Sword of the Sea:
The Aircraft
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
May 2023

Note: Our Second Great War at Sea: Sword of the Sea is an expansion for Second World War at Sea: Horn of Africa, and it tells the story of this conflict that never happened in Middle Eastern waters.

In the world of the Second Great War, fixed-wing aircraft development is about a decade behind what we know in our own history. With the Great War coming to a close on the last day of 1916, the rapid technological advances of 1917 and 1918 would be stretched out over many more years. Airships, instead, would be seen as the future, and develop into both weapons of war and the backbone of a world-spanning air transport network.

That makes Second Great War books and games the perfect place to introduce actual aircraft of the 1920’s and 1930’s to the Second World War at Sea series, and that’s what we did with Second Great War at Sea: Sword of the Sea. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Italy

The backbone of the Regia Aeronautica’s fighter force, the Fiat Cr.20 was for its time a very advanced and nimble biplane fighter, that would be developed into the even more successful Cr.32 and Cr.42 fighters that saw considerable action in the Second World War. It carried two machine guns and could make 270 kilometers per hour (170 miles per hour), which is not particularly fast. But it was a popular plane; the Italian Air Force accepted just under 750 of them and they served Austria, Hungary and Lithuania as well.

In our own history, they had become obsolete by the late 1930’s and were relegated to training duties. In the world of the Second Great War, the Cr.20 is Italy’s front-line fighter with over 1,000 of them in service and more units sold to Italy’s allies Argentina and Spain.

The standard reconnaissance seaplane of the Royal Italian Air Force is the Savoia-Marchetti SM.55, a twin-hulled flying boat that in our reality entered production in 1924 and became very popular both as a military plane and a civilian airliner. Daredevil fascist Italo Balbo flew squadrons of the SM.55 across the Atlantic. By the time of the Second World War, surviving Italian examples had been worn out and put in reserve, but a handful still served the Romanian and Brazilian navies as recon craft.

Two engines powered the craft, both in the same nacelle over the center of the wing. One powered a standard propellor facing forward, the other a pusher propellor facing rearwards. The SM.55 in its military version had four machine guns for defense, and could carry up to 1,000 kilograms of bombs or a torpedo.

The SM.55 flying boat.

In our alternative history, the SM.55 entered service much later, and remains Italy’s standard flying boat. Its performance is very good by the standard of the Second Great War, and certainly still acceptable when compared to European craft of the Second World War (though not as good as the American or Japanese long-range recon seaplanes).

The CANSA FC12, on the other hand, didn’t fly until 1940 – some of the planes from the Second Great War truly are alternative designs, rejected for one reason or another. It was an unusual, perhaps unique project – to take parts of scrapped aircraft like the Cr.20 fighter, and recycle them around the Cr.32’s Fiat A.30 liquid-cooled engine to produce a training craft for fighter pilots. Wings and fuselage would be made of plywood to reduce the amount of strategic metals used to build the plane. A low-wing monoplane with a very modern look and retractable undercarriage, the FC12 also turned out to have very robust construction despite its lack of metal parts.

The FC12 confounded expectations by turning in outstanding test performance, yet was rejected anyway, as the Air Force had already decided to use retired Cr.32 biplanes in the advanced training role. CANSA, unwilling to abandon the project, recast it as a dive bomber, adding air brakes and hard points for up to four bombs. The plane still faced rejection, and when foreign orders did not appear CANSA appears to have scrapped the prototype. The FC12 gets new life in the Second Great War, as an Italian dive bomber.

Iran

The Imperial Iranian Air Force of the Second Great War imports its aircraft from Russia and Italy, with Italian instructors overseeing training. The Iranians are not particularly good at their jobs, but they do fly what pass for modern aircraft in this alternative world.

The standard Iranian fighter is the Russian-made AN12, a small highly maneuverable biplane built by the Anatra Works for the Imperial Russian Air Force. The Russians replaced it in front-line service in 1936, at which time 200 of the machines were sold on to the Iranians. There’s still service life left in them; they have a British-made Bristol Jupiter, a pair of machine guns and the ability to carry a light bomb load.

Note: “An12” was the original designation of the plane that became the Polikarpov I-5 and served the Red Air Force in the early 1930’s. Remaining planes were brought out of storage in 1941 and used as ground-attack craft in the early months of the Great Patriotic War.

The standard Iranian flying boat, likewise, is the Russian-made M22 single-hull plane, based on the very successful M5 design of the Great War.  It’s a slow but reliable boat with good range, carrying a single machine gun for self-defense and a light load of bombs.

Note: The actual M22 was only a prototype, one of many designs built and flown by D.P. Grigorivich in the mid- to late-1920’s.

As with the AN12, the Russians have sold on 75 of the flying boats to the Iranians. In both cases, the Shah’s agents have paid full price and pocketed “gifts” from their Russian counterparts.

Bribery has also played a role in Iranian purchases of Italian aircraft, though probably less of one than low prices and easy credit terms. The Iranians operate the tri-motor Savoia-Marchetti SM.73 as a bomber; in our own reality it served first as an airliner and then as a military transport. The Royal Italian Air Force found it well-suited to operations from the short, rough airstrips found in East Africa. It had good range and cargo capacity, which would have translated to bomb capacity in the same manner as the SM.81, which was derived from the SM.73 design.

