Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 Sparviero

The Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 began as the S.M.79P, an eight-passenger transport designed by Alessandro Marchetti. Prototype I-MAGO first flew on 28 September 1934. It had been intended for the MacRobertson race from Britain to Australia but missed the entry deadline; instead, its combination of a clean fuselage, retractable undercarriage and three radial engines revealed the basis of an unusually fast bomber.

Civil and specially prepared S.M.79s then set distance and payload records that Italian propaganda publicised aggressively. In the Istres–Damascus–Paris race of August 1937, Savoia-Marchetti trimotors took the first three places. The records were real even if the regime’s use of them was political: the Sparviero emerged from a transport programme with proven speed, range and structural reliability, rather than being conceived from the outset around a bomb bay.

Militarisation created the shape that made the aircraft instantly recognisable. A dorsal fairing behind the cockpit housed a forward-firing machine gun, while an offset ventral gondola provided positions for the bombardier and a defensive gunner. The raised fairing gave rise to “il Gobbo Maledetto” — the Damned Hunchback — a nickname associated especially with the crews who trusted the aircraft in the torpedo role.

The structure mixed welded steel tube, duralumin, plywood and fabric. Its bomb bay carried weapons vertically, an arrangement inherited from the conversion and poorly suited to large bombs. Three Alfa Romeo 126 radials powered the representative S.79-I; many later S.79-IIs used approximately 1,000 hp Piaggio P.XI engines. In Spain from 1936, the bomber’s speed initially made interception difficult, but that advantage narrowed rapidly as monoplane fighters improved.

When Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940, the Regia Aeronautica possessed 594 S.M.79s, of which 403 were combat-ready. The type equipped fourteen stormi and formed the core of the medium-bomber force. It attacked targets in France, Malta, North Africa, Greece, Yugoslavia and East Africa, often operating from exposed bases where its mixed construction could be repaired with relatively modest facilities.

Its limitations were equally clear. The crew had restricted fields of view, defensive fire overlapped awkwardly, and vertical bomb stowage constrained the load. Level bombing against a moving ship from medium altitude produced few hits, while by 1941 modern fighters could catch the once-fast trimotor. The Sparviero remained useful as a conventional bomber, but its enduring reputation came from a specialist weapon carried beneath the fuselage.

Trials with 450 mm Whitehead aerial torpedoes began before the war, but institutional rivalry and shortages left Italy without an established torpedo-bomber force in June 1940. The experimental unit formed at Gorizia-Merna on 25 July 1940 and moved seven adapted S.M.79s to Libya. Five aircraft made the type’s unsuccessful torpedo combat debut against Alexandria on 15 August. Technique, training and fuzes all had to be learned in war.

Although the aircraft had two external crutches, its normal combat load was one torpedo, approximately 5.46 m long and 876 kg with a warhead of about 170 kg. Carrying two seriously reduced speed and handling; the double load was used mainly in trials or on transfer flights. Operational attacks generally released at roughly 100 m altitude and about 300 km/h. Listing two torpedoes as the standard offensive load therefore misrepresents how the Sparviero actually fought.

The first confirmed success came on 17 September 1940, when an S.M.79 torpedo struck the heavy cruiser HMS Kent. The explosion killed 33 men and kept the ship out of operational service for roughly a year. On 14 October, another Sparviero hit the light cruiser HMS Liverpool, blowing off part of her bow; she too required more than a year of repair. These attacks demonstrated that a single low-flying aircraft could impose consequences far beyond the price of its torpedo.

The method demanded exceptional nerve. Crews approached at masthead height, held a steady course while ships filled the sky with automatic fire, released inside the torpedo’s narrow speed-and-height envelope and then had to cross the target’s defensive screen to escape. Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia became the best-known aerosilurante commander, but the campaign was a collective achievement by pilots, observers, radio operators and gunners rather than the story of one ace.

S.M.79 torpedo units fought throughout the struggle to supply Malta and the Axis armies in North Africa. They attacked cruisers, destroyers and merchantmen during the great convoy battles, including the operations surrounding Pedestal in August 1942. Results were often difficult to assess amid simultaneous attacks by submarines, surface craft and other aircraft, so claims of ships sunk by Sparvieri alone should be treated cautiously. Confirmed damage, however, was substantial enough to shape Royal Navy escort and fighter-cover decisions.

Attrition steadily eroded the specialist force. Experienced crews were hard to replace, Allied radar and carrier fighters improved, and the ageing trimotor had little protection against concentrated defensive fire. A July 1943 return for the listed torpedo units recorded only 27 serviceable aircraft from an establishment of 77. The S.M.79 was still dangerous when surprise and weather favoured it, but by the invasion of Sicily the system that had made it effective was close to exhaustion.

The armistice of 8 September 1943 split surviving aircraft and crews. Twenty-two S.M.79s reached Allied-held territory, but only four were initially combat-serviceable; the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force mainly used the type for transport and communications. In the north, the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana operated late S.M.79-III or bis torpedo aircraft. Their most ambitious operation was a night attack on Gibraltar on 4–5 June 1944.

Export derivatives broadened the history beyond the Mediterranean. Romania acquired twin-engined S.M.79B variants and produced JRS-79B derivatives with Junkers Jumo engines; these served against the Soviet Union, justifying the type’s limited Eastern Front classification. Around 1,370 aircraft of the family were built.

• Chris Dunning, Courage Alone: The Italian Air Force 1940–1943 (Hikoki Publications).
• Jonathan W. Thompson, Italian Civil and Military Aircraft 1930–1945 (Aero Publishers).
• Giorgio Apostolo, Savoia-Marchetti S.79 (Ali d’Italia, La Bancarella Aeronautica).
• Marco Mattioli, Savoia-Marchetti S.79 Sparviero Torpedo-Bomber Units (Osprey, Combat Aircraft 106). view↗
• Marco Mattioli, Savoia-Marchetti S.79 Sparviero Bomber Units (Osprey, Combat Aircraft 123). view↗