Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Forgotten Weapons"
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The Madsen LMG is an industrial tool. Like a lightbulb assembly tool, or a barbed wire assembly tool.
The kind of complete control it has over the cartridge (“the piece to be worked”), with one element (and sometimes two, see the lever-actuated recoil spring) performing one action (the rammer pushes the cartridge into the chamber, the tilting bolt locks it, the hammer/striker fires it, the tilting bolt unlocks it, the tilting extractor extracts it…), is typical of that kind of tools.
In that kind of tools, where there is a single machine in the factory to work a million pieces a week, simplification doesn’t matter.
That’s why it works. Because that kind of tools work.
The downside is the cost, and the work of who has to service it.
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We have a first hand account of the functioning of this rifle in Maj. Luigi Gucci book "Armi portatili" year 1915, p.58, and of the reasons it was not adopted.
"The tested model, very simple, rugged, as handy as the M91, had shown a reliable, predictable and effective functioning, and it has a relatively low cost for the transformation. However, although the weapon could be assigned to some special troops, it's not convenient to adopt it for the entire army".
The reasons were that the cost effectiveness was only apparent. In adopting a semiauto rifle for all the army, the price of the rifle was, in the end, marginal in respect to the price of the same cartridges for it (the price of a brand new semiauto rifle, not a conversion was estimated in 60L, that of a single Carcano cartridge was 0.1L, so a semiauto rifle costed like 600 cartridges), So it made little sense to adopt a solution that, "however ingenious, simple and well designed is, it's anyway a stopgap and, as such, it can't fully comply to all the requirements of an excellent infantry semiautomatic rifle."
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To me, the definition is fundamentally flawed.
It would be better to define three classes of RIFLE ammunitions. Defined by the energy at the muzzle, with a reasonably sized barrel.
1) under 2200 joules (7.92mm Kurz, 5.56 NATO, 7.62X39... practically the almost totality of the intermediate cartridges effectively adopted). They are optimal for individual automatic fire, decent for SAW, unsuited for GPMG.
2) from 2200 to 3000 joules (all the classic 6.5mm service rounds, 30-30, .30 Remington, 6.5 Grendel, 6.8 SPC, 6.5 LICC...). They are decent for individual automatic fire, optimal for SAW, decent for GPMG.
3) over 3000 joules (7.92mm Mauser, .303 British, 30-06, 7.62 NATO, .277 Fury, 6.5mm Creedmoor...). They are unsuited for individual automatic fire, decent for SAW, optimal for GPMG.
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+HamsterPants522 The reliability index rating of Warrantydirect, an insurer that puts its own money on it, put FIAT on 15th position among car manufacturer, ahead of Hyundai, Subaru, Citroen, Mitsubishi, Volvo, Volkswagen, Saab, BMW, Mercedes, Audi...
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@studentaviator3756 It's an exceptionally well thought-out gun that ended up being exceptionally poorly built.
The problem was that the Santa Barbara Arsenal had not mass produced anything for decades before the AMELI (the problem with state-owned arsenals, that made so they went out of fashion, except for maintenance. You can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems). Something happened between the industrialization and the production phases, that made so the production guns were flimsy and out of specs.
Yeah. Had a proper gun manufacturer put its hands on the design, it could have ended up differently.
In an alternate world, Beretta, instead of acquiring the production licence for the Minimi, could have acquired that for the AMELI.
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You are welcome, and thank you for the video. Knowing Gucci's book without having seen the rifle he was talking of, I was very curious about it.
Seeing the rifle, it's easier to understand his reasons. IE, Gucci talks specifically of the barrel. The reason of the conversion is mainly to reuse the existing barrels (that are left untouched) as well as the receivers (that have to be remachined), the stocks (that have to be slightly reworked), and the magazine. At the cost of a new bolt, a recoil spring, and some minor parts.
But Carcano barrels have been designed for a bolt-action rate of fire. Gucci, talking of a generic rifle's barrel of his time, says that it's internal reaches 450° after 80 rounds of rapid fire, and says that it has been estimated that the barrels of the converted rifles, due to the more rapid fire allowed by the semiauto operation, would have been worn out after about 2000 rounds. So there is little sense in using a less than optimal rifle to reuse a thing that is however destined to wear out quickly.
We can make a similar consideration for the stock too. To save the receiver-barrel assembly, the shooter has the recoiling mass of the receiver directly ahead of his eye, and above his thumb. Although that's not really dangerous, it's surely discomfortable. the situation could be improved with a new stock, with the receiver a little farther from the shooter's eye and a more pronounced pistol grip that moves the thumb away from the receiver. But, that way, you don't save the existing stocks any more. Ecc... ecc...
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+Freeman Matthews
The law that ban "military" calibers from civilian use is not made to not allow civilians to use "too powerful" rounds. .40 S&W is legal, .357mag is legal, .44mag is legal, 10mm is legal, and so on.
The law is intended to not allow military personnel to privately purchase ammos for their issued weapons.
However, sorry, but Michele had not been accurate.
5 rounds restriction is for hunting rifles only. The limit for semiauto pistols is 15 rounds. The limit for sporting rifles (that comprehend "black rifles" like M4, AK47 and so on) is 29 rounds (STANAG magazines modified to accept 29 rounds instead of 30 are legal). BTW, .223 Rem is legal.
Knives of every dimensions are legal, if there is a reason to carry them. You can carry a machete in a forest, not at the stadium. You can carry a folding knife almost everywere.
To carry firearms outside your house or workplace, you must have one of three kind of permission:
1) hunting licence. You can carry hunting rifles and ammos, the rifles have to be unloaded during transport, until you are in a place where hunting is permitted.
2) sporting licence. You can carry every kind of rifle and pistol and their ammo to and from a range. Weapons have to be unloaded during transport.
3) defence licence. You can carry loaded pistols. This kind of licence is harder to obtain than the former two (that are pretty easy, they only requires a bit of paperwork, a medical examination, a payment and the attendance of a single theoretical and practical lesson at a range).
The kind of licence does not restrict the kind of weapons you can purchase.
Weapons are not required to be disassembled during transport in any case.
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The SR2 bomb was filled with 32gr of TNT, into an iron case, and with an iron spiral around it to ensure fragmentation. The explosive filling was inferior to the later (from 1944) US MKII hand grenades, but superior to the earlier ones, so I wouldn't deem them as "ineffective". The bomb was designed to contain it's effects in a 50m range, and so the shooter was instructed to not shoot at closer distances (see "Istruzione provvisoria sull'uso della bomba S.R.2 con governale"). It was not the bomb, simply they decided to ditch the whole idea.
It was replaced by the Brixia mortar, that, being able of direct ant indirect fire, and having a far higher ROF, was deemed to be a better solution.
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The Isard spring has 28 twists, the 1911 32, the Astra 27. The thickness of the wire is about the same. In all likelyhood they had about the same stiffness when new.
The stiffness of the mainspring has practically no importance in keeping the action of a blowback handgun closed for enough time to safely eject the case. It's the mass of the slide that does all the work. The only real function of a stiffer mainspring is to mitigate the felt recoil and the force with which the slide slams into the receiver at the end of it's travel, so a stiffer spring prolongs the life of the frame/slide. However, the force that has to be absorbed is the same for blowback and short recoil pistols. Infact, IE, the Hi-Point mainspring has the same stiffnes of the Glock. More than pointing to the dimension of the spring, Ian should have measured the stiffness of the spring. A smaller spring can have the same stiffness of a bigger one, it wears out quickier, and so has to be replaced more often, but the durability of the spring was probably not the main concern of the designers of this handgun.
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@44R0Ndin Yes and no.
Factories and workshops of the time were not clean places.
WWI HMGs, like the Vickers, the MG08 and so on, were built with the same concept, and had been among the most reliable self loading firearms ever.
Because, like the industrial tooling of their time they were massively overbuilt. It was like they couldn't be bothered by the simple energy of a cartridge firing. And, in their frame, there was a lot of void space, so the dirt had a lot of places to go before locking the mechanism.
The Madsen LMG was kind of a smaller version of that. As that, it was a little more sensible to elements and dirt, but no more (and maybe less) than any LMG of the time (Hotchkiss Portative, Lewis Gun... not to talk about the Chauchat).
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@XShifty0311X The ammos were in perfect spec, and infact they worked fine with every other weapon, bolt action or automatic, chambered for them. Simply the manufacturer of the rifle, knowing the real dimensions of the cartridges, said the rifle was fine that way.
"Every man wielded an Mk III Ross rifle, with some unease. Overseas, the gun had jammed in close combat during the Second Battle of Ypres. It was claimed the rifle was too finely made to tolerate mud and rough handling. There is truth to this, but the fatal flaw was a specific and avoidable mistake. Before the war, the British re-designed the .303 cartridge, rechambering their Lee-Enfields to a slightly larger size than the Ross. Canadian experts said the chamber of the Ross was already large enough to take the new British ammunition in a pinch, and the tighter fit could only increase accuracy anyway. The chambers were not reamed out. It was all about the money. Besides, the experts said, the men would have Canadian ammunition of the right size, so it hardly mattered." https://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=4114
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The Isard spring has 28 twists, the 1911 32, the Astra 27. The thickness of the wire is about the same. In all likelyhood they had about the same stiffness when new.
The stiffness of the mainspring has practically no importance in keeping the action of a blowback handgun closed for enough time to safely eject the case. It's the mass of the slide that does all the work. The only real function of a stiffer mainspring is to mitigate the felt recoil and the force with which the slide slams into the receiver at the end of it's travel, so a stiffer spring prolongs the life of the frame/slide. However, the force that has to be absorbed is the same for blowback and short recoil pistols. Infact, IE, the Hi-Point mainspring has the same stiffnes of the Glock. More than pointing to the dimension of the spring, Ian should have measured the stiffness of the spring. A smaller spring can have the same stiffness of a bigger one, it wears out quickier, and so has to be replaced more often, but the durability of the spring was probably not the main concern of the designers of this handgun.
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The Isard spring has 28 twists, the 1911 32, the Astra 27. The thickness of the wire is about the same. In all likelyhood they had about the same stiffness when new.
The stiffness of the mainspring has practically no importance in keeping the action of a blowback handgun closed for enough time to safely eject the case. It's the mass of the slide that does all the work. The only real function of a stiffer mainspring is to mitigate the felt recoil and the force with which the slide slams into the receiver at the end of it's travel, so a stiffer spring prolongs the life of the frame/slide. However, the force that has to be absorbed is the same for blowback and short recoil pistols. Infact, IE, the Hi-Point mainspring has the same stiffnes of the Glock. More than pointing to the dimension of the spring, Ian should have measured the stiffness of the spring. A smaller spring can have the same stiffness of a bigger one, it wears out quickier, and so has to be replaced more often, but the durability of the spring was probably not the main concern of the designers of this handgun.
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@luisnunes3863 Drachinifel is simply wrong. Or better, Drachinifel does not read Italian, so he has to rely on what he finds in English. Second hand sources, wartime propaganda, etc... A common problem between self-made historians. The only source for the problem with Italian naval shells was Adm. Iachino, that had to justify his fiasco at Gaudo / Cape Matapan, and had been debunked by other sources, IE Adm. Emilio Brenta. Reality is that in the conditions of the clash at Gaudo, no WWII battleship would have hit anything.
As a matter of fact, the Italian 152mm and 203mm are the only Cruiser naval guns that obtained some +20km hits during WWII (even twice in the same battle, so it was not a fluke). Tests conducted by the allies after the war simply concluded Italian shells were more reliable than German ones. Italian 381 had not been tested by the Allies for accuracy.
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@thetabletnonya948 It's not a problem of hollow point. They want to control how much ammos a cop shoot and where. It you give a cop 50 rounds for his service weapon, outside the training range, at any moment he must have the 50 rounds you gave him, or report when, where, and why he had to shoot the missing ones. IE, if in a protest rally, where there are many cops, many protesters, and the situation is tense, someone is shot, the public autorities and the judiciary have to know if it had been a cop that lost his head and now tries to hide it.
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Sorry, but those are only modern day guessings. The ones above were the opinions of the ones that had to DAILY use those guns in combat.
It's not the first time that real world observations contrast to popular harmchair beliefs. IE it's often repeated that the bottom opening of the Manlicher magazine design was a problem, cause it allowed dirt into the mechanism. In real world that had never been a problem, and contrast with what Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov (the designer of the Fedorov Avtomat) observed in the Russo-Japanese war. He then observed that, in those extreme conditions, the Moisins quickly became single shot weapons, cause the magazine was stuck with mud and ice, while the passing of the en-block clips kept the action of the Steyr rifles tidy.
Other than how much dust and dirt can get into the action, an even more important thing is how much dust and dirt is needed to lock the action. An action with very tight tolerancies needs very few dirt to be stuck. A "wobbling" action (even more a wobbling action with an heavy bolt and firing pin, so with a lot of momentum) is not stuck that easy, and is largely self cleaning.
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The Isard spring has 28 twists, the 1911 32, the Astra 27. The thickness of the wire is about the same. In all likelyhood they had about the same stiffness when new.
The stiffness of the mainspring has practically no importance in keeping the action of a blowback handgun closed for enough time to safely eject the case. It's the mass of the slide that does all the work. The only real function of a stiffer mainspring is to mitigate the felt recoil and the force with which the slide slams into the receiver at the end of it's travel, so a stiffer spring prolongs the life of the frame/slide. However, the force that has to be absorbed is the same for blowback and short recoil pistols. Infact, IE, the Hi-Point mainspring has the same stiffnes of the Glock. More than pointing to the dimension of the spring, Ian should have measured the stiffness of the spring. A smaller spring can have the same stiffness of a bigger one, it wears out quickier, and so has to be replaced more often, but the durability of the spring was probably not the main concern of the designers of this handgun.
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+May your swords stay sharp! (mysss29) To have access to the gas chamber and the gas ports (that's the thing that requires cleaning, there is not actually much that could happen to the piston and op rod) you only have to remove the muzzle cover. To inspect the recoil spring, you can remove it from the trap door. To remove the bolt you only have to remove the dust cover and the rear buffer ("when the dust cover is off, it just slides out") and it comes out from the rear of the receiver. It isn't needed to remove the receiver from the stock.
Like almost every bolt action rifle up to then, and several semiauto rifle after then, this rifle is not made to have the trigger group and the receiver removed often from the stock. While the parts that require cleaning, and/or have to be replaced more often (for the second case, almost universally the recoil spring and the firing pin) are very easily reachable.
An M1 Garand, for example, is made with a completely different philosopy. The rifle can be easily disassembled, but is not really field-strippable. To reach the firing pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have several small parts flying around you).
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+DWSimmy Yes. IE Nuova Jager imports AR15, AK47 AK74, and sells 29 round magazines for them, on the italian market.
As said, to obtain a defense licence is harder than a sport or hunting one. You have to do some kind of job that puts you at risk, or to be in danger for other reasons, so security guards, jewelers, someone that had been threatened in the past, employees that normally carries big sums of money, even taxi drivers and gas station attendants. If you have it, you can carry one or more loaded pistols out of your house or workplace. If concealed or not, it doesn't matter.
Mind that a rifle, in the EU, is a weapon that is longer than 60cm and has a barrel longer than 30cm. Below those measures, in Italy, the weapon is not prohibited. It's simply considered a pistol. So, a Fabarm Martial Pistola 11" (a 11" barrel, pump action, shotgun) is a pistol.
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@Paladin1873 Fact is that almost all the rifles, SMGs, LMGs, HMGs etc... that are not ambidextrous have the charging handle on the right side, M1 Carbine included (maybe because right handed shooters doesn't find it so convenient to place it on the left side?). To say that Beretta's charging handle is: "bassackwards" when is exactly where the same M1 carbine have it...
"intuitive" in weapons is a WAY overused word. People are supposed to know their weapon and there is no rule, or intuition, "forward for fire, rearward for safe". The safety is bigger, more easy to operate (especially with gloves), to see and to remember than that of the M1 carbine.
The push button magazine release of the M1 Carbine is supposed to be used with the right hand tumb when at the same time the shooter is pulling out the magazine. Those are two completely different movements to do at the same time. With the paddle lever of the Beretta carbine, you only have to grab the magazine to activate the paddle. It's ambidextrous and simpler, so nothing had been " flubbed". You can see in the actual video that the magazine doesn't need to be "rocked" at all. It goes straight in and out. You are tinking of the M14, not of this gun.
A peep is what you want, not necessarily what's better. Many rifles have no peep sights. To judge the sight picture without having handled the rifle makes no sense at all. Many successful rifles/AR have the rear sight further forward than this one. An open notch sight MUST be placed further forward than a peep sight.
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Actually that would be the most useless part.
Much of those old designs required handfitting, because the admitted tolerances were so that, in a batch of supposedly identical parts, the right ones had to be chosen and coupled for the weapon to work. Worse, there was the "cascade matching" problem. When you took, IE, three parts that matched toghether, because they were all at one end of the tolerance scale, and then there was no fourth part that matched with them, because it should have been beyond the scale. It was a so common issue that, for the Winchester .224 prototype (the competitor of the AR15 in the CONARC competition) Winchester explicitly stated that they designed their rifle so that it couldn't happen. And we were in the late '50s. It was still a severe problem for the M60 MG.
Modern CNC machines can't work like that. so the modern designer has to come out with his own completely different, set of admitted tolerances.
Not to say that steel of the original composition is often unobtanium.
The REAL problem is that most of those designs were not that great to begin with. Even the most successful ones, (IE, the M1 Carbine, to say one) were good FOR THEIR TIME.
But the eventual purchaser of a modern repro would expect form it MODERN reliability and durability, otherwise "This is shit! The manufcturer scammed me!".
For the designer of the repro, it's like a nightmare. To him is like designing a completely new weapon, with the adjunctive constraint that he can't chose the solutions he KNOWS will work flawlessly. He has to keep it consistent with original solutions that he know work "so-so".
That's why modern repros mostly dont' have part interchangeability with the originals.
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@alessandrorona6205 You are still stating your very personalpreferences.
If those are your criteria, you should have listed the Enfield above the Mauser, since it's smoother, faster to cycle, and at least equally reliable and easy to operate. The Mosin is back of the line.
In respect to the Mauser, the Carcano M38 has a little rougher action, is equally fast to cycle and reliable, faster to reload, easier to field strip, and lighter (Pretty important, since the rifle has to be carried much more than used).
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@henochparks Had you really read that report, you would have known the wound had been measured on the scalp, the skin that cover the skull bones, not the bones. but obviously, other than not knowing what you are talking about, you read only conspiracy sites. And buy anything.
So, again, there's no limit to your idiocy.
I asked " With what kind of instrument the diameter of this hole thad been measured?" (not what kind of super-duper-best-in-the-world instruments you THINK the Bethesda hospital owned), because, obviously, to measure a fraction of millimeter, you need an instrument capable to measure a fraction of millimeter.
The hole in the scalp (not the bone, the skin over it) had been described at being 6X13mm (not 6.1X12.9mm, or 5.9X13.1mm, but 6x13mm) so, if the killing didn't happen in a bubble of improbability where bullets leave holes of only exactly round numbers, it's evident they were not measuring fractions of millimeters (despite the super-duper-best-in-the-world-oh-my-god-how-fantastic instruments you THINK the Bethesda hospital owned).
But, further: "As for the wounds caused by rifled weapons, the size of the wound is not always helpful in determining the caliber or type of weapon (pistol, revolver, rifle). In fact, the size of the wound can be misleading (Fig. 8-2). The diameter of the wound may be smaller, greater or equal to the diameter of the bullet. Therefore, one must give a guarded opinion about the caliber of the bullet from the examination of the wound (Fig. 8-3)." (Abdullah Fatteh "Medicolegal Investigation of Gunshot Wounds", Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1976, p. 84)
So, if you know nothing about forensic, as it's evidently the case, why are you typing like an idiot, again in capitals like an idiot? (easy answer)
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@henochparks No limit to your idiocy.
