Caproni Ca311

[Il_Signor_Regio]

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

• Yes
• No

Description: The Caproni Ca311 was an Italian twin engine light bomber. After the various success gained with the Caproni Ca309 and 310, the Italian engineer Cesare Pallavicino started to design a new aircraft based on the last one, after the Regia Aeronautica started a competition for replace the Imam Ro37 recon biplane. Compared to the previous two aircraft, the Ca311 was fitted with a cockpit mainly made with glass, for give to the operator a better view of the ground. It made it first flight in the first april 1939 and it was ordered in around 300 units. During the second world war the Ca311 was used in every front were Italy was involved, from the Russian front to the north african front. It mainly performed recon, transport and light attck missions, were it proved to be successfoul. In the 1941 the last units were produced in the M version, an improved version with a different cockpit that was more similar to the Ca310 cockpit. In the late 1941 the aircraft was becoming obsolete and it was going to be replaced by the Ca313 and 314. Before the second world war it was exported to Jugoslavia in a total of 15 units and in late 1942 10 units were passed to the Indipendent state of croatia (an Italo-german puppet state). This version in the specific was the first one, designed as Ca311.

Why it should be in game: It could give to the Italian ground lineup a small and fast light bomber for low tier

Specifications

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Crew: 3
Length: 11.74 m (38 ft 6 in)
Wingspan: 16.20 m (53 ft 2 in)
Height:** 3.69 m (12 ft 1 in)
Wing area:38.4 m2 (413 sq ft)
Empty weight: 3,460 kg (7,630 lb)
Gross weight: 4,822 kg (10,630 lb)
Powerplant: 2 × Piaggio Stella P.VII C.35 7 cylinder radial engines , 350 kW (470 hp) each
Maximum speed: 307 km/h (191 mph, 166 kn)
Range:*1,600 km (1,000 mi, 870 nmi)
Service ceiling:*7,400 m (24,300 ft)

Armaments

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3x 7.7 mm Breda Safat Machinegun
Up to 400 kg of bombs
252x 2 kg bombs (similar to cluster bombs)
32x 12 kg bombs
8x 50 kg bombs
4x 100 kg bombs

Sources

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Caproni Ca.311 - Wikipedia
SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM: Il Caproni Ca.311
Caproni  Ca
Michele Raus - Modellismo in scala: Caproni Ca.311
https://www.colettiscombataircraft.com/item/caproni-ca-311/

Picture

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[ImportantSimone5]

Approved +1.

[Ollysbuddy]

+1 Italy could use some light bombers

[LoSpilotoITA]

It is a +1!

[Nicholas_Concu]

+1

[OpusAudereSemper]

+1 beautiful

[Hetaeron]

Rather than having the Caproni Ca311 in the game I would much rather you suggest the evolved and upgraded variants of this aircraft which are:

1. Caproni Ca.313: 3 Scotti-Isotta Fraschini, two in 12.7 mm calibre and one in 7.7 mm calibre. War load up to 400 kg between bombs and Spezzone or one torpedo.
2. Caproni Ca.314C: ground attack version, characterised by the presence of four 12.7 mm calibre machine guns at the front + one 12.7 calibre machine gun on the dorsal turret, with a war load of 1280 kg of bombs in the fuselage. 254 examples were produced.

[Il_Signor_Regio]

I’m working on those too

[kamina_sama]

+1 pls

[blazeFox]

+1 It will be super low power, but as first rank light bomber could work

[Ollysbuddy]

Why not all 3?

[Fireraid233]

+1

[Hetaeron]

I prefer Caproni Ca.313, Caproni Ca.314C are the evolved and upgraded variants have a lot more firepower and go faster … which all translates into a higher survivability.

[Ollysbuddy]

But I ask you yet again, why not all 3?

If we can get all 3, it would make sense to get all 3 no?

Especially if it’s an easy model to just add a little bit more detail to, and to swap some stats?

3 is bigger then 2!

[Hetaeron]

Yes, I understood your point of view… that 3 vehicles is a bigger number than 2 vehicles… but as I said before it’s a matter of survival.

Ca311 is literally too weak, it only has 3x7.7 calibre machine guns as defensive weapons (ineffective to create a viable defence against enemy fighters), on top of that you are slow it can’t outrun enemy fighters (max speed: 307km/h), and the bomb load is ridiculous it doesn’t carry bombs capable of effectively destroying tanks (the heaviest bomb it can carry is 4x100kg).
If you stop and think and evaluate its stats wisely, you realise that it is an aircraft that should be at BR 0.5, it is a non-existent BR in the game.

Compare it to the S.81, the weakest bomber in the Italian line, the S.81 outclasses the Ca311 in everything: in terms of armament (6x7.7 calibre guns), in speed (335km/h) and in bomb load (4x500km).

If the Ca311 came into play it would be used by players more as a collector’s vehicle than as a game vehicle due to its poor stats.

