640 km/h at 7,000 metres, a figure that compared favourably with the Spitfire Mk IX and the P-51 Mustang, and a climb rate that let it reach 6,000 metres in about five minutes.
Its range, about 1,040 kilometres on internal fuel, was modest, but it was adequate for the defensive operations over Sicily and Italy for which the aircraft was used. The engine, though German-built and dependent on German spares, was reliable when properly maintained, and the C.205’s serviceability was, by Italian standards, good.
5. Technical Description
Armament
The C.205’s armament was the heaviest of any Macchi fighter, and it was a match for the best Allied fighters of 1943. It carried two 20 mm MG 151 cannon in the wings, with 250 rounds per gun, and two 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns in the nose, with 400 rounds per gun.
Some late-production aircraft carried a third cannon, firing through the propeller hub, and the C.205’s firepower was sufficient to destroy a bomber with a short burst and to outgun the fighters it met. For ground attack the C.205 could carry two 160-kilogram bombs under the wings, or a single 500-kilogram bomb under the fuselage, and it was used in this role in the fighting over Sicily and in the defence of northern Italy.
Handling and pilot opinion
Italian pilots who flew the C.205 rated it as the best fighter they had flown, and their opinion has been echoed by the Allied pilots who flew captured examples after the war. The aircraft was, by all accounts, a delight to fly: its controls were light and well harmonised, its stall was gentle, and its turning ability was outstanding.
Its one vice was a tendency to swing on take-off if the pilot was careless with the throttle, a trait shared with many powerful single-engine fighters of the period. The cockpit was comfortable, with a good view, and the aircraft’s engine, though dependent on German spares, was reliable.
The C.205’s pilots included some of Italy’s leading aces — Adriano Visconti, who claimed 26 victories, and Luigi Gorrini, who claimed 19 — and their testimony, and the respect of their opponents, is the best evidence of the aircraft’s quality.
6. Variants
The C.205 family was small, and its versions differed in armament and equipment rather than in role. The C.205V, the main production version, was the fighter described above, with two wing cannon and two nose machine guns, and about 262 were built in total, including the prototypes and the pre-production aircraft.
The C.205N was a proposed version with a more powerful engine and a revised armament, of which only a handful were built, and the C.205S was a long-range version with a reduced armament and additional fuel tanks, built in small numbers for the escort role.
A two-seat trainer version was proposed but never built in numbers, and a handful of C.205s were modified in the field with different armament fits, including the replacement of the wing cannon with machine guns when cannon ammunition was scarce.
After the war, the Macchi factory proposed a developed version of the C.205, the C.206, with a more powerful engine, but it was never built, and the C.205’s production ended with the 262nd aircraft. The type’s airframe was, however, the basis for the Macchi C.205’s post-war successor studies, and its design influenced the Italian fighters of the immediate post-war period.
7. Combat Service
Sicily and the defence of Italy
The C.205 entered service in February 1943, and its first combat unit, the 1st Fighter Wing, flew it in the defence of Sicily and of the Italian mainland. In July 1943, when the Allies invaded Sicily, the C.205s fought the Allied fighters — Spitfires, P-38 Lightnings and P-40 Warhawks — over the invasion beaches, and they acquitted themselves well: Italian accounts credit the type with a number of victories, including Spitfires and bombers, for the loss of a small number of its own aircraft.
The exact figures are disputed, as air combat claims always are, but the Allied pilots who met the C.205 reported that it was a formidable opponent, fast, agile and heavily armed, and the type’s reputation was made in the fighting over Sicily.
From Sicily to Anzio
After the fall of Sicily, the C.205s fought in the defence of Naples and Rome, and in the air battles over the Anzio beachhead in early 1944, where they met the Allied fighters that covered the landings. The fighting was hard, and the Italian squadrons, outnumbered and short of spares, lost aircraft steadily, but the C.205 remained in service, and after the armistice of 8 September 1943 its pilots continued to fly it with skill and determination on both sides of a divided Italy, in the Co-Belligerent Air Force of the south and the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana of the north.
A divided Italy: two air forces
After the armistice, Italy split in two, and the C.205 served on both sides. In the south, the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force, flying alongside the Allies, operated the C.205 in the 51st Wing, in operations over the Balkans and in the defence of Allied bases in southern Italy. In the north, the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, the air force of Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic, operated the C.205 in the 1st Fighter Group, in the defence of northern Italy against the Allied bombers that flew from the south. The two forces flew the same aircraft, against each other, in a civil war that lasted until April 1945, and the C.205’s last combats were fought in that bitter, fratricidal conflict.