I asked " With what kind of instrument the diameter of this hole thad been measured?", because, obviously, to measure a fraction of millimeter, you need an instrument capable to measure a fraction of millimeter.
The hole in the scalp (not the bone, the skin over it) had been described at being 6X13mm (not 6.1X12.9mm, or 5.9X13.1mm, but 6x13mm) so, if the killing didn't happen in a bubble of improbability where bullets leave holes of only exactly round numbers, it's evident that they were not measuring the fractions of millimeters.
But, further: "As for the wounds caused by rifled weapons, the size of the wound is not always helpful in determining the caliber or type of weapon (pistol, revolver, rifle). In fact, the size of the wound can be misleading (Fig. 8-2). The diameter of the wound may be smaller, greater or equal to the diameter of the bullet. Therefore, one must give a guarded opinion about the caliber of the bullet from the examination of the wound (Fig. 8-3)." (Abdullah Fatteh "Medicolegal Investigation of Gunshot Wounds", Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1976, p. 84)
So, if you know nothing about forensic, as it's evidently the case, why are you typing like an idiot, again in capitals like an idiot? (easy answer)
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The SR2 bomb was filled with 32gr of TNT, into an iron case, and with an iron spiral around it to ensure fragmentation. The explosive filling was inferior to the later (from 1944) US MKII hand grenades, but superior to the earlier ones, so I wouldn't deem them as "ineffective". The bomb was designed to contain it's effects in a 50m range, and so the shooter was instructed to not shoot at closer distances (see "Istruzione provvisoria sull'uso della bomba S.R.2 con governale"). It was not the bomb, simply they decided to ditch the whole idea.
It was replaced by the Brixia mortar, that, being able of direct ant indirect fire, and having a far higher ROF, was deemed to be a better solution.
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@Paladin1873 Maybe you mean "I have never heard a right-handed shooter praise a right-side charging handle, but I have heard many complain about it." Obviously those that speaks are those that complain. Those that are fine with it take it for granted.IE the Beretta ARX100 has switchable charging handle. How many right handed shooters have switched it to the left side to you? On military rifles, made thinking to right-hand shooters, the charging handle is on the right side for two reasons:
1) A right hand shooter mantains the alignment of the rifle with the left (forward) hand, so better mantain the alignment of the rifle, and use the most able hand to reload.
2) If the right hand is reloading, there is no risk of the shooter pulling the trigger until the operation is complete.
Infact, when you say "forward for fire, rearward for safe" you are not talking of "intuition", you are talking of what you are used to. For someone that don't practice regularly, "forward for fire, rearward for safe" and "forward for safe, rearward for fire" are completely indifferent. Motion memory are formed through practice, and soldiers practice with their weapons. For someone used to the AK-47, the AR-15 controls are awkward at first, and the AR15 was not a thing in 1957 anyway. The safety on the M1 Garand and on the M14 is "forward for fire, rearward for safe", but at the same time is easy to engage, but not easy to disengage (to push forward that little lever with the trigger finger is really not natural). Many shotguns have a cross-bolt safety but, when a cross-bolt safety shows up on rifles or pistols, many complains about it, not because it doesn't work as well as a lever safety, but because it's not what they are used to.
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"the rifle can by cycled with virtually zero movement, allowing the sniper to remain very well concealed in his shooting position"
The Ross was surely a superb sniper rifle, but the video above disproved this last statement. The Ross rifle has a "long" action (that's a necessary evil for straight pull actions with rotating bolt heads, as part of the rearward movement of the bolt serves to disengage the bolt head from the receiver), that forces the shooter to move his head, so losing the point of aim, when cycling the action. And this is also the reason why a not properly assembled rifle was dangerous. Even if the bolt was not coming out of the receiver, the shooter would end up with an inch of metal in the skull.
Other rifles, as the Lee enfield, or the Carcano, have a "short" action, that allows to cycle it without losing the point of aim.
However, for a sniper, this was a minor inconvenient, as he was supposed to shoot a single decisive shot, not to fire repeatedly at the same target in a short time.
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@knurlgnar24 Yes and no.
Yes and no.
Factories and workshops of the time were not that controlled environments, they were not clean places, and they could be hot, cold, and anywere in between.
WWI HMGs, like the Vickers, the MG08 and so on, were built with the same concept, and had been among the most reliable self loading firearms ever.
Because, like the industrial tooling of their time they were massively overbuilt. It was like they couldn't be bothered by the simple energy of a cartridge firing. And, in their frame, there was a lot of void space, so the dirt had a lot of places to go before locking the mechanism.
The Madsen LMG was kind of a smaller version of that. As that, it was a little more sensible to elements and dirt, but no more (and maybe less) than any LMG of the time (Hotchkiss Portative, Lewis Gun... not to talk about the Chauchat).
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@RandomUser-cx9kn In the post-war years Bernardelli had a lot of know-how on making guns, but only of estabilished patterns, while the market required something new. Unfortunately the small company had not experience in designing new weapons and, as an engineer that worked there at that time recalled, even the access to specialised literature was very limited, especially in foreign languages. So they simply copied what they could put their hands on. They put their hands on a SVT and "oh, whe can make a shotgun out of this".
Later the situation was different. Thus not being Beretta, The Bernardelli 60 had been quite a success, and the P0.18 too. Unfortunately the company invested heavily in the Italian Army AR trial, but it had not been the only one. Franchi did it too with the 641 (derived from the H&K G41), and SOCIMI with the ambitious 871 (piston driven, reciprocating charging handle AR15).
The P.One evolution of the P0.18 was an exceptional firearm, that today would probably have it's place in the market exactly for it's "classic" features (all forged steel slide and frame, 1911 style safety but with a decocker too, like modern CZ and Taurus), unfortunately it was released in the worst possible moment for an all-steel pistol.
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@hannibalkills1214 if... if... If the enemy was not armed with firearms, an MG wouldn't have been needed at all. "Reality doesn't work like that". The German army's reality was that they had to adapt to the situation like everyone else, and a tool that limits your ability to adapt is a liability.
The BAR was suboptimal because it's firepower was very limited in respect to it's weight (among some other problem) due to the fact of not having a quick exchange barrel. All in all, with all it's limitations, the Breda 30 was a better LMG. Simply the US had the industrial capability to "throw more BAR to the problem". Also the ability to "call for Arty" made so that MG tactics had always been neglected by the US Army (still today). IE, in a British squad, every grunt was instructed in how to use the BREN and, had only one remained alive, he was supposed to use the BREN. In a US Army squad, only the BAR gunner and his assistant were trained in using it.
The GPMG concept (and the centrality given to the MG tactics by the Germans in WWII), did born because the WWI peace conditions limited the number of both LMGs and HMGs for Germany (and practically banned mortars and artillery). To have an MG that could cover (even with some limitations) both roles, in a certain sense, doubled the allowed nuber.
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Today it can seem strange, but, in the first half of XX century, to design a detachable magazine that was at the same time so cheap to be discarded on the field, and so well and consistently built to not cause feeding problems was really an issue. The BAR and the BREN were plagued by jammings caused by defective magazines, and those had been built by countries that had not raw materials shortages. The British actually designed a fixed magazine for the BREN, loaded with two 15 rounds clips (they didn't adopt that, but it was really awkward compared to the Breda one).
So, in 1924, FIAT came out with a LMG design (FIAT 1924) that had a fixed magazine on the left of the weapon, loaded inserting a 20 round clip (similar to that of the subsequent Breda) from the right. In exchange of a little time lost in recharging, all the feeding problems were avoided.
The flaw was that, to load a MG inserting a clip from one side, the gunner, or the servent, had to expose himself a little, and, laterally pushing the weapon, they can move it, loosing the line of sight.
So the Breda had the subsequent evolution. By tilting the magazine, in exchange of a little more time lost in recharging, the gunner could load the gun (and change the barrel, for that matter) without changing position at all.
In the end, ten years later, at the start of WWII, it was an already outdated design, but it was actually not that bad. There is a tendency, on the net, when a weapon had some defect, tho extremize them, concluding that "it's the worst gun ever made!", "I would have rather fought naked than carrying that piece of junk!" and things like that. But those are modern days shenanigans. The contemporaries of the weapon, those that had to fight them daily, and reuse the captured ones, thought it was not that bad.
From Tactical and Technical Trends (the magazine of the US Intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 "Use of Captured Italian weapons" :
"Breda Light Machine Gun: The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting".
Mind that, to use 4 spare barrels (the number the Italians deemed to be necessary after having used the gun in combat), you have to fire at least 800 rounds in quick succession. So much for the gun not being capable to really provide automatic fire.
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That's what happens when an inventor gets enamored of an idea.
At a certain point, he realizes it's impractical in respect to other, established, solutions, but he wants to make it work.
However, let's not exagerate. The functioning is complex, but the individual pieces are rather simple to make.
For a comparison, the Zb. vz 26 / BREN was simple in its functioning, and had less moving pieces, but the bolt and carrier are the nightmare of a machinist.
Fact is that too many moving pieces are a problem by itself, since it multiplies the things that can go wrong.
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@davidvarnes7708 For 1934 It was simple to make too. The BAR, BREN, MG34 and Type99 (and both the BREN and MG1934 had been selected in 1938, the Type99 in 1939) had more complex machining. Among the most used LMGs of the time, Only the DP28 could be considered simpler to manufacture.
But generally, though I like it, it seems like a promising prototype put in production before all the elements had been figured out throughly.
Very good and simple operating mechanism, barrel change mechanism, general ergonomy, controls, gas settings…
But three sets of lugs? That bipod (I’ve seen better in WWI)… no handle to grab a scorching hot barrel… And that magazine…
It could have easily been so MUCH better.
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You are welcome. One of the thing that could be of interest, is why the two choose the city of Cremona for the plant. Infact they were both of Genova, and Cremona was then a little, not industrialized, city, famous, like now is, for its luthiers. One can only speculate, but is often said that it was cause Cremona was the city of Roberto Farinacci, one of the leading figures of the fascist party. Building a manifacture there, they thought they could gain public procurements more easily. In the end, it was an excessive caution, as the plant started to work in 1939, and, since 1940, everything that could manufacture a rifle had no shortage of procurements.
In the end, in its brief life (the plant made weapons only from 1939 to 1945) the Armaguerra was higly innovative. It not only designed the winning semiauto model for the Italian Army, but also the OG43 and OG44, the first "second generation" SMGs.
Although not used productively for decades, the Armaguerra Plant is still existing. Recently the asbestos roof covers had been replaced by photovoltaic panels (even those that are still not covered in the picture, had been later), so it's currently a photovoltaic plant. http://nextia.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/armaguerra-1.2bn.jpg
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The founders were two businessmen that, until the late '30s had an activity of import of bananas from Somalia (they owned two ships that they used for that). In the late '30s their business was nationalized by the government, and they (that were also two enthusiast hunters) used the indemnity to found, in the city of Cremona, a manufacture of weapons expressely meant for the army, so the name "Armi da guerra - Cremona" (Weapons for war - Cremona) then contracted in "Armaguerra". The manufacture was founded in 1939. The rifle was their first indipendent design, and had been immediatly succesful, winning the competition of Beretta, Breda and Scotti. However, during the war, the Armaguerra mainly produced Carcano rifles and Beretta Model 1934 pistols.
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@angry_ike7628
7.65mm Parabellum produces 412 Joule of energy, not ft-lbs. Those are 304 ft-lbs. Not really different than the 8mm Roth-Steyr (that would easily surpass it with a bullet of comparable weight).
Overall lenght:
.30 Super Carry, 29.7mm,
8mm Roth-Steyr, 29,0mm
7.65X20 Longue, 30.24mm
Bullet diameter:
.30 Super Carry, 8mm,
8mm Roth-Steyr, 8.16mm
7.65X20 Longue, 7.85mm
Base diameter:
.30 Super Carry, 8.8mm,
8mm Roth-Steyr, 8.85mm
7.65X20 Longue, 8.53mm
Bullet mass:
.30 Super Carry, 100gr,
8mm Roth-Steyr, 113-116gr
7.65X20 Longue, 77gr
Energy:
.30 Super Carry, 470J
8mm Roth-Steyr, 390-410J
7.65X20 Longue, 297J.
So I confirm, the .30 Super Carry is more similar to the 8mm Roth-Steyr, both for dimensions and energy than to the 7.65X20 Longue, that shoots a much lighter bullet with much less energy.
The 7.65 Parabellum has very similar performances to that of the 8mm Roth-Steyr, especially considered that the 8mm Roth Steyr would develop more energy with a 100gr ball (a la .30 Super Carry) and even more with a 93gr ball (a la 7.65mm Parabellum).
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WhiteCavendish Since the movement made by bolt head is about the same (first rotate 90°, then slide rearward for the lenght of the cartridge), the movement of the hand is not so "quantitatively" different. In the Mauser it's divided in two distinct actions "high - rear", while in the Ross it's a single, longer, one. As for the effort, that's probably true for sniper rifles, adeguately cared and that tend to shoot fewer ammunitions than infantry rifles. One of the problems of the design as an infantry rifle infact was it's tendency to require more and more effort to cycle the action as the rifle keep shooting, as a result of tight tolerances and dirt (unavoidable in trench warfare). Another superbly accurate and smooth straight pull, the Schmidt-Rubin, especially in it's K31 incarnation, if used in the same conditions would have probably suffered of the same problems (that were repeatedly reported in training) for the same reasons.
It's worth to note that another widely used (the most widely used of them all actually) straight pull, the Steyr-Manlicher, although being far less smooth than the previous two at first shot, did not suffered from the same problems. The famous Russian weapon desiger Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov (the father of the Fedorov Avtomat), in his reports from the battlefields of the Russo-Japanese war noted infact that the Manlicher design was even less sensible to mud and snow than the M91 Moisin-Nagant.
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@CtrlAltRetreat The Italians wanted to adopt the 7.35X32 (not the 7.35X51, that came later) because they wanted to adopt a semiauto rifle (the Terni 1921) and correctly recognised that, for semiauto fire, an intermediate cartridge was better, hence the 7.35X32.
The conservatorism of the high brass prevented the adoption of the Terni semiauto, bu they still wanted a semiauto, in a full blown cartridge, so a new rifle, and tested many,
In 1938, still testing semiauto rifles, they recognised the convertion to a semiauto would have likely required a long time, but they didn't want to fight the next war with long worn-out, WWI Carcano rifles, so they adopted the M38 short rifle, that was a new rifle anyway.
BUT there is a trick. You can take an old, worn-out, 6.5 long rifle barrel, and turn it in a brand new, 7.35 short rifle barrel, only cutting and reboring it.
You can't turn an old worn-out 6.5 long rifle barrel in a brand new 6.5 short rifle barrel. Even cutting it, it will remain worn out.
So, since they had to manufacture new rifles and new ammos anyway, to adopt the 7.35x51, was economically convenient in respect to adopt a 6.5 spitzer.
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A shame Drachinifel contributed to spread that bogus info (he never stated the quality being "all over the place, generally trending towards bloody awful. Ocasionally in spec", but that's internet). Infortunately he does not read Italian, so he has to rely on what he finds in English. Second hand sources, wartime propaganda, etc... A common problem between self-made historians.
The only source for the problem with Italian naval shells was Adm. Iachino, that had to justify his fiasco at Gaudo / Cape Matapan, and had been debunked by other sources, (IE Adm. Emilio Brenta, or the same Fire Director Officer of the Vittorio Veneto ad Gaudo). Reality is that in the conditions of the clash at Gaudo, no WWII battleship would have hit anything.
As a matter of fact, the Italian 152mm and 203mm are the only Cruiser naval guns that obtained some +20km hits during WWII (even twice in the same battle, so it was not a fluke).
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The complain about the dispersion at Gaudo had been made by Adm. Iachino, but he had to justify his fiasco of the subsequent night someway. We have the direct witness of the Fire Director of the Vittorio Veneto, that didn't considered the dispersion of the salvos to be anything out of the ordinary.
Simply the Vittorio Veneto fired from very long distance, in two different actions of 10 and 19 salvos each (between the two, the British ships were completely covered in smokescreens, so the Vittorio Veneto had to re-adjust the aim when it spotted them again) vs. two ships that, with a time of flight of the shells of over 40" could manuver to avoid the shots when they spotted the blasts.
The Battle of the Espero Convoy already demonstrated that, even at half that distance, it was nearly impossible to hit a ship that was performing evasive manuvers (or in the battle of Denmark Strait, when POW decided to break the contact, the Bismark wasn't able to land a hit any more).
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For 1934 It was simple to make too. The BAR, BREN, MG34 and Type99 (and both the BREN and MG1934 had been selected in 1938, the Type99 in 1939) had more complex machining. Among the most used LMGs of the time, Only the DP28 could be considered simpler to manufacture.
But generally, though I like it, it seems like a promising prototype put in production before all the elements had been figured out throughly.
Very good and simple operating mechanism, barrel change mechanism, general ergonomy, controls, gas settings…
But three sets of lugs (it's a nightmare to match bolts and receivers)? That bipod (I’ve seen better in WWI)… no handle to grab a scorching hot barrel… And that magazine…
It could have easily been so MUCH better.
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@222TripleJ the only problem with the Italian classification is that people consider the one used only by the US "right" by default.
The Italian classification was done exclusively by mass. A tank was light under the 10 tons, medium between 10 and 20 tons, heavy over 20 tons. L6/40, light tank weighting 6 tons adopted in 1940. M14/41, medium tank weighting 14 tons adopted in 1941. P26/40, heavy tank weighting 26 tons adopted in 1940.
The Brits classified their tanks light , cruise and infantry.
the Germans didnt' have a classification, they only numbered the models (Panzer II - III - IV).
The US classification was so good that their "Heavy" tanks were so heavy to be scarcely useful, had been practically unused in WWII, and the entire concept had been replaced by that of MBT later but, for some reason, the P26/40 being a heavy tank was "laughable".
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@andyrihn1 Uh, no. In the service life test only the 92F and the H&K P7 reached the 7000 rounds threshold with all three pistols intact. The P226 cracked a frame at 6523 rounds fired, but was allowed to pass, since the requirement was just for a service life, on average, of over 5000 rounds.
the P226 failed the dry mud test, with only 79% reliability in those conditions. Being that significantly lower than the 1911 control weapon, it should have been eliminated due to the rules of the competition (notice that instead, in the XM17 trials, there was conveniently not a M9 control weapon around to be seen). It was allowed to keep on competing, because the Army wanted at least two manufacturers to compete on price, so it was simply decided that the dry mud test result was "not so important" and the result was simply not considered.
So, not counting the result of the tests were the 92F performed better than the P226, then the P226 performed better than the 92F.
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Just to be clear.
The AR10 / AR15 system is as much as a “real direct gas impingment system” as this one. Only the point of application of the pressure of the gas changes (from the top of the bolt carrier to directly behind the chamber), not, in any way, the way the gas is used, pushing directly the bolt carrier.
In the AR, like here, in the bolt carrier, there is a cup, a “blind hole” where the gas ends and the pressure applies. If you call the one of the AR “a cylinder”, then that “cup” of the Rasheed is a cylinder as well and, if you call the back of the bolt head of an AR a “piston” (that is not) then what you call in the Rasheed an “open gas tube” is a piston as well.
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It has to be said that, in the '70s, many decocker-less DA/SA designs appeared. CZ75, the original Beretta 92, Bernardelli P018...