The Breda Ba.65 attack plane did see service with the Royal Italian Air Force, in Spain during the Civil War and in Libya during the opening campaigns of the Second World War. It had some success, but was replaced by the Ba.88, a crapulent design that could not even take off when fully loaded yet was accepted for service (this is the sort of thing that happens in a fascist state, where corruption is institutionalized and corporate and state interests are one).

Export customers included the Kingdom of Iraq, which operated two squadrons, and in Sword of the Sea these planes serve the Empire of Iran instead.

Britain

The Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm don’t have much of a presence east of Suez, but given the relative lack of air power by any of the combatants even their handful of squadrons can make a difference.

The Royal Indian Navy operates a pair of old light cruisers converted to operate helicopters, the prototype for further conversions from the Royal Navy’s deep stock of similar ships in reserve. Their small air groups fly the R4 Hoverfly helicopter, an American development produced by Sikorsky in the United States and under license by Westland in the United Kingdom.

The Hoverfly is suited for anti-submarine work, minesweeping, and short-range reconnaissance, but not much else. It’s a small, unarmed helicopter of limited lift capacity, considered very difficult to fly. But it’s a valuable machine when flying from a convoy escort, and that’s its role.

In our own history, the R4 Hoverfly did not take to the air until 1942, but did see action by war’s end in the medical evacuation role. It was not used for anti-submarine duty before the war ended. But in the world of the Second Great War, rotary flight is much more advanced than in our own history, and the R4 is available from the start of the war.

The Fleet Air Arm also operates several squadrons of Short Empire flying boats in Middle Eastern waters. The Empire was considered a parallel development of the big Sunderland flying boat used in the Second World War for patrol duties. In the Second Great War, the Royal Navy has to make due with the smaller, less capable Empire. It’s still a very useful plane, and better than anything the Central Powers can offer.

The Royal Air Force fields several squadrons of the Gloster Gauntlet biplane fighter, the standard RAF fighter of the mid-1930’s in our own history, which saw limited action in the early months of the Second World War. In the Second Great War it’s very much a front-line aircraft, but it’s not a very good one and is badly outmatched by the Turkish Fokkers.

The RAF also fields several squadrons of Vickers Wellesley bombers, an ungainly and fantastically ugly aircraft that like the Gauntlet saw limited service in secondary theaters in the first year of the Second World War. It’s also a front-line aircraft in the Second Great War, offering good range and little else.

Ottoman Turkey

As a member of the Central Powers, the Ottoman Empire depends almost exclusively on its allies for modern aircraft. A small start has been made toward establishing a local aircraft industry, but so far it has only produced licensed versions of German, Austrian or Polish aircraft designs.

The Fokker D.XVII is the standard Imperial German carrier fighter, and also equips shore-based squadrons. In addition to the Ottoman Empire, it’s also operated by Poland and Finland, and produced in Poland under license. It carries a pair of machine guns, with reasonable range for a plane of its type.

The real D.XVII entered Dutch service in 1932 (in our fake history, Anthony Fokker doesn’t flee Germany to avoid paying his taxes) and by 1939 had been removed from service as obsolete, though a few saw action in May 1940 anyway.

The standard Ottoman patrol plane, the Dornier Wal (“Whale”), serves the same role for Imperial Germany. In our own reality, the Whale entered production in 1922, ceasing in 1936, and proved very popular as an airliner and mail carrier. Several nations used it in a military role, though Nazi Germany only used some planes.

The Whale was a single-hulled flying boat, a push-pull design with separate engines powering a separate propellor at either end of its overhead-mounted engine nacelle. It had reasonable range and very light armament; its super-power was its amazing reliability. In our history it’s a front-line aircraft in both Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire, as well as other historical users like the Netherlands.

The ZL22 torpedo plane, on the other hand, is unique to the world of the Second Great War. It’s a variation on an actual torpedo seaplane, the Hamburger Flugzeugwerke Ha.142, which was not chosen for production by the Nazi German Air Force. In our history, this is a Halberstadt aircraft, built by a firm that did not survive the imposition of the Versailles Treaty’s ban on aircraft production. It’s a monoplane, twin-engine floatplane of middling performance by the standards of our own 1940, but very effective in the world of the Second Great War.

Germany

In Sword of the Sea, Imperial Germany provides just a small aerial contingent to assist the Ottoman campaign. Like the naval war, the air war is an Ottoman operation and the Central Powers allies mostly provide only material support.

The standard heavy bomber of Imperial Germany is the Junkers G.38, a “deep wing” aircraft made famous in the Miyazaki film The Wind Rises and produced in Japan as the Ki.20 heavy bomber. Nazi Germany did not order it as a bomber, but did deploy the lone surviving prototype as a transport plane.

The G.38 had enormous range and cargo capacity, making it attractive as a bomber; it also was a huge, slow lumbering target, making it unattractive as a bomber. In the world of the Second Great War, where most air forces are operating biplane fighters as their first line of air defenses, the G.38 has a much better chance of striking its target and returning safely to base.

You can order Sword of the Sea right here.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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