8. Specifications
The figures below are for the production C.205V. Sources differ slightly on weights and performance, and the aircraft’s figures varied with load and the condition of the individual machine.
| C.205V | |
|---|---|
| Length | 8.85 m / 8,85 m |
| Wingspan | 10.58 m / 10,58 m |
| Height | 3.05 m / 3,05 m |
| Wing area | 16.8 m² / 16,8 m² |
| Empty weight | About 2,581 kg |
| Loaded weight | About 3,408 kg |
| Engine | 1 × Daimler-Benz DB 605A-1, about 1,475 hp |
| Maximum speed | About 640 km/h at 7,000 m |
| Cruising speed | About 500 km/h |
| Range | About 1,040 km |
| Service ceiling | About 11,500 m |
| Climb / Leo cao | About 5 minutes to 6,000 m |
| Armament | 2 × 20 mm MG 151; 2 × 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT / 2 × MG 151 20 mm; 2 × Breda-SAFAT 12,7 mm |
| Bomb load | 2 × 160 kg bombs / 2 × bom 160 kg |
| Crew | 1 |
Against its contemporaries the C.205 compared very favourably. Its speed and climb were comparable to the Spitfire Mk IX and the P-51B Mustang, its armament was heavier than that of the Spitfire, and its manoeuvrability was, in the judgement of the pilots who flew all three, excellent. The German Bf 109G, which shared its engine, was faster in a dive but less manoeuvrable in a turn, and the American P-47 Thunderbolt, though faster and more heavily armed, was a much larger and heavier aircraft. The C.205’s weakness was not its performance but its numbers: with only 262 built, it could never be more than a small part of the air war over Italy, however good it was.
9. Operators
Italy was the C.205’s only combat operator, and the type served in three Italian air forces in succession: the Regia Aeronautica, the air force of the Kingdom of Italy, from February to September 1943; the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, the air force of Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic, from 1943 to 1945; and the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force, which fought alongside the Allies from 1943 to 1945.
The Regia Aeronautica’s principal C.205 units were the 1st Fighter Wing and the 51st Wing, and the Social Republic’s principal unit was the 1st Fighter Group, which flew the type in the defence of northern Italy. The Co-Belligerent Air Force’s 51st Wing flew the C.205 in operations over the Balkans and in the defence of southern Italy.
After the war, the C.205 remained in service with the reconstituted Italian Air Force until 1947, when it was withdrawn and replaced by surplus Allied aircraft. No other country operated the C.205 in combat, though the Germans examined captured examples and the Allies flew captured aircraft in tests after the war.
10. Legacy and Assessment
The Greyhound’s reputation
The C.205’s legacy is that of a fine fighter that fought a lost war. Historians judge it as one of the best Italian fighters of the Second World War, and as one of the best piston-engine fighters of the conflict as a whole, and its reputation has grown since the war, as the records of its combat career have been studied and as the testimony of its pilots has been published. The aircraft’s pilots — Visconti, Gorrini and their comrades — are remembered as among the finest fighter pilots Italy produced, and their respect for the C.205, and the respect of their Allied opponents, is the best evidence of the aircraft’s quality.
The C.205’s story is also a reminder of the tragedy of Italy’s war: a fine aircraft, built in too few numbers, fighting first for a regime that had led the country into a war it could not win, and then, after the armistice, in a civil war in which Italians flew the same aircraft against each other. The Veltro — the Greyhound — was, in the judgement of historians, a greyhound in a war of mastiffs: fast, elegant and brave, but outnumbered and outmatched by the industrial might of its enemies.
Survivors
One complete original C.205 survives, preserved at the Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle, near Rome. It is the only intact Veltro in the world, and it is a reminder of an aircraft that was, in the judgement of the men who flew it, the best fighter Italy built during the war. A small number of other C.205s survive in part, and the type lives on in models, in photographs and in the historical record. The survivor matters because it is the only intact Veltro in the world, and it carries the memory of the whole type.
11. FAQ
What was the Macchi C.205 Veltro? / Macchi C.205 Veltro là gì?