In all those designs, like in the B76, the half-cock position was intended to be the "safe" option for decocking, since you could hold the hammer (or put a finger in front of it), pull the trigger, allow the hammer to move only slightly, and at that point, releasing the trigger, the hammer would have seated safely on half-cock position.
Only later it appeared to be clear that, for a service SA/DA pistol, a decocker was almost mandatory (It's revealing that, while the original CZ75 retained the 1911/style safety, the "clone" Tanfoglio TZ75 of the early '80s already had a Beretta-style slide mounted decocker).
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***** Unfortunately there is an attitude between commentators of military equipements, being them "experts" or not, that could be described as "if there is something different to what we are used to, then there has to be something wrong in it". That "wrong" was rapidly "theoretically" identified, and then passed from a commentator to another as a "fact".
An example is the manlicher clip fed system for rifles. Almost every description of it's efficiency contains a statement like "the bottom opening for the discharge of the spent clips was prone to let debris and dirt enter in the mechanism".
Unfortunately, the only real-life comparative study of the efficiency of this system VS the closed magazine (the observations of Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov, the designer of the Fedorov Automat, on the battlefields of the Russo-Japanese War), showed the exact opposite. On the winter battelfields, frozen mud and snow rapidly get stuck into the magazines of the Moisin Nagant, quickly rendering them single shooters, while the passage of the clips kept the action of the Steyr Manlicher clean and functional as repeaters.
All in all the Chauchat was an exceptional design. A design that permitted to produce 262,000 of them during the war in a partly invaded country, VS only 50.000 Lewis Gun produced in both UK and US. As a single soldier, maybe I would prefer to have a Lewis Gun in my hands, but as an army (and as a soldier too) I would greatly prefer to have five times more LMGs on the frontline.
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@SidneyBroadshead The bullet was not unstable in flight and didn't have a wandering zero. Any spitzer bullet has the center of gravity displaced towards the back of the bullet, but that doesn't make it unaccurate.
The the aluminium tipped bullet was designed to be even more unstable, and so tumble more easily INTO THE BODY, not in flight. The Brits used the same trick in the .303 Ball MKVII, adopted in 1910, that served as standard issued cartridge through two World Wars, the Korean War and countless other smaller confrontations until the end of military use of the .303 British. Actually the Ball MKVII had a higher percentage of the bullet made out of aluminium, so was even more unstable, and none ever noticed it having a wandering zero. Today plastic tipped bullets are normally used for hunting.
The aluminium tipped bullet was also lighter than the original 6.5, so to have a faster muzzle velocity, and so a flatter trajectory in the first 300m of flight, so making the fixed 200m sight more useful.
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+burger1690 Cause the mistake was not in the rifle, but in the cartridge. It was clear from the start (and I mean the start, from the Federov Avtomat, if not from the Cei Rigotti) that "select fire", in a weapon with the weight of a rifle, required an intermediate round to make the burst controllable. For that reason the British, after the war, proposed the 7mm British as the universal NATO cartridge. But the US Army didn't accept a round less powerful then the 30-06, so the 7.62X51 was adopted instead. The British, discouraged, adopted the FAL in semiauto only, cause, with the 7.62X51, the possibility to control the burst was only theoretical. The Italians made the BM59, with a complex muzzle brake and an integral bipod, to make it's burst at least a bit controllable, and the US replaced the M14 as soon as they realized that the guy with the M14 was outgunned by the guy with the AK-47.
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The original Glisenti load was almost identical to the original 7.65 Parabellum load (since, like the 9mm Parabellum, it derived from that cartridge, but the designers of the MBT, differently from those of the DWM, didn't took advantage of the larger case to enhance the load), so, 1/4 less than the 9mm para load (literally, 3.3 grains Bullseye is a good 9mm glisenti load, and 4.4 grains Bullseye is a typical 9mm para load).
However, during WWI, 9mm Glisenti loads had been enhanced, since the cartridge was primarly used in the Villar Perosa SMG, and blowback SMGs are pretty strong actions. For example, USCco, during the war, made for the Italian Army a batch of 84 million Glisenti cartridges loaded with 4 grains bullseye, that's only 10% less than a typical 9mm para load.
Those "hot" cartridges were not especially marked, and were in the Army magazines, so, a 9mm Glisenti pistol made in the '20s had to be safe to shoot them too.
So, what happens if you tries to shoot a load that's 10% hotter than what the pistol is designed to handle? Nothing extraordinary. We are still in the safety margins of any pistol design. When the Beretta designers declared that the pistol could handle a 9mm para cartridge (obviously not +P or +P+, that didn't existed at that time), they were not mad or irresponsible. Simply YOU ARE PUTTING UNNECESSARY STRAIN IN AN ACTION THAT WAS DESIGNED FOR MILDER LOADS, and that is 90 years old too. In the long run, you'll almost surely have some damage in the action. Most likely in the slide. Moreover, if the recoil spring has weakened with time, you'll probably have some overpressure problem with the cases, and even some case head failure.
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@heycidskyja4668 Fact is that there were practically two classes of service cartridges at the time. The "7-8mm, over 3000 joules energy at the muzzle" (30-06, 8mm Mauser, .303 British, 7.62X54r...) and the "6.5mm, from 2200 to 3000 joules energy at the muzzle" (Carcano, Arisaka and so on).
Modern service "intermediate" cartridges are below 2200 joules power, so it wouldn't be a problem, but practically all the cartridges proposed to solve the 5.56-7.62 dualism belong to the old "6.5mm 2200-3000 joules" category. So the problem. Are, IE, 6.8 SPC, or 6.5 Grendel, intermediate cartridges? They are made to be shot from an AR15 platform. But, power wise, they are in the "old service 6.5 rounds" category.
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+Adrian Larkins
First, there is brand power. Mauser was very good at selling his products, that were generally good, but sometimes not so exceptional, and the C96 is a sample of the latters.
Second, the C96 was a 1896 design, when semiauto pistols were in their infancy. In 1910 there were many other design to compete with.
Third, concauses. The C96 had not been really a success until WWI (it won contracts only for 7000 guns until then), but the fact that it had been round for 20 years (known design), the fact that Mauser had the capability to deliver them, and the hurry of the war made that the Austrian and German governments ordered 50.000 and 150.000 guns respectively in 1916. At that point the success of the broomhandle was secured, while in 1916, the Vitali 1910 was already a forgotten prototype.
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This gun has never been designed to be an aircraft SMG. It only happened that the first 350 samples (of over 14.000 produced) had been given to the Air Force (that, at that time, was a branch of the Army) cause the Army wanted the weapon ready to be mass produced first to start to field it. The MGs used on the aircrafts had a different mounting, without the round plate and with normal aerial sights. The round plate was intended to be used on the field with the shield. When used with the shield, the plate was integral part of the protection, and the hole sight was the only opening in it.
Its rate of fire serves the same purpose of the 1200 rpm ROF of the MG-42. they both had not been designed for suppression fire (heavy MGs were intended for that role), but to cover obligatory passages (through the barbed wires, or the mountain trails) and fire only when you actually see the enemy. Since the enemy is no stupid, he is visible only for a brief time, and, for this, a huge ROF is required to hit him.
In 1916 Capt. Bassi, creator of the Arditi, begun to use it, without the shield, to clear the enemy trenches. A stretch ot trench is 20m long at best. With a single burst of the Villar Perosa you can saturate it without even seeing. That's useful, since the assaults were often performed at night.
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+Helghastdude Beretta 34, M91, MAB38, Breda PG, Breda 37, Breda 38, Breda SAFAT, Breda 20/65...
No really successful semiauto rifle had been designed until the end of the 30s. IE, until the end of the 20s John Garand wasted ten years playing with a quirky primer acutated blowback design, then switched to gas actuated, the rifle was adopted, after seven years of ironing out problems, in 1937, but the M1 became really reliable only with a last modification done three years after its introduction, in early 1940.
Probably this rifle is closer to be a good service rifle than a M1 prototype of the same year.
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+besternamedensgibtxd When the round is fired, in the barrel, between the bullet and the bottom of the case, that lay on the bolt, it develops a very high pressure, that locks the walls of the case against the chamber, so preventing the hot gasses to be driven back to the face of the shooter.
If the bolt begin to travel backwards too early, when the pressure in the barrel is still high, then the thin metal of the case is stretched between the chamber (since the walls of the case are still locked to it by the pressure) and the bolt that is travelling backwards. That way the case can break, and the hot gasses and brass splinters can hit the shooter's face, with unpleasant consequencies.
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At the end of WWI the studies of the Italian Army concluded that the bolt action rifle was obsolete and almost useless. The submachinaguns demonstrated to be much more useful in trench warfare, so the suggestion was to replace the bolt action rifles with "moschetti automatici" ("automatic carabines") as soon as possible.
They first started to design a real assault rifle (Terni mod 21, 7.65X40mm intermediate cartridge, select fire, 25 round magazine), but the commission that tested it, probably mainly composed by traditionalists, found it unsaticfactory ("this weapon has all the inconvenient of the automatic weapons without having their advantages"). At that point they thought the semiauto rifle to be a good compromise between the bolt action and the automatic, so made the first concourse for a semiauto rifle, in the early '30 (Beretta M.31, MBT 29 and Scotti Mod. X). The Scotti Mod X won that, but, first that it could be officially adopted, the army decided to switch cartridge, from the 6.5X52 to the 7.35X51. Then they decided to have another concourse (Scotti Mod X, Beretta M37, Breda 1935 PG and Armaguerra 39) this time won by the Armaguerra.
At that point the war had already started, and it was too late to adopt a new main battle rifle (even the Soviets had to stop to produce the optmal SVT 40 and revert to the Moisin). "Better is the enemy of good."
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@justforever96 As already said, loading belts "was a backline activity". If you believe Germans loaded their MG belts in first line, you should check your brain (or, better, having it checked by someone with a functioning one) before talking of the intelligence of others.
As for logistic, as already said: "the Volkssturm was armed with a pletora of different weapons, that had different spare parts and would have required different training that none could give to the militians."
The idiocies you are "sure of" are your business only. Simply the Germans had grandiose (that was quite usual for them late in the war) plans to distribute HUGE quantities of rifles to the militia. For that quantity, convertion was convenient, and so they started to convert. But that quantity was also completely unrealistic given the conditions of their industry. "For one and half million rifles, ammo availability would have been a problem. For 15.000, 50.000 or even 200.000 rifles, there were plenty of ammos already available. Better issuing a repeater with 400 rounds and call it a day (hardly a Volkssturm militian would have survived enough to fire all of them anyway) than issuing a single shooter even with 10.000 rounds."
"you don't also want to be digging out warehouses of captured enemy ammo and distributing it to units all over a chaotic front with the limited transport you have left."
So, you already dug into those very same warehouses FOR THE RIFLES, and ignored the crates of million rounds sitting there already packed and ready to be transported. Then, "with the limited transport you have left" you carried the rifles to arsenals to be converted to single shooters, so consuming THE LIMITED INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY YOU HAVE LEFT, to make a single shooter out of a repeater. Then "with the limited transport you have left" you carry those single shooters to "a chaotic first line" WITHOUT SPARE PARTS OR TRAINING FOR THE GUNSMITHS, believing they could be good for something, instead of taking the rifles, the ammos for them, and simply delivering the rifle along with the ammos.
Now, let's see what the Volksturm really had.
On 15 January 1945, for example, the Volkssturm in Gau Bayreuth had a total of
1,148 rifles Model 1888 ( needed obsolete 8mm "88 patrone" cartridges),
1,265 rifles Model 1898 (from World War One),
543 Karabiner 98k,
5 Gewehr 43 (semi-automatic rifles),
17,562 Italian Carcano rifles,
1,974 French captured rifles,
64 Russian rifles (Mosin-Nagant),
1 Romanian rifle,
34 Dutch rifles,
129 Belgian rifles,
134 Czech rifles,
13 Polish rifles,
2 British rifles,
34 Austrian rifles,
173 9mm pistols,
2,038 7.65mm pistols,
982 6.35mm pistols,
1 Italian pistol,
19 French pistols,
25 Belgian pistols,
3 MPi 40,
2 MG 13,
4 MG 34,
2 Polish machine-guns,
2 Czech machine-guns,
1 French machine-gun,
1 Austrian machine-gun,
2 Czech heavy machine-guns,
1 mortar 5cm,
1 mortar 8cm,
1 French gun,
4,436 pieces Panzerfaust,
690 grenades Eierhandgranaten,
720 grenades Stielhandgranaten.
So, surprise surprise, not talking of all the OTHER calibers. Only the Volksturm of a single German region of 2.2 million people had more Carcano rifles than the entire production of converted rifles of Krieghoff and FNA Brescia.
So, surprise surprise, the Germans dug into those warehouses in search of ammos after all.
So, surpsise surprise, to add a logistic supply line of converted 7.92 Mauser single shooter Carcano rifles to the already existing and vastly preponderant supply line of 6.5 repeater Carcano rifles, only complicated the German logistic.
Who would have told?
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@antonw-uw4ov So you are a French and own a gun? No, because you are reading a wikipedia page.
So You are pretending that your pretended gun ownership modified your brain so that now you are better than others at reading wikipedia pages about laws of places you don't know?
That's why I'm not answering to your requests about my personal infos. Because what you pretend to get from yours is funny enough.
First of all, I have to remind you that, to you, the purchase of the Benelli instead of an AR15 was due to different regulations for the two rifles.
My reply was that the Benelli and the AR15 were purchased AT THE SAME CONDITIONS.
Now you are stating that in France "both an ar15 and benelli mr1 is in category B, which means..." ...that they are purchased AT THE SAME CONDITIONS.
And that already invalidates your entire argument.
Then, again, your statement: "in most countries in Europe you do have to belong to a sport shooting club to own a military style semi auto, and the clubs generally require you to compete regularly to get a membership and to keep it".
My reply: "a licence for sporting purposes is a licence that allow you to buy and own the rifle, and to bring it to a range WHEN AND IF YOU WANT TO DO THAT. Nobody forces you to attend a range. YOU CAN SIMPLY KEEP THE RIFLE IN YOUR CLOSET IF YOU WANT."
In France, to have an autorization for "tir spotif" the shooter must be older than 18 (12 if he's really a competitive shooter), have attended at least 3 shooting sessions with an instructor, have a medical certificate and a licence of the "Fédération française de tir" (€60,00/year for an adult) . The shooter then receives a 5-year authorization to purchase and own Category B firearms. This autorization allow him to buy and own the rifle, and to bring it to a range WHEN AND IF HE WANTS TO DO THAT. Nobody forces him to attend a range. HE CAN SIMPLY KEEP THE RIFLE IN HIS CLOSET IF HE WANT.
Notice that, if the shooter really competes, the required age is only of 12.
In Czech Republic there is a theoretical and practial exam to obtain a licence for that matter but, once you have it, nobody forces you to attend a range. YOU CAN SIMPLY KEEP THE RIFLE IN YOUR CLOSET IF YOU WANT.
etc. etc.
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The second. In theory, with the legs closed, the gunner, or servent, was supposed to be able to grab the scorching hot barrel to swap it (already the fact that, in the middle of the action, he was supposed to close the bipod and extract the barrel, while the open receiver had to be laid down, on sandy or muddy terrain, because there was no more a bipod to hold it, demonstrates how retarded the design was. Any other LMG design sorted that out since the late '20s)
In practice, asbestos gloves.
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Tanfoglio (imported in the US by EAA with the name "Witness") is the oldest CZ75 "cloner". They introduced the "TZ75" in the early '80s and started developing the design from there, often introducing the improvements before CZ did (firing pin block in 1988, .45 ACP in 1992, large frame in 1995, polymer frame in 1997...) Almost all the CZ75 clones out there (Jericho 941, Baby Eagle, Sarsilmaz, Springfield, Armscor...) are infact Tanfoglio clones, often made, at least at the beginning, locally assembling Tanfoglio parts. Long story short, all the Witness lineup (bar the 1911) is available in 10mm already. See https://eaacorp.com/guns/handguns?pid=1:tanfoglio&search=&order=i.name&dir=asc&cm=0#tlb
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All those pistols, like the Bernardelli P08, and this one, have the half-cock position. That's what was intended to replace the decocker, as, if you hold the hammer, pull the trigger, allowing the hammer to just slightly move forward, and release the trigger, the hammer will safely seat in half/cock even if you suddenly release it.
From half-cock, the first double trigger pull is more pleasant too (same weight, but shorter pull).
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Risto Mladich Actually, quality problems in wartime Soviet production were well known, and did not affect only rifle production. Artillery ammunitions, engines, aircrafts, were affected as well. Simply, quantity was more important that quality, and many of the production sites had to be hastly transferred, since the original factories were overrun. Whatever the theory is, the reality is that the Germans tested every captured SVT40, used those of acceptable accuracy, and discarded the others, and the others were a good percentage.
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the Revelli 1914 was, all in all, a good HMG. The 1935 conversion not so much (it fired from a closed bolt, that's indifferent for a water-cooled MG, but not so good on a air-cooled one) despite having at least a good feature, an ultra-modern disgregating metallic belt, but it was intended as a cheap stopgap. The ones that had been converted, had not been in exchange to other models, but simply to have more MGs on the field.
The 7.35 carcano cartridge was developed to completely replace the 6.5 one but, as the war broke out when the conversion just started, the plans were cancelled and the 7.35 cartridge simply had not been used on the field.
Austrian captured weapons had been used almost exclusively in AOI (Africa Orientale Italiana, Italian Eastern Africa, that means Ethiopia, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland). Due to the geography, those lands would have been completely cut off from the mainland in case of war with the British Empire (like they infact did), and the local troops would have had to use only what they already had there up to exhaustion, so logistic was less of a issue.
The easiness of servicing was among the things Allied reports of the time praised about the Breda 30.
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Pure short recoil systems (like those used in handguns) and long bottleneck cartridges don't match well.
In a short recoil system, in the moment the barrel stops, the case, in respect to the chamber, abruptly passes from "0" to the max speed. Long rifle cases have a lot of surface that's stuck to the chamber's walls, so, even if the pressure isn't high, with this abrupt acceleration there are high chances to damage the cases, sometimes break them, and so jam the action.
To avoid this, there are several possibilities. To unlock the bolt from the barrel first than the rearward motion of the barrel ends, so allowing the residual pressure of the gasses to start extracting the case first than the barrel stops ("chiusura labile", like in the Fiat Revelli 1914). To use a lever action to ensure that the bolt recoils slightly faster than the barrel ( Browning M1919, Brixia 1920, Breda SAFAT...). To reduce the locking surface of the case (fluting the chamber). Or to reduce the friction between the case and the chamber (lubing the case).
However this is not the only example. The Japanes Type 96 LMG had an oiler, and the Hispano Suiza Hs 404 cannon, and it's derivates in use up until today, has an internal oiler as well.
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@jimbob1427 150 Rounds in a minute is what you could fire with the BAR, first to have to stop and take cover for five minutes, waiting for your weapon to cool off while the other guys fought.
BREN gunners were expected to fire a magazine a minute (30 rounds theoretical, 27 real). At the start of the war it was contemplated a "rapid" fire, to use in emergency situations, of 7 magazines a minute. During the war, due to the practical experience on the field, it was REDUCED to 4 magazines a minute (120 theoretical rounds, 108 real), and keeping in mind that the entire provision of the LMG squad was of 20 magazines, so only 5 minutes of fire at that pace.
That's why, in Allied reports on the Breda 30, and instruction given to the Allied soldiers that were ISSUED with the captured ones, the rate of fire and the reload time HAD NEVER BEEN DEEMED AS PROBLEMS.
RL is quite different form movies.
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"probably after advancing..."
That had something to do with the fact that BOTH the Breda 30 and the BAR were used by 3 men crews?
"Oh, and don't forget..."
