Caproni Campini Ca.183bis

The Caproni-Campini Ca.183bis was an Italian projected high-altitude fighter intended to have both piston and jet propulsion. It was to have a 932 kilowatt Daimler-Benz DB 605 in the nose driving a six-bladed contra-rotating propeller, augmented by a secondary piston engine behind the cockpit driving a Campini compressor that was expected to add a boost of 100 kilometres per hour from jet thrust, for an optimistic maximum speed of 740 kilometres per hour and a range of 2,000 kilometres. Armament was to be a 20 or 30 millimetre cannon in the propeller hub with four more 20 millimetre cannon in the wings, and the weight was to be 7,500 kilograms. The prototype was 80 percent complete at the armistice, work continued under the Italian Social Republic from September 1943, but attacks on military sites slowed development and the prototype was probably destroyed in 1944.