Originally posted by humble
The G.55 was never tested vs either the K4 or any late model 190. It was actually a midwar bird and testing was done in Feb of 1943 vs a 109G4 and 190A5. The biggest benifit to the G.55 was that it had 3 x 20mm integrated into the design without gondolas. Kurt Tank contnued to work on a 5 x 20mm version after Italy surrendered. General concensus is that the G.55 performed equally to the 109 and was judged slightly inferior to the 190 by the germans. The G.55 ceretainly had better landing/takeoff handling then the 109 did and the end result was an "official" request to replace the 109 with the G.55 by the luftwaffe. It was determined that the G.55 took 2.5 or more times the man hours to build at a comparetively higher cost so the request was denied.
There is no question that the G.55 significantly outperformed both the 190 & 109 if they had been configured with the heavy gun packages. The G.55 also had a significant edge in range (20%+) so given the US losses in daylight bombing had even a few squadrons of G.55's been available in mid 1943 the course of the airwar might have changed since the G.55's had the performance to contest the 38's and jugs and the firepower to hit the buffs as well as some additional "time on station" to play with...
The G.55 was one of the 3 seiries 5 fighters that the Italians made. The 2005, .205 and the G.55 were all built around the same time. The G.55 was acually a late war high-alt fighter which outpreformed the .205 in high alts. They could not chose which one was better so they let all of them go into production.
There main problem was that was that they built them like they were Ferraris, with time. If they did not do this, they would have a significant impact on the war.