Really the Allied used them, The Brits even stamped an English manual for the British gunners equipped with the Breda 30. That's what the Tactical and Tecnical Trend (the magazine of the US Intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 "Use of Captured Italian Weapons" said of it :
"The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting."
That was what the contemporaries, the ones that had to DAILY fight the weapon and use the captured ones, tought of it. Not the armchair opinion of someone that saw it once on a video. No hints of the oiler or the dust cover, or the loading procedure, to be problems at all.
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@robosoldier11 To me, as a technical enthusiast, both the Scotti action (the one you see in the Model X, it had been scaled up to 37mm automatic cannons) and the Breda gas action (the one you see in the Breda PG, that too had been scaled up to 37mm automatic cannons) were very good. The Scotti bolt was made of four pieces, with little precision machining required. The Breda of five, with only straight cuts. The Scotti rifle only required to fire from a closed bolt and a magazine to be a very good semiauto, and it's difficult to imagine a simpler one.
But in 1939 Italy had 1/4 of the industrial output than Great Britain. There were budgetary constraints. France, that had other economic possibilities, adopted a new bolt action in 1936.
In the same period, the US had something like 42% of the world's industrial output.
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@drewberg1361 Maybe you didn't read, or understood, "rifle sized". Full blown cartridges being controllable in 10kg MGs is not exactly a wonder. Those are in active military service because, surprise, the ballistic marvel you described, the .223 Rem, is not that great of a cartridge in the MG role so, once adopted it, the 7.62 was still needed for MGs, demonstrating that all the need of the infantry rifle cartridge to be supersonic at ranges were no infantry rifle were used for was not that important in the end.
Lessons that other learned before pretending to issue select-fire rifles in .308 win. But the US didn't listen.
A demonstration is not a trial. The Winchester prototype was was publicly demonstrated in oct 1957, only five months after the first demonstration of the AR15, the Winchester prototypes with the modifications required arrived at Fort Benning in July 1958, were tested, and the report of the tests was released in september of the same year. The AR15 was praised for reliability and the Winchester rifle for accuracy, but both were deemed to be inferior to the M14 anyway. Wound ballistic was not even taken into account.
Your opinion. Surely the Soviet didn't rush, in replacing the 7.62X39 since its still in service. But the .223 Rem was introduced as an answer to the 7.62x39 and the 5.45X39 as an answer to the .223 Rem. Had the US troops in Nam already had an intermediate cartridge when they encountred the 7.62X39,, they would have introduced the .223 Rem in response to... what exactly?
Because of 2/3 the recoil of a .308 Win (or less in the early iterations) while at the same time exceeding all the ballistic nonsense you are obsessed with. The .280 Brit is controllable in full auto, the .308 Win is not. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer, but you are reasoning like Colonel Studler did " THE .308 HAS MORE POWAH! YEAH! GO WITH MORE POWAH!", with the result of adopting the shortest lived infantry rifle in US history. You are not even taking the weight of the rifle into acount.
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@drewberg1361 The 7.92X33 Kurz unable to mantain supersonic speed at 500 feet? And you want to pass ars an armorer? LOL!
The 7.92X33mm kurz was supersonic up to 400m (not feet).
The 7.92X41mm CETME, a direct derivate, was supersonic all the way to 1000m thus being controllable in full auto. The Brits were interested only in performances up to 600m, since infantry rifles were practically never used past 500m on the field, and even the early milder recoil versions were comfortably supersonic at that distance. Even in its more powerful iteration, the .280/30, the .280 provided 2/3 of the recoil of the .308 Win while at the same time being supersonic at 800m. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer, but you are reasoning like Colonel Studler did "IT HAS MORE POWAH! YEAH! WHO CARES ABOUT RECOIL? WE NEED MORE POWA!", with the result of adopting the shortest lived infantry rifle in US history. You (a supposed armorer, LOL!) are not even taking the weight of the weapon into account.
They were nowere to be seen, because there had been no request like the one you are babbling about.
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@drewberg1361 The US, not the allies, determined the intermediate rounds availabe were "inadequate", because they wanted a full blown cartridge despite everyone else knew full blown cartridges, even the existing 6.5 ones, couldn't fire controllable bursts in rifle-sized weapons. They knew it since the '20s and already developed their AR accordingly. Once determined that nonsense, the US imposed the decision to the NATO allies, even triking FN, to which they offered the adoption of the FAL by US in exchange of supporting the 7.62 NATO.
You said: "the US were the ones primarily testing it in actual combat rather than theory". That's false. The AVT 40 (full blown cartridge) was used operationally and the Soviets determined it was not viable WAY before the US used the M14 operationally. The STG44 (intermediate cartridge) was used massively, with almost half a million samples built, and it was impressive enough that the Soviets built the AK47 after it. If the US decided to ignore other's FIELD experiences, it's only their fault.
Anyone can invent a ballistic goal an intermediate cartridge can't reach and estabilish it as a "minimum requirement". That's what the US did. The .223 Remington has nothing special, it was not adopted following ANY competition but only due to war needs. Actually ballistically is a quite inefficent round, with a poor sectional density that makes it loose speed faster than other intermediate rounds. "Supersonic at 500 feet"? Are we talking of a pistol round? It's a goal so low to be ridicolous other than being completely arbitrary. The .280 British was already consistently supersonic at 500m (not feet) even if fired by a short barrel, and faster than the .223 from 400m on. so it exceeded those "ballistic goals" before someone invented them.
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On the other hand, in respect to it's disadvantages, the advantage of bullpups desing compactness in tansport is often void if compared to standard designs with collapsible stock (that bullpups can't have).
Comparing the FAMAS and the Steyr AUG with another 5.56 NATO European design of the same years (the Beretta SC70/90), we see that the SC70/90, with the stock collapsed, is 756mm long with a 450mm barrel. The FAMAS is 757mm long with 488mm barrel, The AUG is 790mm long with 508mm barrel.
So, the lenght advantages of the FAMAS and AUG designs, for the same barrel lenght, are of mere 36mm (1.4 inches) and 24mm (1 inch) respectively. Hardly noticeable when the rifle is carried by a soldier in a truck.
The French are leaving these not cause the project is faulty, but cause they have no more a state-owned small weapons manufacturer. To hire a foreign contractor to redesign the weapon to the most recent standards (large use of polymer in the receiver to contain weight and adding the rails, redesign of the action to reduce the ROF and provide a smoother extraction, redesign of the bolt to reduce the time required to switch the ejection to left/right) and produce it, will be more expensive than selecting a modern assault rifle already on the market.
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Nothing had been "screwed up". The weapon had been higly successful, so much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, tripod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to develop the OVP18 and the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon had been higly successful both in the defence and attack role. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to adopt the MAB18 (that was nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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+Bojan Milankovic When the Italians designed the cartridge, round nose was the only option, since the spitzer rounds wee introduced later. Surely they could have switched to pointed cartridges at a certain point (spitzer rounds were used for marksmanship competitions), but, since the 6.5x52 cartridge had ever been on the verge of being replaced (first with the 7X40 of the Terni M.21, and then with the 7.35X51) the change has always been postponed.
As for the power of the cartridge, with 2572J is perfectly comparable to other 6.5 service cartridges of the time as the 6.5 Arisaka (Japanese service cartridge), 6.5X53R (Romanian/Dutch service cartridge), 6.5X54 Mannlicher Shonauer (Greek service cartridge), not surprisingly, since many of them were direct copy of the 6.5X52 design (that's particularly true for the 6.5X53R and 6.5X54, That Mannlicher obtained from the cartridges' samples that were given to him to compete in the concourse for the design of the Italian service rifle), with only the 6.5X55 Swedish/Norwegian being slightly more powerful. More surprisingly, it's power is perfectly comparable to that of several of the most modern 6.5 rounds, as the 6.5 Grendel, or the 264 USA, that The US Army Marksmanship Unit is studying to replace both the 7.62x51mm and 5.56x45mm NATO, and whose case is even obtained from a shortened Carcano case.
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The FBI adopted the 10mm for a short time, but had soon to move to lighter loads, and then they replaced it with 40S&W, that had the same load they were using, but, being shorter, could be used on standard 9mm frames.
It was not a question of small hands. it's a question that agents are not gun enthusiasts. When the 10mm was adopted, the FBI standard issue was the 357 mag revolver, but much agents, with permission, loaded them with .38 Special +p ammos, because they didn't like to train with the 357 mag. That's the problem. When you adopt a round that's uncomfortable to shoot, agents reduce the training time to the bare minimum, and that degrades their performances on the field much more than the more powerful caliber can enhance.
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Blair Maynard The MG42was arguably the most advanced MG of WWII. This is WWI, and had to be compared with other MGs of WWI. However, the MG42 was usually fed with a 50 rounds belt.
The job of a defensive MG in WWI was:
1) the enemy artillery barrage begins. You have to rapidly dismount the MG and take cover. The Villar Perosa was light and apt for this.
2) the enemy artillery barrage ends. You have to rapidly redeploy the weapon, cause the enemies are already running at you. The Villar perosa is light and apt for this.
3)The enemies are approaching, not from were they wants, but through obligatory passages that had been opened through the barbed wire, or through mountain trails. You have to aim at those. But the enemies are not idiots. Any of them is visible only for few instants. In those instants you spray a short burst at them and saturate that position. The Villar perosa has an high rate of fire, and is apt for this.
In defense, the Villar Perosa acts as a long-range shotgun.
As for the offensive role. From 1916 to 1918. the Villar Perosa was not "good" or "bad". It was THE ONLY ONE. It was, and by far, the best thing around for the SMG job, whithout any competition. Infact the Austrians copied it, double barrel, tripod and all. They didn't thought it could have been done better. Cause it was already the best.
But if you prefer to jump into an enemy trench with a bolt action rifle, your choice. I'll go with the SMG, even if it's not perfect.
Besides, 2 seconds for a 20m trench are an eternity.
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This gun has never been designed to be an aircraft SMG. It only happened that the first 350 samples (of over 14.000 produced) had been given to the Air Force (that, at that time, was a branch of the Army) cause the Army wanted the weapon ready to be mass produced first to start to field it. The MGs used on the aircrafts had a different mounting, without the round plate and with normal aerial sights. The round plate was intended to be used on the field with the shield. When used with the shield, the plate was integral part of the protection, and the hole sight was the only opening in it.
As for the rate of fire, it serves the same purpose of the 1200 rpm ROF of the MG-42. they both had not been designed for suppression fire (heavy MGs were intended for that role), but to cover obligatory passages (through the barbed wires, or the mountain trails) and fire only when you actually see the enemy. Since the enemy is no stupid, he is visible only for a brief time, and, for this, a huge ROF is required to hit him.
In 1916 Capt. Bassi, creator of the Arditi, begun to use it, without the shield, to clear the enemy trenches. A stretch ot trench is 20m long at best. With a single burst of the Villar Perosa you can saturate it without even seeing. That's useful, since the assaults were often performed at night.
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@tatumergo3931 Not really.
The concept of the automatic weapon as the centre of the infantry formation came form the observations on WWI, and is typically European. In WWII it was not only of the Germans, but also of the Brits and even of the Italians. The weapons were different, but the concept was the same. That's why, IE, all of them concentrated more on the development of the automatic firearm than on the infantry rifle.
From this concept comes that the automatic weapon is a crew-served weapon. All the infantry squad is a squad of ammo and spare parts bearer for the automatic weapon.
The American concept, that still persists, is that of the infantry squad as a squad of riflemen with the automatic weapon as support.
That's why, IE, the US, in WWII, had an exceptional rifle, and a subpar LMG.
That's why the XM250 had just been selected as SAW for the US Army. The ideal of the Ordnance Corp is to have the MG served by a single men. The XM250 doesn't even have an attachment point for the tripod, because none is going to carry a tripod, nor a quick exchange barrel, because none is going to carry a spare barrel. The MG gunner is going to carry all the belts for the gun, and the 400 rounds he can carry in total are not going to overheat the barrel.
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@aaronwilkinson8963 And how many ammos does it has with two people carrying gun, tripod and ammos?
What's the effective firing range from the bipod, if you choose to not carry the tripod?
If you are limiting an MG to the number of rounds two (or one!) people can carry along with the gun and tripod (and a spare barrel I hope), you are seriously misusing it.
Reality is that the FN MAG, today, is rarely seen not placed on a fixed position, or mounted on a vehicle, but today is not WWII. In WWII the thousands of rounds a MG could fire in a single action had to be CARRIED BY SHOULDER.
And, as soon as a vehicle is no more available, that's still true today.
Of that 9 men crew, three carried the weapon, the spare barrel, the tripod and all the accessories needed to mantain the weapon. The other six were ammo bearers AND any of them had a carbine and ammos for it. It's not that, while the ammo fired and two people (gunner and loader) were servicing it directly, the others were doing nothing.
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Err... no, The Steyr 1912 is a semiauto pistol, not a SMG or a machinepistol.
The name you are afraid to write, because it'll expose how clueless you are is Repetierpistole M1912/P16, that's BASED on the Steyr 1912 pistol, but was adopted in 1916 (with a 16 round magazine).
The Villar Perosa had been adopted in 1915, and is not based on anything existing before. It's not a pistol with the disconnector removed. So, other than having been adopted before, it had a longer development time.
So no, Austrians didn't start experimenting with machine pistols first than the Italians delivered the first true SMG, and your insulting others only exposes your lack of arguments more.
Sorry, but, even with the 32 rounds drum magazine, the Lange Pistole 08 was not capable of full auto fire.
The first full auto capable versions of the C96 appeared only in the '20s.
So, another time, you don't know what you are talking about.
Obviously you can remove the disconnector to any semiautomatic weapon and obtain a full auto one, but "experimenting with machinepistols" is another thing than doing bubba works in a garage.
Maybe you could have seemed less clueless even being only capable to google, had you know how to do it.
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@eloiseharbeson2483 Because you should be someone "who knows more"? Without understanding basic math, physics or even having really learnt to read? You are a blatant example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, aren't you?
I already told you what the performances of the two cartridges are. It's not my fault if common pistol cartridges' performances in general have not increased much in the last century. It has to do with human anatomy. 8mm Roth Steyr was nothing exceptional in 1908, like .30 Super Carry is nothing exceptional now.
As for "knowing so much about the performance of .30 SC", I don't know much. I only know a little more than the "nothing" you do. I just cared to know enough about ballistic to understand what I read and, knowing enough about ballistic to understand what I read, I can explain you (or better, I can explain. Unfortunately you can't comprehend) WHY having more than doubled the case pressure in respect to the 8mm RS resulted in a so meagre increase in the performances of the .30 SC, when the external dimensions of the cases are so similar.
Do you know what's the difference between a 21500 psi case and a 45000 psi one?
Brass thickness.
But increasing the brass thickness of a rather small case, you significantly reduce the internal volume, and that hampers the effect of the increased pressure, because the initial spike in pressure decreases more rapidly as son as the bullet starts moving.
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@eloiseharbeson2483 More than they taught Physics and basic grammar in your evidently.
For the second, I said "MORE similar", and there's no doubt than the 8mm Roth-Steyr is MORE similar to the performances of the .30 super Carry than the 7.65X20 Longe. You can check the meaning of "MORE".
For the first, muzzle energy is 1/2massXsquare of the speed.
.30 super Carry 100gr, 380m/s, 470Joule of energy.
8mm Roth Steyr, 116gr, 332m/s, 409 Joule of energy.
It's not that much of a difference, especially considered that the speed of the bullet, for a given pressure tend to increase linearly with the reduction of the mass, while the energy increases with the square of the speed, so, with a 100gr bullet, the 8mm Steyr Roth would develop more energy.
Also 45.000 psi is not "three x" of 21.500. So your elementary school was not that good for math as well it seems.
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There had been two separate issues.
A pair of cases on the SEALs 92SB, and yes, that was due to very high round count and firing an unprecised mix of ammos.
Then on some Army M9, tested for endurance in 1988. 12 had been tested. Generally they reached a very high round count, but a pair of them had the slide cracked at low round count.
Initially the Army determined it was due to the steel alloy of the slide, requested it to be changed, and Beretta modified the slides so that even a cracked one could't be projected out of the gun. However Beretta technicians were not persuaded. They were selling 92 series guns to military and police forces all over the world, and only the M9 of the US Army seemed to have problems. They analysed the results of the test, and noticed all the low counts slide cracks happened only when a single batch of Federal Cartridge ammo was used. Once tested by independent labs, it was determined those rounds developed pressure in excess of proofloads (Beretta sued the US government at that point, and the lawsuit was settled with them receiving further $ 10m). Ironically, the 92 remained known for the "slide cracking" problem, while, at that time, its slides were arguably more robust than those of any Browning design competitor.
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Thanks to you.
Unfortunately, Ian decided to disassemble the rifle (that was required to show the burst mechanism) without showing first how a field strip (that covers all the usual manteinance of the rifle, and 99% of the emergency operations) was supposed to be done. That gave the impression of the design to be complicated.
Field strip (remove the muzzle cover and expose the gas ports, chamber and piston for cleaning; remove the recoil spring for inspection/replacing; remove the bolt assembly for cleaning/replacing the firing pin) is actually very easy and can be done in seconds without tools.
Disassembly requires more time, but it has to be said that almost all the bolt action and semiauto rifles' designs until that point, and several later, were not supposed to have the receiver and trigger group removed from the stock that often. That's why they were screwed to it. When Ian reviewed the Gew. 41 and 43 for example, he didn't remove them. Otherwise there would have been several screws to remove as well.
An M1 Garand, for example, is made with a completely different philosopy. The rifle can be easily disassembled, but is not really field-strippable. To remove the bolt from the receiver, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and pay attention to several small parts).
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This rifle is actually very simple, with a very low parts count. The filed strip can be made in seconds without tools (that's not a given at that time). Simply Ian decided to do a complete disassembly. That's another thing.
To have access to the gas chamber and the gas ports (that's the thing that requires cleaning, there is not actually much that could happen to the piston and op rod) you only have to remove the muzzle cover. To inspect the recoil spring, you can remove it from the trap door. To remove the bolt you only have to remove the dust cover and the rear buffer ("when the dust cover is off, it just slides out") and it comes out from the rear of the receiver. It isn't needed to remove the receiver from the stock.
Like almost every bolt action rifle up to then, and several semiauto rifle after then, this rifle is not made to have the trigger group and the receiver removed often from the stock. that's why they have screws. While the parts that require cleaning, and/or have to be replaced more often (for the second case, almost universally the recoil spring and the firing pin) are very easily reachable.
An M1 Garand, for example, is made with a completely different philosopy. The rifle can be easily disassembled, but is not really field-strippable. To reach the firing pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have several small parts flying around you).
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?
Actually the rifle is very simple. Apart for the burst mechanism, that's an added part, not required for it to work, the parts count is the lowest it could be, and the field strip can be made in seconds without tools, that was not a given at that time.
To have access to the gas chamber and the gas ports (that's the thing that requires cleaning, there is not actually much that could happen to the piston and op rod) you only have to remove the muzzle cover. To inspect the recoil spring, you can remove it from the trap door. To remove the bolt you only have to remove the dust cover and the rear buffer ("when the dust cover is off, it just slides out") and it comes out from the rear of the receiver. It isn't needed to remove the receiver from the stock.
The bolt is made of just five parts, included one that doubles as charging handle. The trigger group is very simple too.
Like almost every bolt action rifle up to then, and several semiauto rifle after then, this rifle is simply not made to have the trigger group and the receiver removed often from the stock (that's why they were secured with screws). While the parts that require cleaning, and/or have to be replaced more often (for the second case, almost universally the recoil spring and the firing pin) are very easily reachable.