• Collector’s vehicle = It’s a vehicle you unlock, but you don’t use it in combat, you keep it in the hangar gathering dust because it’s too weak to survive a game.
• Gaming vehicle = competitive vehicle that can entertain you in combat.

EDIT: Corrected typo

[LeonDasPro]

I want to love it, but as already noted elsewhere it seems to be an unfortunate backward step adding nothing and possibly even worse than existing alternatives. Sadly WT and real life experience don’t always match up.

Some of the derivatives such as the Ca313 & 314 and their subvariants make for a much stronger case. Improved performance and weapons bring them at least on a par with others. Although Italian needs for bombers/attackers is felt more around tier II and III they would still be a nice future proofing as well as variety in the standalone tier I.

[Ollysbuddy]

Okay, you are comparing a frontline medium bomber to a much much lighter aircraft

The true comparison would be to the Ba.65
Which, while a lot faster, it carries the same bomb load, and only has a rifle caliber defensive gun

Yes it has 2 .50’s as well
But it also sits at 1.3

This would be fine at 1.0

You also forget that the Potez 633 exists in the French tree, it too only has rifle round protection, with NO .50’s to speak of, and a worse bomb load then the Ca311, and it sits at 1.7

100kg is perfectly fine to bomb tanks, it kills Sherman’s, so 1.0 bombing would be simple

This would be a very agile, slow light bomber, and it would be perfectly usable

99% of 1.0 players are brand new to the game, and couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, so this would be plenty competitive, and would fill a niche that doesn’t exist in the Italian tech tree

It would be the first Italian twin engine to unlock, and it would be great for new players to use to practice bombing in

It would get a lot of use, just because you don’t think you’d use it, doesn’t mean most people wouldn’t

[Hetaeron]

Ok, I admit that the comparison with the “Ca.311” and the “Potez 633” is a good argument, not great, but good, honestly I didn’t think about comparing these 2 vehicles… but you have to consider these 2 vehicles correctly, despite being similar the “Potez 633” is slightly better:

• The “Potez 633” is very fast (421Km/h - Speed is everything in warthunder you have low levels it helps you to run away from enemy fighters). The Ca.311 can max out at 307 km/h, which is more than 100Km/h less than the ‘Potez 633’, which translates to you having a hard time running away from enemy fighters.
• Another strength of the “Potez 633” compared to the “Ca.311” is that it can carry slightly heavier bombs than the “Ca.311” (2x 200 = The bigger the bomb, the bigger the radius of destruction of the tanks, all this translates to you being more lethal in combat as you speed up, hit and run away… and the bigger the blast radius, the more you can avoid getting too close to your target to drop the bombs).
• While the only advantage of the “Ca.311” over the “Potez 633” is that it has 2 turrets (dorsal and ventral turret), compared to the “Potez 633” which only has 1 turret (dorsal turret).

Overall, the ‘Ca.311’ is slightly weaker than the ‘Potez 633’, but nevertheless I would say that you made a good argument by comparing the ‘Potez 633’ with the ‘Caproni Ca.311’.

With this argument I admit you have convinced me the “Caproni Ca.311” could in fact stand at BR 1.0… But not beyond that, otherwise it would become as I pointed out earlier a “collector’s vehicle” and not a “gaming vehicle”, and considering the way Italian vehicles are constantly being augmented by BR it might in fact become one over time, but I sincerely hope not.

Whereas the comparison you made between the “Ca.311” and the “Ba.65” seems very forced to me, since the “Ba.65” is far superior to the “Ca.311”.
If you try to compare these 2 vehicles, the “Ba.65” comes out the clear winner against the “Ca.311”:

• As you said the “Ba.65” is much faster (504 km/h speed is very important in War Thunder), the “Ba.65” is also faster than the S.81.
• “Ba.65” is a smaller vehicle, this helps it in defence against enemy AA and aircraft… The smaller the target, the harder it is to hit, which is why the ‘Ba.65’ does not need many turrets for defence.
• But above all, the big advantage of the “Ba.65” over the “Ca.311” is the 4 front machine guns (2x12.7mm + 2x7.7mm), which gives the “Ba.65” a fair amount of firepower and can be used to effectively shoot down larger and more robust aircraft, such as Rank 1 enemy bombers.

[Ollysbuddy]

You are right with the Ba, but I just think this would be just as competitive at 1.0 as the other mentioned vehicles at their respective BR’s

The only thing would be uptiers, but it’s unlikely to be used in ARB anyways, so the ground pounding would be the bigger factor

Idk, I just think it would be enough, as long as the flight model is half decent, and it’s minimum Fuel is reasonable, like 20 to 30 minutes, vs some stupid 1 hr fuel load

With it being so light, I feel like it would outperform a lot of bigger and faster medium/light bombers, and would probably out turn a lot of the American Divebombers that this would have to face