Impressed by the Henschel 123, IMAM decided to emulate it. Three 7.7mm guns and a tidy bomb load, with good all round performance, made it worthy of production.
It was unfortunate that no testing was done in certain conditions. On arrival in Ethiopia, the two units flying the 42 found that the dust got into the undercart workings and caused lot of trouble.
Of the 47 aircraft in country, 15 were lost due to the wheels not fully lowering, and three when it got stuck part way up after take off.
The remaining planes plus 18 still in Italy were later passed on the Iraq, By the time of the Rashid Ali uprising and attack on R.A.F. Habbiniya,
there were 34 remaining aircraft. Before they could be used in anger however, R.A.F. Wellingtons bombed the base and scored hits on the two hangers the RO42s were kept, and those not fully burned out were still write offs.