An M1 Garand, for example, is made with a completely different philosopy. The rifle can be easily disassembled, but is not really field-strippable. To reach the firing pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have several small parts flying around you).
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@ineednochannelyoutube5384 We have a first hand explanation in Maj. Luigi Gucci book "Armi portatili" year 1915, p.58. It's about the Carcano semiauto conversion, that had been shown here https://youtu.be/jrp7QLSlKD4
The reason was that, altough the rifle was perfectly functional, and costed way less than a new semiauto rifle, in adopting a semiauto rifle for all the army, the price of the rifle was, in the end, marginal in respect to the price of the logistic. IE the price of a brand new semiauto rifle, not a conversion, was estimated in 60L, that of a single Carcano cartridge was 0.1L, so a semiauto rifle costed like 600 cartridges. So it made little sense to adopt a solution that, "however ingenious, simple and well designed is, it's anyway a stopgap and, as such, it can't fully comply to all the requirements of an excellent infantry semiautomatic rifle."
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EthosAtheos What I was saying is that bottleneck carbine rounds like the .223 Rem are inherentlhy "clean", cause the small bore and the gas seal of the projectile make so that the drop in pressure of the gasses in the barrel is slow enough to give to almost all of the powder the time to burn completely.
Shotgun rounds instead are inherently dirty, cause the drop in pressure is almost instantaneous. For gasses, drop in pressure means drop in temperature, and so the powder have not the time to burn completely. Shotguns always produces more combution debris than carbines, so semiauto gas actuated shotguns needs to have some system to get rid of them.
To use a simple piston, short or long stroke, like that of the typical black rifle (AUG, Tavor, Beretta ARX 100/160 and so on), in the same conditions, that means for a shotgun action, would mean to have it stuck in debris after few hundred rounds.
On the other hand, it could be said that, to use a self-cleaning action, like that of the Benelli, for carbine rounds is an overkill, since even a simple piston can shoot some thousand of them without cleaning.
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D8W2P4 There is some other difference actually, and, if bullpups in intermediate cartridges are pretty rare, bullpups in full power rifle cartridges are almost non existent. Why? Cause those rifles are not made for close quarter fight (so the only advantage of bullpups is moot) and, first of all, being them necessarily heavier than a AR, the balance disadvantages of bullpups become evident, then, being them usually marksman rifles, crappy triggers are a big disadvantage.
Again, some conventional rifles can be problematic for lefties, but not at the level of having to be shouldered on their wrong shoulder to avoid eating brass. That's a specialty of bullpups.
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D8W2P4 "Wrong, it's poorly designed trigger groups"
So, for you, it only happened that all the bullpups have poorly designed trigger groups?
The crappy trigger of the bullpups is due to the fact that the trigger is distant from the hammer/striker, so the movement of the finger has to be transferred for a greater distance. That means that the levers of the trigger group are heavier, and the leverage has more total lash. It's an unavoidable defect of the design.
"Conventional rifles are a problem for lefties"
Some of them are, but not at the level of having to be shouldered on their wrong shoulder to avoid eating brass. Even with bolt action rifles it had been noted how, operating the trigger with the left hand and the bolt with the right one, lefties are often faster than right handed people.
"try using a conventional rifle with say a 24" barrel in a tight space."
And why on the earth should i do it? No service 5.56 NATO bullpup I'm aware of is issued with a 24" barrel. Even cause the ballistic gain over a 20", for the .223 Rem, is practically nihil even for long range shooting, and, if you are not doing competition shooting, everything over 17" is an overkill. It's true that, in action, a bullpup will always be shorter than a conventional design, but the relative advantage is lower as the barrel is shorter and, in tight spaces, long barrels are pretty useless anyway.
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@oldscratch3535 It doesn't matter what, or who, you believe either, for that matter. Physics doesn't work according to your wishes.
According to Stoner, the AR action "is a true expanding gas system instead of the conventional impinging gas system". Unfortunately that's EXACTLY how the Rasheed, or the MAS 49, actions work. Thanks to gas expansion. Have you noticed how the "open gas tube" of the Rasheed, or of the MAS 49, enters INTO the bolt carrier, instead of simply resting against it's flat face? It's because, to work, EXACTLY like in the AR action, they need pressure build and gas expansion for a certain time. Not simply a supposed "kick" of the gas against the bolt carrier. So, or all of those system are direct gas impingement, or none of them is.
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@hendriktonisson2915 No.
As said, first the Italians wanted to adopt the 7.35X32 (not the 7.35X51, that came later) because they wanted to adopt a semiauto rifle (the Terni 1921) and correctly recognised that, for semiauto fire, an intermediate cartridge was better, hence the 7.35X32.
The conservatorism of the high brass prevented the adoption of the Terni semiauto, bu they still wanted a semiauto, in a full blown cartridge, so a new rifle, and tested many.
In 1938, still testing semiauto rifles, they recognised the convertion to a semiauto would have likely required a long time, but they didn't want to fight the next war with long worn-out, WWI Carcano rifles, so they adopted the M38 short rifle, that was a new rifle anyway.
BUT there is a trick. You can take an old, worn-out, 6.5 long rifle barrel, and turn it in a brand new, 7.35 short rifle barrel, only cutting and reboring it.
You can't turn an old worn-out 6.5 long rifle barrel in a brand new 6.5 short rifle barrel. Even cutting it, it will remain worn out.
So, since they had to manufacture new rifles and new ammos anyway, to adopt the 7.35x51, was economically convenient in respect to adopt a 6.5 spitzer.
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@treyriver5676 They are obviously different bullets, one is spitzer and one is round nose. But they had been made to be used in the same barrels.
The Spitzer has actually the diameter of the grooves of the barrel of the Gew 88 post 1894 (and the Mauser Gew 98).
The diameter of the lands of the barrel of the Gew 88, in 1894, had been enlarged from the original .319 (the diameter of the bullet) to .323 because the long, round nose, bullet had a long bearing surface and a lot of material to displace to sit into the rifling, so it caused pressure spikes that "bulged" the barrel.
The spitzer, due to the reduced bearing surface, didn't need the difference, but the barrels had been enlarged, for the round nose bullet, ten years before, so it had been made of the diameter of the lands of the "new" barrels. .323.
The larger bullet needed a larger neck of the case, and so a larger cut in the chamber. But it was far easier to rebore the neck of the chambers than to replace the barrels. From the shoulder on the case is the same. Infact the Germans didnt' want to change ammo, they wanted a spitzer.
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@P_RO_ First of all, the answer was to Jazzmaster Jay, that said the 6.5 "had less mass" than 7.62x51. it hadn't.
As already said, the Swedes came to that determination only in 1941. The Italians introduced the lighter 7.35mm bullet three years before.
They introduced a lighter bullet three years before the Swedes exactly to have a flatter trajectory, and a projectile more easily tumbling in the body, the rationale of the decision had been even announced in newsreels of the time. So, after all, they had been able to get enough velocity increase to make difference, and didn't left it as-is.
The " weaker action" of the Carcano had been converted to shoot 7.92mm Mauser. It wouldn't have problem in firing a marginally more powerful round like the 6.5 Swede. Simply the Italians didn't see any real advantage in increasing the power of the cartridge.
Finally, 140 grains is simply what you tend to obtain if you replace a 160grains round-nose 6.5mm bullet with a spitzer without changing the OAL. The japanese did exactly the same with the 6.5 Arisaka, that had comparable power than the 6.5 Carcano, in 1905, 31 years before the Swedes.
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@Caseytify How did they pay for the billions of new rounds they manufactured, that were even more expensive? They were adopting a new semiauto rifle (a pretty expensive item) for ALL the Army. ANY previous study concluded that semiautos enhanced the consumption of ammos, so regardless the quantity of ammos in the storage THEY WOULD HAVE ENDED. For much of their expected service life the NEW rifles would have used NEW ammos, and, since the new rifles would have mostly used new ammos, it would have been better if the new ammos were cheaper to manufacture. ALSO, by adopting a lighter service ammo, they would have avoided to adopt a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT action and ammo for the carbine. A problem that was immediately recognizable.
They doubled it with the .30 Carbine. More M1 carbines were manufactured than M1 rifles during WW2.
Yeah, and it would have been better to spend some money and test it BEFORE the war, instead than adopting it without having tested it, and spending some year IN the war with tropedoes that didnt' work. Sometimes, stupid decisions are not justified by the mindset of the time. They are simply stupid. Comparatively poor countries in respect to the US had working torpedoes. Japan started war also for the US announcement that it would have built a fleet bigger than the world's second and third ones combined. So they had some money to spend.
Yeah, I explicitly stated it: "With the benefit of hindsight".
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@jimmydesouza4375 That's only valid as long as the treaty is valid.
Since Austria broke the treaty, first invading a country in the Balkans without previous agreement (and that would have already been enough), and then refusing to give compensations (and that would have already been a concession on Italy's part), Italy was no more bound by it. If you want others to respect the treaties, you should respect them first, not violate it, and then cry foul when others consider them expired.
It's pretty funny how, contrary to you, the Germans of the time had no problems in understanding this fact, and considered Austria's position to be irrational.
Sorry, it's "temporary or permanent" occupation, not only conquest. As above, the Germans of the time had no problems in considering a military invasion an occupation. Only you have.
Sorry, but Austria had not been "threatened" by Russia. It started a war with Serbia. Your very personal opinion of Russia threatening Austria via Serbia is pretty ridicolous, and had not weight in 1915. Trying to rewrite history to your liking is not going to do you any favour. Grow up.
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@jimmydesouza4375 So the reaty stated that:
a) Italy had no obligation to fight alonside Austria in a war it declared.
b) a "temporary or permanent" "occupation shall take place only after a PREVIOUS agreement between the two Powers"
c) Austria (in this case) had to give compensations for changes in the status quo in the Balkans.
Austria invaded Serbia in 1914 (that's a change in the status quo and an occupation) without any previous agreement (breaking the treaties).
Despite the obvious violation of point "b", Italy was willing to get over it in case Austria complied with "c".
Austrian foreign minister Berchtold, agreed on some concession (the recognition of the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese and Valona, that already happened). Italians wanted the cities of Trento and Trieste. German mediator Bernhard von Bülow pushed for the Austrians to accept the cession of Trento, and the Italians to accept a bigger degree of autonomy for Trieste in the Austrian Empire.
That would have been probably enough, but unfortunately on 13/01/1915 Berchtold had ben replaced by Stephan Burián, that retired any concession made by his predecessor, so breaking the talks, and exposing the Italian "neutralists" politicians (like Giolitti, that publicly stated Italy could gain much by peace) to ridicule, since it was evident that Austrians were not willing to give anything.
After two months of unsuccessful attempts to obtain anything Italy started the talkings with the Entente.
Bulow considered the Austrian position to be irrational. That's his opinion on the matter, from a letter to a friend, the journalist Felix von Eckhardt: "We must influence Vienna. It would be unheard of, for Austria, after pulling us into this war for its own incapacity in last two or three years, to deprive us of the collaboration of Italy and Rumenia, and to throw two million more enemies against us [. ..] I'll do what I can to spare us a new, great and not needed trouble. I'll do it for ourselves and for Austria, which must be saved from the hereditary defect of always arriving too late ".
That's what you call "betrayal".
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@obviouspseudonym9345 Ross rifle had ABSOLUTELY been Canada's choice. The refusal of the licence was of 1903. the Canadians had 11 YEARS to choose any rifle they wanted, there were tons of designs and available licences to choose from, and they chose the Ross. In 1914 they were at the 4th iteration of the rifle. The "we were a colony" argument can work had the Brits IMPOSED a rifle, but they didn't. Any country can refuse a production licence to another, it happens evey time. It's not like the other country is forced to use garbage only because they didn't get a specific licence. "oh no!, the US didn't grant me the licence to produce the Humvee! Now our soldiers should reach the battlefield by bycicle!" No, there are many other light trucks to chose from. Canada chose the Ross not because they had been forced. They did because they thought it was good and the Canadian government kept on defending the rifle against any evidence, even accusing the British officers that rised the issue of ignorance and incompetence, so much an oppressed colony they were.
The Ross was a piece of equipment specific of Canadian soldiers, as many other pieces of equipment were specific for canadian troops, and none of them had been "forced" onto them.
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@LilSwinney Yes. it's how it works. Had the Canadians tought their ammos were useful to keep their rifles working, they could have easily kept them. Nothing more difficult than to say "our rifles don't work with your ammos, sorry". The Brits had no interest in having some hundred of thousand soldiers on the frontline with useless rifles and, even had they been those cartoonish bad guys you are depicting, they were not in position to impose anything, because they need Canadian men and materials, not the contrary. And please, don't invent supply line issues. To supply the Canadians with their own manufactured ammos was not more difficult than supply the Canadians with their own manufactured rifles. Canadians had been able to keep their rifles, hadn't they? They had been able to IMPOSE the use of their Ross rifles, while the Brits were using Enfields, hadn't they? The supply lines supplied them with spare parts for the Ross, even if the Brits used another rifle, didn't they? Logistically it was a pain in the ass, but THE BRITS COULD DO NOTHING ABOUT IT. Because the Ross had been Canada's choice and the Canadians wanted to use it. Now you are telling me that the supply line could supply them with their rifles, their spare parts, their specific Canadian made uniform, their specific Canadian made webbing, their specific Canadian made showels, every piece of their equipment that was different from the British one, but was unable to supply them with their ammos? They had a sudden amnesia on how to delivery items when it came to rounds? What kind of shitty supply line the Canadians had?
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Sam Moon "Did I say the Germans produced SVT-40s, or did I say they had the ability..."
Do you really read the comments first to answer to them? The "ability" and the "tooling" ARE DIFFERENT THINGS. The tooling are the machinery and facilities required to specifically produce something, not the ability to make them. It's obvious that the Germans had the techical knowlege to manifacture SVT40, or M1 Garand for that matter, but they didn't made the tools to do so, so they had not the tooling.
"Also, I said I cannot prove a negative"
You clearly stated it was a "fact" that the rifles that needed reconditioning, "wasn't a significant number". It's a positive statement, that, if true, can be proved. Were are the sources of that "fact"? What's that "not significant" number?
It's not that you "cannot prove a negative", is that you stated to be a "fact" something that you don't know. And are now stating that the fact that you don't know the number is a proof that it was small.
Sorry, but ignorance is not proof.
What's a "fact" is that the Germans came up with an official accuracy test required (after having zeroed the rifles, so the Germans were expecting to not find the captured rifle to be even properly zeroed) on captured rifles (so on rifles that have been already iussued) to accept the rifles to be used by their soldiers. That shows that they didn't trust the Soviet quality control.
An official acceptance test would not have been required, if only seldom samples would have been out of tolerance.
"Here, I'll even show you..."
...that you are good at googling "1384/42-AHA/In(VII)". Learned something?
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Sam Moon "I cannot prove"
So it's not a "fact". What's a "fact" is that the Germans came up with an official accuracy test required (after having zeroed the rifles, so the Germans were expecting to not find the captured rifle to be even properly zeroed) on captured rifles (so on rifles that have been already iussued) to accept the rifles to be used by their soldiers. That shows that they didn't trust the Soviet quality control.
An official acceptance test would not have been required, if only seldom samples wuld have been out of tolerance.
"it is fact that the Germans tested EVERY piece of captured equipment they intended to use".
So what's the official acceptance test, to say one, of the Scotti 20/77 (renamed 2cm Scotti by the Germans)? To test a weapon, to simply see if it works, and to have an official acceptance test to pass are two different things.
"It is not my invection"
"the majority were out of tolerance and 'discarded'" Your invenction.
"you said the percentage was 'good'"
An official acceptance test would not have been required, if only seldom samples wuld have been out of tolerance.
Instead you said it's a "fact" that those that needed reconditioning, "wasn't a significant number"
Where are your sources?
"This line confirms to me you're just making stuff up; "Germans had not th(sic) tooling to make that rifle"
You're kidding, right? The Germans absolutely had the tooling to produce whatever small arms they wanted"
So you are stating Germans produced SVT 40? Good to hear. You have a source stating it, right? Otherwise it's another invenction of your.
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@Tom-zc9gs Those that used daily it used it in the sands of Egypt and the snow of Russia, and deemed it to be very reliable. None noticed this supposed "lot of work to maintain on the field of battle" or that "Other MGs had far more reliability in the same conditions". It seems like something you decided by yourself.
Canvas belts had been dropped as well, aren't they? One can invent supposed "general problems" of belts without taking in consideration the weapon he'stalking about at will. Judge them without having ever touched one, decide they are easy to damage... talking of the strips being "hard to keep clean and running" in comparison with belts is really funny anyway.
500m? Please. 90% of rifle exchanges in WWII had been fought at less than 100m, and 99% at less than 300m. So what's the use of doubling the weight for something that's useful in maybe 1% of the cases? And ist's not like the .30 carbine is harmless over 300m. Even a 9mm Para can still pass completely through a human body at 500m. Between the MP44 and the M2 Carbine (select fire M1, it's not like at Aberdeen didn't know them) I would have selected the M2. The Mp44 WAS heavy (it was heavier than a FAL or an M14. 1.2kg heavier than an AK47 unloaded. 2.1kg heavier than a M2 carbine, almost double its weight) in exchange of what? The fact that it's concepts (but not the gun) imposed themself after the war didn't mean it was a superior weapon at the time. the "tons of improvements that could be made" had not been made yet, it was the Mp44 that had to be judged, not "tons of possible improvements". Still in 1958 the contender of the AR15 was the Winchester Light Weight Military Rifle, a classic wooden-stocked forged-receiver rifle (and it could have won, the testers listed many advantages over the AR15) and, guess what? Both contenders had weights comparable to that of the M2, not that of the Mp44. A rifle really similar to the M2 Carbine was still a contender, an Mp44 would not have even been considered. The Mini14 is still appreciated now, and it's largely the same rifle, What modern weapon is really similar to the Mp44 as the Mini14 is similar to the M2?
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@Tom-zc9gs As already said, I prefer to rely on the original wartime reports of those that had to daily fight the weapon and had extensively tested it, comparing with their own, than modern armchair impressions of those that had seen it firing once in a clip.
"Machine carbine" is what the MP44 was. it's not like since the term "assault rife" imposed itself later, then who used "machine carbine" didn't understand the weapon. Between the MP44 and the M2 Carbine (select fire M1, it's not like at Aberdeen didn't know them) I would have selected the M2. The Mp44 WAS heavy (it was heavier than a FAL or an M14. 1.2kg heavier than an AK47 unloaded. 2.1kg heavier than a M2 carbine, almost double its weight) in exchange of what? The fact that it's concepts (but not the gun) imposed themself after the war didn't mean it was a superior weapon at the time.
Also, the fact that the Tactical and Technical Trends criticised a good weapon, it's not a proof that they tended to praise bad weapons. Quite the contrary infact. There's an obvious bias in favour of what one knows. The weapons of the enemy had to pass that bias to be considered good. The Breda 37 had been considered exceptional DESPITE the bias, not thanks to it.
The hindsight of successive weapon designs and industrial development has nothing to do with wartime weapons and conditions. Its misleading and has to be left out. A weapon doesn't become good in WWII because it's development had been good in Korea.
The supposed problems of the Italian army have nothing to do with the quality of the Breda 37. It was an MG, not an army.
Nor those that used it daily nor those that tested it as a weapon of the enemy noticed this supposed unreliability nor this "constant necessity of maintenance", nor those problematic features. The weapon had always been deemed to be very reliable and simple to mantain.
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@hendriktonisson2915 "Excellent" is the word used in Allied reports "From the following report, prepared at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, it appears to be an excellent gun". (see the Tactical and Technical Trend, the magazine of the US Intelligence, No. 23, April 22, 1943 "ITALIAN 8-MM BREDA MEDIUM MACHINE GUN, MODEL 37"). I prefer to rely to original wartime reports than modern armchair impressions.