The Macchi C.205 Veltro was an Italian single-seat fighter of the Second World War, developed by Mario Castoldi from the C.202 Folgore and powered by the German Daimler-Benz DB 605 engine of about 1,475 horsepower. It was the most widely used of Italy’s three Serie 5 fighters, with about 262 built, and it fought over Sicily in the summer of 1943, in the defence of Rome and Naples, and, after the armistice of September 1943, on both sides of a divided Italy — with the Co-Belligerent Air Force of the south, flying alongside the Allies, and with the fascist air force of the north, flying against them, until the end of the war in April 1945.
How many C.205s were built?
About 262 C.205s were built in total, including prototypes and pre-production aircraft, with the main production version as the C.205V. This was a small total by the standards of the war, but it was comparable to the Fiat G.55, with about 274 built including post-war production, and far larger than the Reggiane Re.2005, with only 48 built. The C.205’s production was limited by the small size of the Macchi factory at Varese, by the shortage of DB 605 engines from Germany, and by Allied bombing, and the type never had the numbers to change the course of the air war over Italy, however good it was as an aircraft.
How fast was the C.205?
The C.205 had a maximum speed of about 640 km/h at 7,000 metres, with a climb to 6,000 metres in about five minutes and a service ceiling of about 11,500 metres. This made it comparable to the Spitfire Mk IX and the P-51 Mustang, and faster than the Bf 109G in some regimes, while its manoeuvrability was, in the judgement of the pilots who flew it, excellent, and its handling was widely praised as stable, responsive and forgiving. Its range, about 1,040 kilometres on internal fuel, was modest, but it was adequate for the defensive operations over Sicily and Italy for which the aircraft was used, and its pilots regarded it as the best fighter they had flown.
What was the C.205’s armament?
The C.205 carried two 20 mm MG 151 cannon in the wings, with 250 rounds per gun, and two 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns in the nose, with 400 rounds per gun, a firepower that was a match for the best Allied fighters of 1943.
Some late-production aircraft carried a third cannon firing through the propeller hub, and the C.205’s firepower was sufficient to destroy a bomber with a short burst and to outgun the fighters it met. For ground attack it could carry two 160-kilogram bombs under the wings, or a single 500-kilogram bomb under the fuselage, and it was used in this role in the fighting over Sicily and in the defence of northern Italy in 1944 and 1945.
Where did the C.205 fight?
The C.205 fought over Sicily in the summer of 1943, in the defence of Naples and Rome, and, after the armistice of 8 September 1943, on both sides of a divided Italy: with the Co-Belligerent Air Force in the south, flying alongside the Allies in operations over the Balkans and in the defence of southern Italy, and with the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana in the north, flying against the Allies in the defence of northern Italy, until the end of the war in April 1945. The two forces flew the same aircraft against each other, in a civil war that lasted until the collapse of the Italian Social Republic, and the C.205’s last combats were fought in that bitter, fratricidal conflict.
Does any C.205 survive today?
Yes. One complete original C.205 survives, preserved at the Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle, near Rome, where it is displayed as the centrepiece of the museum’s Second World War collection. It is the only intact Veltro in the world, and it is a reminder of an aircraft that was, in the judgement of the men who flew it, the best fighter Italy built during the war. A small number of other C.205s survive in part, and the type lives on in models, in photographs and in the historical record, where its pilots — Visconti, Gorrini and their comrades — are remembered as among the finest fighter pilots Italy produced.
12. Sources
- Wikipedia, “Macchi C.205 Veltro” — production figures (about 262 built), first flight, performance data and service history.
- Giorgio Apostolo, Macchi C.205 Veltro (in the Ali d’Italia series) — the standard Italian-language reference on the type’s design and production.
- William Green, Warplanes of the Second World War, Volume One: Fighters (Macdonald, 1960) — the C.205’s design, performance and armament.
- Giovanni Massimello and Giorgio Apostolo, Italian Aces of World War 2 (Osprey, 2000) — the C.205 in combat and its leading pilots.
- Ferdinando D’Amico and Gabriele Valentini, Regia Aeronautica Vol. 2 (Classic, 2005) — the C.205 after the armistice.
- Gianni Cattaneo, The Macchi C.205 Veltro (in the Profile series) — a comparative study of the Serie 5 fighters.
- Nicola Malizia, Macchi C.205 Veltro (in Italian), Rome, 2004.
- Brian Cull, Spitfires Over Sicily (Grub Street, 2000) — the Allied view of the fighting over Sicily.