The Caproni Ca.331 Raffica was an Italian reconnaissance aircraft/light bomber/night fighter.
In response to a 1938 Italian Air Ministry requirement for a new tactical reconnaissance aircraft with combat capability, Ing Cesare Pallavacino of the Caproni company’s Caproni Bergamaschi subsidiary began the design of the Ca.331 O.A. (O.A. standing for Osservazione Area, Italian for “Area Observation”), also designated Ca.331A, in October 1938.
It was innovative for Caproni in being of all-metal construction.
The Ca.331 O.A. prototype, a twin engine low wing monoplane with an unstepped cockpit and glazed nose, had duralumin stressed skin on both its fuselage and wings, and its wings were of an inverted gull-wing configuration.
It had two Isotta Fraschini Delta RC.40 engines rated at 574 kilowatts (770 horsepower) each.
The aircraft employed a three-man crew of pilot, observer/gunner and radioman/gunner, and was armed with four 12.7-millimeter (0.5-inch) Breda-SAFAT machine guns, two of them in fixed mounts in the wing roots firing forward, one in a dorsal turret, and one in a ventral mount.
The Ca.331 O.A. also had a bomb bay capable of carrying up to 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds) of bombs and four external bomb racks under its wings.