As already said, to load the trays, like to load the belts, was a backline activity. Only loaded trays, like only loaded belts, were supposed to reach the first line. A broken loader (but what's the possibility for a loader to break? It's so remote to be immaterial in choosing a gun) could be fixed, and obviously there were other loaders around. However, since the tray has a clear stop to mark the position of the cartridges and, being rigid, can be placed on the ground or on a box during the operation, I beg to differ on what was easier to load by hand.
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Because having the charging handle on the right side, and so operating it with the shooting hand, while holding the weapon on the forestock with the other hand, it's the only way to reload without moving the weapon out of line. That's why any bolt action rifle has the charging handle on the right side ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jo9gifLCDs&t=291s ), that's why the M1 Garand had the charging handle on the right side, that's why the BREN had the charging handle on the right side... that's why most semiauto and auto weapons that haven't an ambidextrous charging handle (Included almost any SMG: Thompson, M3 grease gun, Sten, KP31, PPSH...), have it on the right side.
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Exceptionally reliable, exceptionally stable while firing in full auto (you can se Ian's clip of him firing it), very accurate, optimally designed magazines.
Every competitor failed in one or more of those departments.
Yeah. Obviously the army, once the reality of mass warfare kicked in, preferred more simple to manufacture versions, but had not been the only one. Other nations started the war with comparably complex or even more complex SMGs (Thompson, MP35, Lanchester, KP31...), and kept on manufacturing them until the end, yet they were not on par.
Roy Dunlap's classic "Ordnance Went Up Front": "The Beretta 38 is my favorite gun of its class, as it was of the Eighth Army. As easy to fire and control as a .22 sporting autoloader, it had terrific punch and range. The special 9mm cartridges loaded for it made it effective at 300 yards and dangerous up to 500 (when you consider that the .45 Thompson is an even-money bet at 100 yards, you'll understand why we liked the Beretta). It would operate well with German, British or American 9mm Luger ammunition," ... "the later model guns were equipped with bayonet studs, and with a fixed bayonet and a ten-round clip they were the answer to a soldier's prayer for guard duty of any kind - prisoner chasing or just keeping them out of the mood for argument. All the guns were really accurate and a pleasure to shoot. No one ever bothered with any other kind of submachinegun if he could get hold of a Beretta M38 and keep it. The New Zealand boys especially loved them. Even the Germans liked it, and they hated to admit anything was good except their own stuff."
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The SR2 bomb was filled with 32gr of TNT, into an iron case, and with an iron spiral around it to ensure fragmentation. The explosive filling was inferior to the later (from 1944) US MKII hand grenades, but superior to the earlier ones, so they were not really "flash bangs", they had been designed to be lethal. Italian grenades, in general, were designed to fragment in smaller pieces in respect to the "pineapple" designs. That way the lethal radius was smaller, but the pattern was more uniform (cast iron "pineapple" grenades tended to fragment in few pieces, so they hit at random, maybe killing someone distant from the bomb, and sparing someone close to it).
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The reason is that this cartridge, like the 9mm Glisenti (power-wise they are practically the same cartridge) was exactly at the limit where blowback action became impractical. More powerful and, if you wanted to use a blowback action, the pistol became heavier than a breechlock action, top heavy and less durable. Less powerful, and breechlock actions were more complicate than blowbacks without advantages, but, exactly at this level, advantages and disadvantages of the two actions were even. Infact the 9mm glisenti started as a cartridge for the breechlock Glisenti 1910, and was then used in the blowback Beretta 1915 and 1922. The 9mm Ultra was developed to be used in a blowback (the Walther PP), but then the Germans decided that the PP frame was no up to the task (infact the Beretta in 9mm Glisenti had a buffer spring to avoid the frame to take a too hard beating) and developed a breechlock action for it.
But, if you have to use a breechlock, you might as well use a 9mm Parabellum.
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Until at least the Gulf War the general consensus was that the M16 was a defective rifle, and the direct gas impingement was the main responsible. The Beretta AR70/90 came out as the Italian Army Assault rifle from a competition were one of the competitors, the Socimi AR-831, was an AR15 (bolt, bolt carrier, recoil spring, recoil spring guide, magazine catch and hold-open device, trigger group, fire selector, general receiver and plastic furnitures design), with a AK47 style gas piston (The subsequent AR-871 used an AK47 recoil spring too, so to have a fully collapsible stock), yet, the Beretta design was chosen.
Every army has its specific requirements. French and Brits wanted a bullpup. The Italians, like for the previous BM59 and the subsequent ARX-160 wanted a select fire LMG.
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@firepower7017 Actually the reliability of the BAR was really not good for various reasons that were partly fixed only after WWII.
After WWII Italy simply changed service cartridge and BARs were cheap (actually they were free). They had been replaced with the MG42/59 and the BM59 as soon as the Italian Army had the money to do it.
As for the attitude, no WWII report i know of criticised the feeding system of the Breda 30. It's barely mentioned at all (at that time there was more variety of designs, so it was normal for different weapons to work differently). And for good reasons. The British doctrine of employ of the Bren was to fire one magazine a minute. In exceptional circumstances was allowed a 4 magazine a minute ROF (keeping in mind that the entire squad had 20 magazines and one spare barrel, that, at that ROF, had to be changed after 10 magazines, so, for that BAR, the battle would have been over after 5 minutes of fire). For that practical ROF, the feeding system didn't make any difference.
Ian here criticised the rattling barrel and the front sight on the barrel shroud, that's really "I know that this weapon is bad, so I have to invent something to say it's bad". NONE ever noticed the rattling barrel and the front sight on the barrel shroud being a problem in almost 70 years of use of the MG42/MG3. Today any LMG/squad MG has an optic fixed on the receiver. Do those optics compensate for the barrel change?
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@plasticbeetle6209 The trouble with the M249 belt, as described in a Marine report, is that, when it jams (that, with any automatic belt fed weapon is not a question of "if", nor of "when", but of "how often"), the gunner opens the action to clear the jam, and the belt falls into the box. At that point the gunner, other than clearing the jam, has to decide if open the box and search for the end of the belt to use the rest of it, or discard the box and use another one of his limited supply.
While he performs all those actions, he's not supporting the squad and he's defenseless.
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@BanCorporateOwnedHouses So who wrote the Tactical and Technical Trends, No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942, was Italian too? That's a really peculiar opinion.
The BAR was not a light machinegun, and had been forced to cover that role. It had not a quick exchange barrel, the very light barrel rapidly overheated, it was difficult to strip and service, but if not completely serviced on a daily basis, it rapidly became inoperable. It was so "satisfactory" that, had not the world ended, the US would have replaced it with the WAR (Winchester Automatic Rifle) despite the logistic nightmare that would have meant.
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@BanCorporateOwnedHouses As said, the US could simply trow more rifles at the problem, and yet, there were multiple occasions were the rifelmen were left without automatic fire cover because the BAR was cooling down.
If you needed three BAR to do the work of a single Breda 30, then the BAR is not "sure as hell better than this", it is an inferior design, but the soldiers were lucky enought to be born in a country that could manufacture much more of them.
Actually the US Intelligence praised the Breda 30. The "tactical and tecnical trend" (the magazine of the US intelligence) compared it favourably to the BREN, for performances in dusty conditions and because it was more apt to be manned by a single man. To me it was, all in all, a less than satisfactory weapon, but all the bashing is the product of internet era, when opinions tend to be repeated time after time, every time radicalising them further.
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A WWII BAR B-Team was composed of a gunner, an assistant gunner and an ammo bearer, for a rifle that, other than having reliability and mainteinance issues, easily overheated (and at that point the gunner only had to wait for it to cool down and NOT provide support fire, since the rifle had not a quick exchange barrel), and was not really apt for firing in prone position, nor for firing from the shoulder. The thing it was really designed to do, firing from the hips, was practically forgotten with the end of WWI.
The Breda 30 was originally issued with two spare barrels. After some months of war it was noted that they were often insufficient for the volume of fire the weapon had to provide, and the provision was enhanced to four spare barrels. Any barrel of the Breda 30 is heavier than that of a BAR, and can fire more rounds first to overheat.
So how many BARs are needed to provide the volume of fire of a single Breda 30?
The USA could simply adress BAR's issues by throwing more rifles at the problem, but that doesn't mean it was better than anything else.
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@TrangleC Yeah. That's the difference. The difference is between extracting the old magazine, inserting the new one, and opening the magazine, inserting the clip, closing the magazine. Many people, like you, think everything they are not used to is a big issue.
In reality the time spent in reloading has very little importance. Is a problem only for harmchair "experts". IE the wartime instructions on the use of the BREN provided a practical ROF of one magazine a minute. It was contemplated an "exceptional" ROF of four magazines a minute, warning that, at that rof, the barrel had to be changed after 10 magazines (so two minutes and half of fire), and the entire squad had only 20 magazines available (so 5 minutes. Battles tend to last a little more). A second more in reloading counts for nothing.
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The bolt carrier is the part where the recoil spring acts, the proper bolt, or bolt head, is the part in contact with the cartridge and that has the extractor, and so pushes the cartridge in the chamber and extract the spent case.
The MG42 is a short recoil weapon, but its not a simple short recoil weapon, like a semiauto pistol, where there is a single piece bolt that recoils at the same speed of the barrel until the barrel stops and the bolt continues snatching the case out of the chamber. The MG 42 instead have a system whose purpose is to slow down the bolt head in respect to the bolt carrier, when the bolt separates from the barrel, to prevent extraction problems, cause pure short recoil systems (like those used in handguns) and long bottleneck cartridges doesn't match well. The rollers on the MG42, like the inclined surfaces on the MG34, or the accelerators on the M1919 and Breda SAFAT, are not bells and whistles added cause they were nice. All those systems are complications added to prevent the extraction problems that a simpler short recoil system /like that of a semiauto pistol) would have had.
As for the Breda 30, its not like the Breda technicians really didn't know what they were doing, and didn't think to enhance the locking time, is that that wasn't the problem. The "simpler" solution would have been to not make the locking ring rotate at all (it should have acted like a simple barrel extension), and adopt a two piece bolt, with a rotating bolt head (to unlock it from the barrel) and a not rotating bolt carrier/striker that is pushed back at double the speed of the bolt head due to inclined surfaces, like in a SIA1918 - or in a MG34.
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You asked for the worst LMG. M1918 BAR simply wasn't there for WWI, that's where it should have been, so it doesn't count if it had issues or not. It makes it a FAR worse gun than both the Breda 30 and the Chauchat.
M1918A2 had a lot of issues (complicate to field strip and clean correctly, subject to jammings if not cleaned correctly, the pencil barrel overheating fast and without the possibility to replace it, unfit for firing in prone position...), so much that, had not the war ended, US would have replaced it with the WAR (Winchester Automatic Rifle) despite the logistical nightmare it would have been.
If it was better or worse than the Chauchat or the Breda 30 is matter of debate. It depends mainly in the role you want to use it. The BAR was a better ambush weapon than the Breda (even if this advantage had been exploited much more in Korea than in WWII) but, in an automatic support fire role, it could provide only a fraction of the volume of fire of a Breda 30 (a Breda 30 barrel needed to be replaced after 200 rounds of continuous fire. At the start of the war, Breda 30s were issued with two spare barrels. Soon it was recognised ti was not enough, and that had been increased to 4 spares. Do the math). Obviously the US could cope with any inherent shortcoming of the weapon by manufacturing a shitload of them.
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Pure short recoil systems (like those used in handguns) and long bottleneck cartridges doesn't match well.
In a short recoil system, in the moment the barrel stops, the case, in respect to the chamber, abruptly passes from "0" to the max speed. Long rifle cases have a lot of surface that's stuck to the chamber's walls, so, even if the pressure isn't high, with this abrupt acceleration there are high chances to damage the cases, sometimes break them, and so jam the action.
To avoid this, there are several possibilities. To unlock the bolt from the barrel first than the rearward motion of the barrel ended, so allowing the residual pressure of the gasses to start extracting the case first than the barrel stops ("chiusura labile", like in the Fiat Revelli 1914). To use a lever action to ensure that the bolt recoils slightly faster than the barrel ( Browning M1919, Brixia 1920, Breda SAFAT...). To reduce the locking surface of the case (fluting the chamber). Or to reduce the friction between the case and the chamber (lubing the case).
Pure blowback weapons are safer in this repect. It's only a question to have enough mass in the bolt so that the energy of the cartridge can't move it rearward enough first than the pressure reaches safe levels.
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@michaels5210 Despite the existence of people that take them as gospel, these clips are amateur works, and I take them as that.
The "shifting zero" is the classic example of a problem invented because you "know" that the weapon is bad, and so you feel to have to illustrate some "problem".
The MG42/MG3 has the front sight on the barrel shroud exactly like the Breda 30. None ever noticed that being a problem in 80 years of use of the weapon.
The DP-27, despite having a fixed barrel, and so it could have had the front sight on the barrel, had the front sight on the barrel shroud exactly like the Breda 30. None noticed it being a problem for all the decades of use of the MG.
Every modern MG has an optic fixed to the receiver that doesn't compensate for the barrel change. None noticed that being a problem to this day.
We are used to movies where weapons always works, but that was not the case in WWII. Then an automatic weapon jamming was not a problem of "if" nor a problem of "when". It was a problem of "how often". At that time it was a REAL problem to manufacture magazines that were so well built to not have feeding issues and so cheap to be discarded on the field. Even the Brits experimented tilting magazines with the BREN (they didn't adopt them in the end, but they were much more awkward than that of the Breda, and you needed two clips to fill one). It was still a felt problem for the NATO countries in the '50s. Have you ever wondered why the M14 has a stripper clip guide? This is the stripper clip of a Canadian FAL, does this remind you something? Only that you need TWO of them to fill a magazine ( https://i1.wp.com/www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-02-at-8.59.38-AM-copy.png?fit=684%2C738&ssl=1&w=640 )
"large gaps to allow gunk to get into ammo" is another "harmchair problem". A minor issue that harmchair "experts" inflates to gigantic proportions "that gun will jam at the slightest sign of dirt!" Ironically the same people seem to came over belt feeding. Were belts closed?
I said BOLT. Bolt body, extractor, striker, striker spring, four parts. Do you want to add the locking ring despite it not being really part of the bolt? Make five. A BREN BOLT ASSEMBLY IS MADE OF 30 PARTS.
All in all the Breda 30 was an unsatisfactory weapon for several reasons, but the difference between the best and the worst WWII LMG is a question of nuances.
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@michaels5210 When used as LMGs, the MG42 and MG34 used a 50 rounds belt can (that the MG eats in 2.5 seconds). Had you ever seen a MG42 gunner trying to change it? It's MUCH quicker to change two or three magazines, even reload the Breda 30 two or three times.
It's not by chance that the concept of GPMG took decades to impose itself (It practically needed them to be almost always carried by trucks) and it's not a definitive victory. The General Dynamics NGSW doesn't have a belt-fed option. And you can see how to change some magazine is infact faster than changing the short belts of the other bids.
The rate of fire of the Breda is NEVER mentioned as a problem of the weapon in Allied reports. Instead Allied reports indicates that the Breda was more apt than the BREN exactly to be used by a single man, infact a single gunner, with the BREDA, can both reload and change barrel without changing his position, or the position of the weapon. They indicate as issues instead the lack of a carrying handle and that of a dedicated fixed tripod (BUT NOT THE RELOAD OR THE RATE OF FIRE). See how the people that REALLY used the weapons back then gave importance to COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS than what modern harmchair "experts" tend to do?
IE, Ian just reviewed the DP-27.
It has a quick exchange barrel, right? Not really. Hypotetically, by moving the weapon out of line and grabbing the scorching hot muzzle, you could change the barrel, but in reality, no spare barrels were provided to the gunner.
The pan magazine was a good solution, right? Not really. You can't really change magazine without looking at what you are doing, so exposing your head over the weapon. A thing that can easily have lethal consequences.
The M1 Garand with its pencil, not quick change, barrel could provide a laughable volume of fire in respect to the Breda 30, or any other real LMG.
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@michaels5210 The BAR, with its pencil, not quick change, barrel could provide a laughable volume of fire in respect to the Breda 30, or any other real LMG. At the start of the war the Breda 30 was issued with two spare barrels. After the first battles, it was deemed to be insufficient, and the provision was rised to four. That means there was the real problem to fire more than 600 rounds in quick succession with the Breda 30. Good luck to do anything close with the BAR.
The lone MG operator in WWII exists only in Hollywood. A US B-team (the one with the BAR) was composed of gunner, assistant gunner, ammo bearer. At least three people. The mag change of the BREN was made by the assistant. To operate any WWII belt fed MG without someone holding the belt meant to be in search of stoppages.
As for practical volume of fire, the BREN manual allowed the operator to fire ONE MAG FOR MINUTE in normal circumstances. In exceptional circumstances that volume of fire could be enhanced to four mags for minute. Keeping in mind that, at that pace, the barrel had to be changed after 10 mags, and the entire provision of the squad was of 20 magazines. Battles tend to last for more than 5 minutes. The allied reports on the Breda 30 NEVER mention volume of fire as a problem of the weapon.
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No.
The 6.5 Carcano is not "whimpy" (it's more powerful than the 5.56 NATO and in the same range of the 6.5 Grendel and 6.8 SPC). The problem of short recoil actions with rifle cartridges is that, when the barrel stops, and the bolt keeps on moving, the cartridge, in respect to che chamber, accelerates fron "0" to the max speed instantly, and that can cause a too harsh extraction and a case rupture (the problem was not that the MG didn't extract, but that it ripped the base of the cartridge from the side) .That doesn't cause problems with pistol cartridges, because they are short (so there is not much surface of the case attached to the chamber) and low pressure. But already with shotgun ammos, Browning invented the complicated long recoil action to give the cartridges all the time in the world to shrink down and be extracted at slow speed.
All the short recoil rifle action that don't use oil or fluted chamber use a "cam" system that starts to extract the cartridge when the barrel is still moving (Fiat 1914, Browning 1919, MG42...).
BTW, the Hispano Suiza HS404 20mm cannon, and all its derivates in use still nowadays, uses oiled cartridges.
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DOUG HEINS The Brits not only used the captured ones, but printed manual in English for the British gunners issued with them. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11720886/breda-model-30-manualpdf-forgotten-weapons
For the Allied opinion on the Breda 30, see Tactical and Technical Trends (the magazine of US intelligence), No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942, "Use of Captured Italian Weapons": "The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting."
For that matter the 6.5x52 Carcano has 43% more muzzle energy than 5.56 NATO, 22% more than 7.62X39 and 6.8 SPC and about the same of 6.5 Grendel. If you don't consider that adequate, is only your problem.
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@BobSmith-dk8nw Making appreciations on your interlocutor isn't doing you any favour.
Fact is that armours for the water jackets had been made, armours for barrels haven't. Heavy water jackets had been replaced with heavy metal barrels in MMGs after WWI. A water jacket is a way bigger target than a barrel, it's way easier to damage, and, if you have a quick exchange barrel damaged, you can simply replace it. It's quite obvious that any piece of equipment can be moved. But MMGs are not made for that, and so to try to use them like that had limits.
Both LMGs and MMGs had a role in WWII. Soviets had the DP-28 and the Goryunov. Italians had the Breda 30 and Breda 37. Japanese had the Type 99 and Type 92. It's not that the US were special in this regard.
Weapons are designed for a role, and the role the BAR had been designed for was marching fire from the hip. It shown its limits in every other use (it's not that it doesn't work. It's that it could have been made better for any other role). Unfortunately marching fire from hte hip had shown to be impractical already in WWI.
