Ansaldo A.C.3

Today it's the turn for the Ansaldo A.C.3 which was a development of the A.C.2 and was the most used variant of the Ansaldo built Dewoitine variants.

The Ansaldo A.C.3 was heavily based in the French Dewoitine D.9 and it differed in having a slightly increased wing span area and being marginally shorter than the original D.9.

It was powered by a 420hp Alfa Romeo Jupiter , which was a license-built version of the French Gnome-Rhône Jupiter IV nine-cylinder radial. It was armed by two 7,7mm Vickers machine-gun mounted in the fuselage, and, sometimes, two wing-mounted 7,62mm Darne machine guns. However those wing-mounted ones were sometimes replaced by a single one mounted in the centre of the wing section in order to fire upwards in an oblique angle. They also introduced in Italy some new features for the time like radio equipation or smoke-bomb system.

The prototype was flown in early 1926 and a total of 150 A.C.3s were delivered between September 1926 and April 1927 and they gradually replaced the Ansaldo A.C.2 serving in the same squadrons that the A.C.2 had served with, the 93ª, 94ª and 95ª squadrons, all of them comprised inside the 8º Gruppo (8th group) of the 2º Stormo Caccia Terrestre (2nd land-fighter wing). They continued in active service during the early-to-mid 1930s performing the assault role in order to develop the theories of the Italian general Amedeo Mecozzi. After a first experimental stage where they served with the VII Gruppo Caccia (7th fighter group) in order to clearly define the specifications needed for a dedicated assault airplane, in 1930 the group was transformed into the VII Gruppo Autonomo Caccia (7th Autonomous Fighter group) and then, in 1931 into the VII Gruppo Auonomo Caccia e d'Assalto (7th Autonomous Fighter and Assault group) based in the airfield of Rome-Ciampino south.

In 1934 the VII Gruppo became part of the 5º Stormo Assalto (5th Assault wing) which kept in active the A.C.3 until 1936 when they were replaced by the Caproni A.P.1 or the Breda Ba.64 which were much adequate for the assault role, apart from being more modern.

Sources:
1. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansaldo_AC.2 (The parts about the A.C.3)
2. Salamander Books - The Complete book of fighter