The Italians enjoyed a bit of notoriety with their early airborne bombing exploits but really, the rest of the show all the way through WWII was iffy.
Like many countries, Italy turned to it's major industrial manufacturers when it needed airplanes, because you didn't just build an airplane factory out of the blue. So, just as the Germans relied on a train factory for some of their aircraft, Italy turned to Fiat. Oddly enough, a current potential plyer in the bailout of North American automobile industry.
The Regia Aeronautica, or Royal Italian Air force was formed in 1928. By 1935 it was at war with Ethiopia. Equipped with over 1500 ill equipped, slow and virtually defenceless aircraft, they easily wupped the poor Ethiopians. The closest thing they had to airborne weapon was a spear.
When the Royal Air force got into a real fighting war in Spain in 1936, it was apparent that the weird little Fiats were hopeless. But somehow the skilled Italian pilots were among the top dozen aces of the war. Maybe being slow was an advantage.
The main aircraft was the Fiat CR 32, a biplane with just 2 machine guns and a maximum speed of just over 200 mph. At the beginning of WWII they upgraded this tiger of the skies with yet another biplane fighter, the CR 42. Finally in 1940 they scrapped the bi wing design for the C 50 monoplane. Unfortunately, it stunk and was hazardous to fly.
Mind you the Italian bombers were of an equally not quite there design too, having 3 engines. This made aiming a real challenge and impossible to see or shoot straight forward. And, once again, they were slow.
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