The way the Marines used the weapon was the way they worked around the problem, thanks to the fact they could have more of the weapons. But more of good weapons would have worked better anyway.
Simply M1919 barrels were not changed on the field during battles. It was an armorer's job. Squads had not spare barrels, and they were not supposed to dismantle a scorching hot weapon under fire with small parts lying on the ground. If you have to dismantle a weapon under fire, something went wrong.
Overheated closed bolt MGs cook off belts because of their very same mechanics.The fact that other kind of failures can cause the same problem doesn't change this fact. If you burnt out you barrel, something went wrong either. Equipment in general is not intended to be damaged. To intentionally damage it was a way to work around the problem, while a quick exchange barrel would have solved it.
See "working around the problem". Yes, people in the army tend to know how to use the tools they were given. Being them LMGs without quick exchange barrels, or LMGs with clip-fed magazines.
See "logistics". FN modified The BAR it into a viable LMG in 1932, but the US Army preferred to keep it as it was for the sake of interchangeability of parts. The limitations of the BAR became evident only once they had been used in combat, and, at that point, it was too late. You can change the engine in an already designed airframe (the P-51 had been designed for the V-1710), not the action of an already designed MG.
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@BobSmith-dk8nw They had two, one to use, and a spare in case the first one was damaged. The magazine was normally loaded with the stripper clips while attached to the weapon. Fact is that to load them that way "wasn't a problem" at all. The magazine didn't limit the practical ROF in respect to other LMGs.
The BAR had been originally designed for walking fire. That kind of fire proved to be impractical already in WWI. In WWII a LMG was needed, but the BAR was what was in the US Army inventory, so they used it. FN modified it into a viable LMG, but the US Army preferred to keep it as it was for the sake of interchangeability of parts. The weapon was unfit for the task, and there were reports about BAR gunners often taken out of action, waiting for their weapon to cool off but, as said the US could simply throw more BAR to the problem. It's obvious that having 50% more weapons solves a lot of problems, but having 50% more good weapons would have solved more.
The M1917 was an HMG (47 kg with the tripod). It was not portable. It was heavier than a Breda 37 with tripod. Also, as noticed during WWI, water jackets were prone to be pierced by bullets and splinters or damaged otherwise (especially using short recoil actions, that requires the barrel to move). That's one of the reasons none designed new water cooled MGs after WWI, but they had been replaced by quick exchange barrels. obviously, if all you have is a water-cooled MG, you use what you have.
As said, If you didn't want to overheat the M1919, your ROF was limited to 60 rounds a minute. 450-500 rpm was the cyclic ROF, and yes it was regulated to be like that, like for any rifle caliber MG in WWII. There is no problem to obtain a cyclic ROF of around 1000 RPM in a rifle caliber MG. It's more difficult to limit it and, to obtain that, several "tricks" were used (heavier bolts, longer travel of the bolt, machanical rate reducers...). The long travel of the striker of the Breda 30 is meant to reduce the ROF to what was deemed as optimal too.
The M1919 couldn't be intentionally overheated because it fired from a closed bolt, so the moment it overheated, it cooked off an entire belt if the gunner didnt' intentionally jam it (notice that the Brits modified their M1919s, used in flexible mountings on aircrafts, to fire from an open bolt, the US Army never did it). Equipment in general is not intended to be damaged. To intentionally damage it was a way to work around the problem, while a quick exchange barrel would have solved it. As said, if the US had a problem with their weapons, they could throw more weapons to the problem. Others were not so lucky and so, to use subpar equipment, was more damaging for them. To change the barrels of BARs and M1919 was an armorer's job. It wasn't done on the field. It would have required to completely disassemble the weapon while scorching hot.
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@BobSmith-dk8nw I saw that clip. But I read wartime reports as well. The Allied ones. So the ones that could compare the Breda 30 to the Allied weapons their soldiers were used to. The Brits reused the captured Breda 30, wrote manuals for the Allied gunners issued with them, and wrote intelligence reports.
The magazine had never been mentioned as a problem, and not even as a curiosity. At all. The reason is the one i mentioned. The magazine didn't limit the practical ROF in respect to other LMGs (real LMGs, better to not even talk of the BAR, forced into a LMG role without even having a detachable barrel. Mind what Ian mentioned. After the first battles the provision of spare barrels of the Breda 30 was enhanced from 2 to 4. That meant that the Breda faced the real problem to fire more than 600 rounds continuously in battle). You could fire 6 Breda 30 magazines (so 120 rounds) in a minute reloading the magazine while it was attached to the weapon (the practical ROF was actually indicated in 150 RPM). And that practical ROF was needed only in dire emergency. Because the squad had not enough ammunitions to sustain it for long anyway. Battles don't last five minutes.
BTW, the M1919 had the same problem of the BAR. If you didn't want to overheat it, your ROF was limited to 60 rounds a minute. The faster you decided to shoot, the sooner you'll have to stop to cool-off the weapon. simply, if the US had a problem with their weapons, they could throw more weapons to the problem.
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the MG42 is a recoil operated weapon, but is not a purely recoil operated weapon, like a semiauto pistol, where there is a single piece bolt that recoils at the same speed of the barrel until the barrel stops and the bolt continues snatching the case out of the chamber.
The wedge that pushes out the roller is both part of the striker and of the bolt carrier, as the bolt carrier is in direct contact with it during recoil and, when the wedge shaped part recoils in respect to the bolt head , pushed by the rollers it pushes back the bolt carrier too.
The iternal spring around the striker (bolt catch) wasn't generally present in wartime MG42s, it had been introduced very late in the war only to adress cases of out of battery shots caused by the rebound of the bolt carrier. It only serves to provide to the bolt carrier a "soft landing" when the action closes. There are several models of it, some of them doesn't load the locking wedge at all (so working purely by inertia).
As for the Breda 30, I would not have adopted it. It was not that poor of a design, but it was not easily improvable, and there were better designs to start from, transfering in them the good features of the M30 (essentially, the quick exchange barrel). IE the Brixia 1920 (a rather unfortunate HMG, but a good base for a LMG), or the SIA 1918 (a scaled up Villar Perosa, but a good base for a lever delayed LMG, it already had a two piece bolt with the rear one recoiling faster due to inclined surfaces, but the rear bolt-striker was really too light compared to the front part). Waiting a couple of years, they could have adopted a gas operated LMG based on the Breda PG instead.
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And what I'm saying is that the Breda 30 had been adopted in 1930. The MG 34 did non exist then.
In 1930, the only LMG design that was demonstrabily better than the Breda 30 was the ZB vz. 26.
In the subsequent years, some other better design was introduced, but the armies usually don't replace the weapons they adopted after only few years, only cause something that could be better had been introduced somewere.
Think, for example, that the US soldiers fought in Korea with a semiauto rifle, six years after the adoption of the AK47 and ten years after the adoption of the STG44. Shouldn't the US have copied and produced a weapon such as the STG44 or the AK47, instead of providing his army with an obsolete weapon?
And, in 1959, ten years after the adoption of the AK47, and 15 after the adoption of the STG44, the M1 rifle had been replaced with a battle rifle that was already obsolete the moment it had been adopted.
Cause sometimes armies keep on designing weapons based on obsolete ideas until those proved to be obsolete on the field.
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The front sight on the barrel shroud, or the rattling barrel, are those problems that exist only in tabletop reviews, when the reviewer knows that the weapon is "bad" and has to find some reason for it to be bad. None noticed them being problems in 60 years of use of the MG42/MG3. ALL Modern general-purpose machineguns have a single optic, mounted on the receiver, how do they cope with barrel change? https://blog.1800gunsandammo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/fn-762-minimi-4.jpg
The oiler was a minus. but it wasn't strictly needed, and many gunnenrs didnt' use it. Simply, already during WWI, it was noticed that, whit automatic weapons, it was all peaches and dandelions until you could use brass cased ammos but when, due to war shortages, you had to use steel cased ammos, extraction was a lot less granted. However, despite the oiler, allied reports praised the behaviour of the weapon, compared to the BREN, in dusty conditions. The heavy bolt, so with a greater inertia, star-shaped to give the dirt somewere to go instead of locking the mechanism, were plusses.
To use more than 20-25 rounds for magazine in WWII meant to be in search of problems, and it was a REAL problem to manufacture magazines that were, at one time, so cheap to be discarded on the field and so consistently manufactured to not have feeding issues (it was a problem still for the US in the '50s, that's why the M14 has the stripper-clip rail, and that was the US Army). Even the Brits tried a fixed tilting magazine for the BREN (it had not been adopted in the end, but it was much more awkward than the Breda one). The reduced volume of fire was not really a problem. A BREN gun was supposed to fire a magazine a minute in normal battle conditions. At the start of the war it was allowed an "emergency" rof of seven magazines/minute. during the war, due to battel experiences, that was reduced to four magazines/minute, and advertising the gunners that, in those conditions, the barrel had to be changed after ten magazines, and the entire provision of the squad was of just 20 magazines.
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Both the MG34 and MG42 are mainly delayed blowback actions, with a secondary help by the short recoiling barrel, and the Vickers unlocks the barrel from the bolt way before the barrels stops, allowing the bolt and the barrel to start to separate slowly.
None of them is a pure short recoil design. Like that of an handgun, or that of the Breda M30. They have a short recoiling barrel, a bolt, AND some other system (two piece bolt with the parts recoiling at different speed, toggle, ecc...)
That's revealing in itself. A pure short recoil action is simpler than the systems used in MG34, MG42, Vickers and so on. Why had they to complicate the designs, if a pure short recoil action can work flawlessly?
Cause it doesn't work so flawlessly, so you have to invent something to make it work.
Obviously gas operated MGs can have extraction issues, and lever delayed blowback can have them, and simple blowbacks can have too. The fact that pure short recoil actions and long bottleneck cartridges doesn't match well doesn't mean that only short recoil actions can have extraction issues. But in those cases is really question of bad tuning.
The HS 404 is a "gas unlocked recoil operated" design. The gas doesn't cycle the action, but simply unlocks the bolt, and then the residual pressure of the gasses in the barrel cycle the action. It's not impossible to make a similar design work without oiling the cartridges (The Scotti action worked the same way, only with the bolt rotating instead of tilting, and only the Mod. X rifle required oiling, while all the MGs didn't), but to find the perfect timing to open the action (when there is enough pressure in the barrel to cycle the action and not enough to damage the cases) is more difficult than in a straight gas-operated weapon.
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Today it could seem strange, but, in the first half of XX century, to design a detachable magazine that was at the same time so cheap to be discarded on the field, and so well and consistently built to not cause feeding problems was really an issue. The BAR and the BREN were plagued by jammings caused by defective magazines, ant those had been built by bountries that had not raw materials shortages. The British actually designed a fixed magazine for the BREN, loaded with two 15 rounds clips (they didn't adopt that, but it was really awkward compared to the Breda).
So, in 1924, FIAT came out with a LMG design (FIAT 1924) that had a fixed magazine on the left of the weapon, loaded inserting a 20 round clip (similar to that of the subsequent Breda) from the right. In exchange of a little time lost in recharging, all the feeding problems were avoided.
The flaw was that, to load a MG insrting a clip from one side, the gunner, or the servent, had to expose himself a little, and, laterally pushing the weapon, they can move it, loosing the line of sight.
So the Breda had the subsequent evolution. By tilting the "fixed" magazine, in exchange of a little more time lost in recharging, the gunner could load the gun (and change the barrel, for that matter) without changing position at all.
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To me the original ZB vz.26 was superior to the BREN, cause the BREN had to use rimmed cartridges. I think a shorter barrel VB vz. 26, with a 25 round magazine in 6.5 Carcano would have been the perfect LMG for the Italians in WWII.
That said, the Italians used the Lewis gun in WWI, it was not like they didn't know it. The Lewis Gun was a good weapon for WWI, but it was not by chance that everyone of its users, bar one, phased it out of first line use first than WWII (and it was not by chance that 20-25 round magazines was the norm for WWII LMGs). The Lewis gun was heavy, it didn't have a quick exchange barrel, it was extremely sensible to the slightiest trace of dirt, it jammed easily and jammings were very difficult to clear, it was difficult to field strip and clean, to replace the pan magazine required the servent to expose himself, since it had to be made while looking at the weapon from above. Even in WWI it had been noted that it was more an ambush weapon, when it could fire from at least partially protected positions, than a real attack weapon.
Unforunately there is a tendency, on the net, to sanctify some weapon and to damn some other only on the base of often repeated rumors, and regardless of what the contemporaries (those that had to DAILY use those) thought of them.
From Tactical and Technical Trends (the magazine of US Intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 "Use of Captured Italian Weapons":
"Breda Light Machine Gun". The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting.
Was the Breda 30 the best, or among the best WWII LMGs? Surely not. But it get the job done, and, on the field, the differencies with other designs were very limited. MInd that, to use the four spare barrels the Italians deemed necessary for the Breda 30 after having used it in combat, you have to fire at least 800 rounds in quick succession. that was what the Breda was capable of. Try it with a Lewis Gun, or a BAR for that matter.
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Actually, when this MG had been adopted (1930) the only design around that was really demonstrably better was the ZB vz. 26.
Today it could seem strange, but, in the first half of XX century, to design a detachable magazine that was at the same time so cheap to be discarded on the field, and so well and consistently built to not cause feeding problems was really an issue. The BAR and the BREN were plagued by jammings caused by defective magazines, ant those had been built by bountries that had not raw materials shortages. The British actually designed a fixed magazine for the BREN, loaded with two 15 rounds clips (they didn't adopt that, but it was really awkward compared to the Breda).
So, in 1924, FIAT came out with a LMG design (FIAT 1924) that had a fixed magazine on the left of the weapon, loaded inserting a 20 round clip (similar to that of the subsequent Breda) from the right. In exchange of a little time lost in recharging, all the feeding problems were avoided.
The flaw was that, to load a MG insrting a clip from one side, the gunner, or the servent, had to expose himself a little, and, laterally pushing the weapon, they can move it, loosing the line of sight.
So the Breda had the subsequent evolution. By tilting the "fixed" magazine, in exchange of a little more time lost in recharging, the gunner could load the gun (and change the barrel, for that matter) without changing position at all.
In the end, ten years later, at the start of WWII, it was an already outdated design, but it was actually not that bad. There is a tendency, on the net, when a weapon had some defect, tho extremize them, concluding that "it's the worst gun ever made!", "I would have rather fought naked than carrying that piece of junk!" and things like that. But those are modern days shenanigans. The contemporaries of the weapon, those that had to fight them daily, and reuse the captured ones, thought it was not that bad.
From Tactical and Technical Trends (the magazine of the US Intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 "Use of Captured Italian Weapons" :
"Breda Light Machine Gun". The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting.
Mind that, to use 4 spare barrels (the number the Italians deemed to be necessary after having used the gun in combat), you have to fire at least 800 rounds in quick succession. So much for the gun not being capable to really provide automatic fire.
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Thanks to you for the kind reply :)
The BAR was not really an LMG. It wasn't apt for firing in prone position, it wasn't apt for sustained fire (there was a reason if the Italians carried two spare barrels for the Breda 30, and then enhanced them to 4 spare barrels. How much the thin and fixed barrel of the BAR would have lasted in the same conditions?), it was difficult to field strip and clean, and, if not cleaned properly, it jammed easily. The only really improved version, with a quick detachable barrel and an effective bipod, was adopted by the Swedish only in 1937.
It has to be noted that, to use 4 spare barrels, you have to fire at least 800 rounds in quick succession. So much for the gun not ben capable to really provide automatic fire.
That said. To not be misunderstood, the Breda 30 had really been, all in all, a less than satisfactory weapon. And the Italians would have done better adopting the ZB vz. 26. (that they tried).
But there is a tendency, on the net, when a weapon had some defect, tho extremize them, concluding that "it's the worst gun ever made!", "I would have rather fought nacked than carrying that piece of junk!" and things like that.
Reality is that the weapons was actually not that bad, and the contemporaries, those that had to fight them daily, and reuse the captured ones, thought it was not that bad.
From Tactical and Technical Trends (the magazine of the US Intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 "Use of Captured Italian Weapons" :
"Breda Light Machine Gun". The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting.
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Those are .380 ACP, or 9mm short. A less powerful cartridge that was designed to be used with blowback designs.
In theory, every cartridge can be fired by a simple blowback design, and 9mm lugers had been, and are, fired by blowback pistols (Astra 400, Hi Point...). But, in a blowback, the only thing that prevent the action to open too early (when there is too much pressure in the chamber, the walls of the cartridge are stuck to that of the chamber, and so to pull out the cartridge can cause a case rupture) is the weight of the bolt. The more powerful the cartridge, the heavier the bolt, and that means an heavier pistol, with an odd (top heavy) balance.
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Design costs. If you use a system used by one hundred other manufacturers, you doesn't really have to design anything new. All the weights, forms and tolerances are in the books, or you can more or less copy it from an existing design, and you concentrate on aestetics and/or secondary features.
If you use a new system, you have to really design every bit of it starting from a White sheet. The dimension of the gas ports, their position in the barrel, the dimension of the gas chamber, all relative to the weigh tof the slide...
Add that delayed blowback systems are slide-weight sensitive. Usually they comes in only one form (there is not a Compact HK P7, a compact Steyr GB or a compact Benelli B76) cause to design a different dimension of the same pistol, is like designing a new pistol.
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@TraTranc Uh, no, since, as you said, other higher caliber rounds WERE available. Why someone that wanted an higher caliber round would have bought a pistol in .32 ACP when 7.65 Parabellum and .45 ACP (not to say ALL the revolver calibers) were regularly on the market?
The Bernardelli B76 even had two alternative versions available for civilians, one in 7.65 Para and one, blowback, in .32 ACP. It was a question of choice.
But it's revealing that NO weapon manufacturer thought to build a pistol for one of the many 9mm calibers equivalent to 9mm Para (9mm Largo, Steyr, Winchester, .38 ACP/Super...). They made 9mm pistols for police/military contracts, then a version in .7.65 Para to cover the scarce civilian requests for breechlock guns they expected.
Even only talking about blowbacks, had there been a real request for larger calibers than .32 ACP, even not being .380 ACP available, manufacturers would have done them in 9mm Makarov, but none did.
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@drewberg1361 Surely you don't know how rounds are tested, if you can believe that they changed the specifications of the 7.92X33 kurz, incredibly managing to increase the muzzle speed of the bullet so much that his supersonic range more than doubled without blowing up the weapon (and you want to give lessons, LOL!), just for the joy to make the sights of the only weapon the cartridges were intended for, useless.
But no, now, in your world of fairies and unicorns, are the super duper special equipment used for testing, different for the equipment used to test every other cartridge, that gave super duper special result for the 7.92X33 kurz, different from the result they gave for every other cartrige.
What a joke you are...
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@drewberg1361 The .224 Win has exactly the same base dimension of the .223 Rem and .222 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same thickness of the rim of the .223 Rem and .222 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same dimension of the extractor groove land of the .223 Rem and .222 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same angle of the shoulder of the extractor groove of of the .223 Rem and .222 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
That means that the The .224 Win has exactly the same dimensions of the extractor groove of of the .223 Rem and .222 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same shoulder angle of of the .223 Rem and .222 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same lenght between the base and the shoulder of the .223 Rem and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same diameter at the shoulder, of the .223 Rem. and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The .224 Win has exactly the same taper of the .223 Rem. and different than that of the .243 Win, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
The two cartridges are identical in every dimension and angle from the base to the neck, and different from the .243 Win in every single dimension and angle. It's evident to ANYONE that they are enlongated .222 Rem, but for you the .243 Win is the parent case.
It's quite evident that you are not able to understand the same datas you post.
Sorry, but you are a joke.
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@drewberg1361 Oh sorry, since we were interloking answers, I lost three of yours, so:
Sorry, but posting something you don't understand or know how to use counts for nothing.
So the use of an older kind of powder with the same bullet dimensions, weight and muzzle speed, will change the speed of the bullet at mid course in the air? LOL! Oh, my god. It had been one of your supposed armorer friends that told you that? That explains many things. You must be their laughing stock.
Infantry (United States Army Infantry School, 1968 Issue, p22) 7.92mm Kurz, muzzle speed 2250 fps; at 300 yds 1500 fps; at 800 yds 960 fps. You (well not you, someone that knows math) can do the interpolation.
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@drewberg1361 Your words:
"the AR-15 was tested at Aberdeen (US Army weapons testing grounds) in direct response to the US Army offering an open contract for an intermediate rifle chambered in .22 caliber. There were several entrants..." FALSE, there was not an open contract and there were not "several" entrants. The only comparable rifle the AR15 was tested with during its development and before its adoption was the wooden stocked Winchester LMR, that fired an almost identical round, in the late '50s. Those were NOT open tests, they were limited specifically to those two weapons and the M14 and there were NOT contracts involved.
then:
"funny considering the Winchester prototype wasn't even delivered as it wasn't completed in time for the test. The AR-15 ended up testing alone against a control group of M14 rifles" FALSE (where had the "several entrants" gone BTW?) Winchester prototypes with the modifications required arrived at Fort Benning in July 1958, were tested, and the report of the tests was released in september of the same year. The AR15 was praised for reliability and the Winchester rifle for accuracy, but both were deemed to be inferior to the M14 anyway. Winchester declined to develop its rifle further, so only limited tests with the AR15 went on in the subsequent years.
But if you want to keep on embarassing yourself, go ahead, I've no objections.
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@drewberg1361 Oh, the one that finds the other "hilarious" feels insulted, poor fella. I feel for you (of what intelligence are you talking of BTW?) He even became a grammar nazi of nonstandard terms, the last resource of the losers.
It seems that you forgot what your argument was another time. You said that the FAL had been adopted because Europe was poor (oh, sorry, "economically destitute", in the '50s LOL!) after the conflict. In the '50s the reconstruction had amply ended (everyone with a grasp of economic history knows that and, BTW, public debt of European countries in the '50s was generally low, it increased only in the '70s) and in Europe the FAL had never been so widespread. Among the major European armies only the Brits (that would have gladly used their bullpup rifle in .280 instead) used it, so of what are you talking about? You only came out with an idiocy to support your point.
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@drewberg1361 You can tell yourself the story you like more. The .280 Brit was developed to be controllable in full auto. It's at the high end of intermediate cartridges, but it's an intermediate cartridge. Even in its more powerful iteration, the .280/30, the .280 provided 2/3 of the recoil of the .308 Win while at the same time exceeding all those non existing "NATO ballistics requirements" you are fabling about. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer.
The Winchester prototype was ready and tested. It was publicly demonstrated in oct 1957, only five months after the first demonstration of the AR15. Around the same time the Infantry board requested for the respective cartridges, both obtained from the .222 Rem., thus not identical, to be interchangeable for further testing. The Winchester prototypes with the modifications required arrived at Fort Benning in July 1958. The report of the tests was released in september. the Winchester rifle was determined to be slightly inferior to the AR15, Winchester declined to develop its rifle further. That's the story. The Winchester cartridge was not a Remington ammo, but was obtained from the .222 Remington as a parent cartridge, like the .223 Remington was. In tests, the AR15 could shoot the .224 Wincester ammo, but not the contrary, because the .224 Wincester was slightly shorter.
It's not a power contest. The .280 Brit is controllable in full auto, the .308 Win is not. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer, but you are reasoning like Colonel Studler did "IT HAS MORE POWAH! YEAH!", with the result of adopting the shortest lived infantry rifle in US history.
Unfortunately the history did not agree with you on the importance of volume of fire in infantry battles, and the M14 had consequently been the shortest lived infantry rifle in US history.
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@flightlesschicken7769 Again, I didn't search for you, did I? For me this discussion could have very well not even started.
The .30 carbine had been developed starting form the .32 Winchester Self Loading cartridge used in the Winchester 1905 rifle that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle. The subsequent Winchester 1907 rifle (amply used in WWI) that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle, used the .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge that is, hear hear, a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND than the .30 carbine (1900joule vs. 1300joule of energy at the muzzle) and that OPERATED AT A HIGHER PRESSURE (45.000 cup vs. 40.000cup). The Winchester 1907 rifle was slightly lighter than a M3 Grease Gun (despite being a fully stocked rifle) and substantially lighter (900g less) than the Thompson M1A1, two SMGs in .45 ACP that had been used in WWII (and the M3 for decades later). So what exactly prevents the .30 Carbine from being fired in a blowback firearm of reasonable weight?
Are you sure you are looking at the right rifle? The 1907 had a merely 2" longer barrel than a M1 Carbine (actually longer barrels are worse for blowbacks, because it takes the bullet more time to exit from them) and THE ACTION IS REALLY SHORT. The magazine is right in front of the trigger and the action doesn't extend behind the trigger. Do you think the buttstock is part of the action?
No, they are not nearly equal. 53.000 psi (max C.I.P pressure for .351 SL) is not "nearly equal" to 62.000 psi (max C.I.P. pressure for .223 Rem). Even not counting that blowback actions don't cope well with bottleneck cartridges and, again "the N***s didn't do that" IS NOT AN ARGUMENT. N***s didn't do a lot of things.
The argument is: The .30 carbine had been developed starting form the .32 Winchester Self Loading cartridge used in the Winchester 1905 rifle that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle. The subsequent Winchester 1907 rifle (amply used in WWI) that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle, used the .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge that is, hear hear, a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND than the .30 carbine (1900joule vs. 1300joule of energy at the muzzle) and that OPERATED AT A HIGHER PRESSURE (45.000 cup vs. 40.000cup). The Winchester 1907 rifle was slightly lighter than a M3 Grease Gun (despite being a fully stocked rifle) and substantially lighter (900g less) than the Thompson M1A1, two SMGs in .45 ACP that had been used in WWII (and the M3 for decades later).SO WHAT EXACTLY PREVENTS THE .30 CARBINE FROM BEING FIRED IN A BLOWBACK FIREARM OF REASONABLE WEIGHT?
Please, you didn't state facts, but guessings at best. You asked why blowback is not used on modern cartridges of moderate power, and I answered you. If you don't understand pretty simple explanations is not my fault. Modern cartridges are mainly high pressure cartridges. In a blowback firearm, energy mainly affects the required minimum weight of the bolt. Pressure narrows the window of usability of blowback actions (the higer the pressure, the narrower the window from when the bolt is too heavy to reliably cycle the action to when it's too light to safely do it) until other factors (material of the cartridge, presence of dirt, moisture, lube, ecc...) become too relevant. Even not counting that blowback actions don't cope well with bottleneck cartridges (I can explain you why if you want).
7.62x39 is not only a bottleneck but a heavily tapered cartridge. I can explain you why that doesn't cope well with blowback actions if you want.
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@flightlesschicken7769 Aaaand you are still here. Not that there had never been any doubt. It was not really that difficult to guess that all that you wanted to have is the last word.
You are (conveniently) mistaking PSI with CUP and mixing them. Saami max pressures for .30 Carbine and .351 SL are 40.000 cup and 45.000 cup respectively so, surprise surprise, .351 SL, other than being a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND worked at a HIGHER PRESSURE.
I'm glad you finally decided to learn something. Let me introduce you to the magical world of chamber pressures and how it relates to blowbacks.
In a blowback system, the base of the cartridge starts moving backward the same moment the bullet starts moving forward. Is largely that initial movement that allows the entire action to work. But, since the walls of the cartridge are stuck to the chamber by the same pressure, the integrity of the cartridge, until the pressure into the barrel drops to safe level and the cartridge can be entirely extracted, depends, other than the weight of the bolt:
1) on the capacity of the brass at the base of the cartridge to stretch without rupturing until the pressure drops to safe level,
2) on the pressure that, if low enough, can allow some backward movement of the brass (the lower, the better),
3) on the same pressure that tend to cause the rupture the cartridge (the lower,the better).
So, the higher the pressure, the more difficult is to use a blowback action, because an higher pressure narrows the margin in which the base of the cartridge initially moves enough to cycle the action, but not enough to have a case rupture. That happens largely INDIPENDENTLY FROM THE POWER OF THE CARTRIDGE. Low pressure rouds can have high power, but generally pay for this by being bigger. Modern propellants and metallurgy allowed to have very high pressure cartridges in respect to those of the late 19th early 20th century.
.223 rem and other modern cartridges are generally high pressure cartridges, even the ones that produces moderate energy, and that leaves a more little margin for safely operate a blowback action.
That's not the case of the .30 carbine, that worked at lower presures than the .351SL that was safely used in a blowback rifle that weighted less than a .45 ACP SMG.
Please. Really you want to be taken seriously with arguments like "N***s would have done it"? With a completely different, bottleneck, cartridge? That's not even close to be a demonstration of anything. N***s didn't make a simple blowback handgun for the 9X18mm Ultra. It had been done after the war. They didn't make a simple blowback handgun for the 9X19, but used, ordered and paid the Astra 600.
The Winchester 1907 had been a Police departments' favourite well into the '30s, many samples are still around and in working order despite being over 100 years old. We were talking about .30 Carbine not other cartridges used in WWII in other rifles. How many powers used a similar cartridge DIRECTLY DERIVED FROM A CARTRIDGE SPECIFICALLY CREATED FOR A BLOWBACK ACTION during WWII?
My source is backed by reality, your faith is disproved by that. The Winchester 1907 rifle (amply used in WWI) that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle and used the .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge that is, hear hear, a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND than the .30 carbine (1900joule vs. 1300joule of energy at the muzzle) and that OPERATED AT A HIGHER PRESSURE (45.000 cup vs. 40.000cup) was slightly lighter than a M3 Grease Gun (despite being a fully stocked rifle) and substantially lighter (900g less) than the Thompson M1A1, two SMGs in .45 ACP. Have you other means to prove your faith is right?
I appreciate Ian, but don't believe something just because Ian says it. He's mostly right, but i've noticed many mistakes over the years, and others did as well.
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@flightlesschicken7769 Your is a faith not a source.Your faith had been already disproved by the fact that the Winchester 1907 rifle (amply used in WWI) that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle and used the .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge that is, hear hear, a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND than the .30 carbine (1900joule vs. 1300joule of energy at the muzzle) was slightly lighter than a M3 Grease Gun (despite being a fully stocked rifle) and substantially lighter (900g less) than the Thompson M1A1, two SMGs in .45 ACP. Have you other means to prove your faith is right?
The Winchester 1907 had been a Police departments' favourite well into the '30s, many samples are still around and in working order despite being over 100 years old. Your theoretical considerations, based on a very superficial knowledge of physics, that mistake guessing for necessities, do not match reality.
Because you see plenty of new designs in .30 Carbine too, doesn't you?
To know why blowback is less suited to fire .223 Rem or 7.62X39 in comparison with the .30 Carbine and .351 Winchester, you should learn something about the magical world of chamber pressure. I can teach you if you want to understand a little real physics for a change. Besides, many good, very good and even exceptional actions are no more used for a reason or another (I can provide examples if you are interested in learning something).
To be a good design it only needs to safely going bang and reliably cycling, and it did both. Many samples are still existing and working.
To decide if a firearm can safely operate with normal loads, it doesn't fire thousands, and not even hundreds, of proofloads.
You understood that this video was about a 4 pounds carbine in 9mm didn't you? Tons of perfectly safe and lighter 9mm carbines had been made. How can you pretend to be taken seriously if you try to extend the problems of a faulty design to another one that you don't know?
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@flightlesschicken7769 Another childish attempt to difert form the subject.
Again, I said: ".30 carbine can be fired in a pure blowback gun of acceptable weight." If you assumed it was a full auto gun it was your fault not mine. Again there are other systems than the weight of the bolt to slow down the fire rate of a gun if needed.
You didn't provide any source. Also you shown that "you clearly don't understand physics" since, contrary to what you considered a physical necessity, the Winchester 1907 rifle (amply used in WWI) that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle and used the .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge that is, hear hear, a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND than the .30 carbine (1900joule vs. 1300joule of energy at the muzzle) was slightly lighter than a M3 Grease Gun (despite being a fully stocked rifle) and substantially lighter (900g less) than the Thompson M1A1, two SMGs in .45 ACP.
Besides, the Winchester 1907 rifle had been modified by the French to fire in full auto in WWI. It fired at perfectly reasonable 600-700 RPM.
Had you known more of the subject before typing you would have known that many versions of the Thompson had been made, from 600 to 1500 RPM. the M1A1 fired at perfectly reasonable 600-700 RPM (what an "absurdly large firerate"!).
I can explain you how it's possible for the automatised Winchester 1907 and the Tommy gun to have the same fire rate despite the comparatively lighter bolt of the Winchester 1907 ("comparatively" means that it was lighter in respect to the power of the cartridge) if you want to understand a little physics for a change.
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@flightlesschicken7769 Infact I provided sources that you can check if you want to learn more about the subject instead of childlishly trying to correct who knows better. You provided nothing.
I said: ".30 carbine can be fired in a pure blowback gun of acceptable weight." not "lighter than a M1 carbine" so you can explain your supposed argument to someone else. A blowback rifle that was not really made to be the lightest possible and fired a substantially more powerful cartridge than the .30 Carbine, other than having been sold commercially, weighted less than the M1A1 thompson and and M3 Grease Gun, whose weights were considered acceptable in WWII, so, again, ".30 carbine can be fired in a pure blowback gun of acceptable weight."
The fire rate doesn't count in a semiauto firearm. Any 9mm browning system pistol would fire at over 1000 RPM in full auto, someone cares? Besides, there are other systems than the weight of the bolt to slow down the fire rate of a gun if needed.
What part of "The subsequent Winchester 1907 rifle (amply used in WWI) that was, hear hear, a pure blowback rifle, used the .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge that is, hear hear, a SUBSTANTIALLY MORE POWERFUL ROUND than the .30 carbine (1900joule vs. 1300joule of energy at the muzzle)." was that hard to understand?
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Around 12.000 FAMAS had been upgraded to the FELIN standard (new 1/7" Beretta-made barrel, new piticanny-rail carry handle, new sights, new bayonet, front pistol grip option...) but, with the newest base rifles to convert that are around 40 years old, it seems kinda like beating a dead horse.
To be competitive with the newest designs, the rifle needs to be completely redesigned (a new bolt less picky about ammos, much more plastic in the body to keep the weight down, faster ambidextrous features) and, since the Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Etienne closed in 2002, there is none to do the job.
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It has to be said that, in respect to it's disadvantages, the advantage of bullpups desing compactness in tansport is often void if compared to standard designs with collapsible stock (that bullpups can't have).
Comparing the FAMAS and the Steyr AUG with another 5.56 NATO European design of the same years (the Beretta SC70/90), we see that the SC70/90, with the stock collapsed, is 756mm long with a 450mm barrel. The FAMAS is 757mm long with 488mm barrel, The AUG is 790mm long with 508mm barrel.
So, the lenght advantages of the FAMAS and AUG designs, for the same barel lenght, are of mere 36mm (1.4 inches) and 24mm (1 inch) respectively. Hardly noticeable when the rifle is carried by a soldier in a truck.
Obviously armies could have good reasons to prefer fixed stocks over collapsible ones (economy, ruggedness...), but, compared to the drawbacks of the bullpups...
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@eloiseharbeson2483 The Western Cartridge ammos were not "specially loaded". They had been made to original Italian specs even in bullet construction. They only used modern propellants, because Western Cartridge, obviously, didn't have access to the original Solenite.
The 6.5 Italian Carcano cartridge has much in common with modern 6.5 and not only 6.5. Being the first one to be adopted, it influenced many of them, both dimensionally and power-wise. IE back in the days when surplus Carcano cartridges were common, and 7.62X39 were unobtanium in the west, 7.62X39 were obtained by shortening and necking Carcano cartridges. The .264 USA of the US Army Marksmanship Unit still uses a shortened Carcano case. You can't put a 162gr round in a Grendel case, otherwise the muzzle velocity would have been practically identical to a 6.5 Carcano, and infact PPU 123 grains Carcano rounds achieve 2690 fps from a 21" barrel, that's even more than a Grendel does. The .264 USA, with 123gr bullet, produces 2,657 fps from 16.5" barrel. Still not that different.
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@ForceSmart You were arguing about "inconsistent quality of Italian ammunition". Are you really able to believe that the 381 shells and propellants were made with different tolerances than 203 ones?
I understand that there are people, like you, that prefer apparently simple explanations that spare them the effort to think. There are many.
For the same reason , you prefer ad hominem argument, talking about "emotional response". Again , an apparently simple explanation that, undermining your interlocutor's arguments because he's "emotional" spare you the effort to use your brain.
(to remember you that someone you called an "historian" is not an historian instead, is not an ad hominem argument. I think "ad hominem" is another expression that you use randomly to be spared the effort to use your brain cells).
You prefer to be spared the effort to make a simple proportion too. Someone said "over a kilometer" and you bought it, without even cheking, because cheking needs to use braincells. Of the picture shown, knowing the lenght of the HMAS Perth, the first salvo has a spread of 410m. The second one of 412m (a little more due to parallax). Or 1.7% of the distance. A single turret longitudinal spread of 2% of the distance in action was considered acceptable to good by any navy at the time. To make a comparison, US Navy obtained 1.1% single turret spread, but that was in tests, with the ship standing still and not steaming at 28 knots, after years of tuning, with delay coils already installed (Littorios had them installed in winter '42-'43) and with slower shells (for a simple geometrical reason, flatter trajectory shells, all things equal will show wider horizontal spread. That has little IRL effect since ships are not just horizontal targets and the flatter trajectory reduces the vertical spread - that's why flatter trajectory is preferred in rifle shooting - and the error in distance and bearing, by reducing the flight time). Richelieu shown a 2.1% single turret spread in tests (four guns in it's case) still in 1948, after delay coils had been installed, and that was considered acceptable.
The service of the Regia Marina, or its "worthiness", is not in question, and I don't need any treat. That's anoter mental shortcut of you.
Since I'm being "emotional" I'll give you another (other than the high speed of the shells) real reason why the dispersion of the Italian 381 was just average and not exceptional.
All the Littorios were very "new". The first two had been commissioned only in 1940. At the time, it took years of tests to "tune " the guns of a big ship (Nelson class shown horrible dispersion in tests still after 10 years since their commissioning). And in wartime those tests are just seldomly made, because there isn't the time, the fuel, and every time the ship leaves the port, it's at risk of being torpedoed.
That's what Adm. Emilio Brenta stated. By 1939 the Regia Marina corrected the dispersion of all of their guns, big and small, so much that, for some of them, there had been the necessity to open the spread, to maximise the probability of a hit (infact, the best dispersion is not the tightest one. That's, IE, a criticism the Americans made on Japanese gunnery). For the 381 there had simply not been the time.
But I'm sure you'll prefer to believe in "inconsistent quality of Italian ammunition". For some mysterious reason, only of 381 shells.
It spares you to think.
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It has much to do with not fixing what’s not broken.
At this point, the geometry of reliable single feed magazines and reliable feed ramps are well known. Designers haven’t to spend time, AND MONEY, to redesign those parts. If they want a "proprietary" magazine, they can (and they do) take an existing design, and only change some little bit, like the position of the magazine release cut.
If they choose double feed instead, they have to design magazines and feed ramps from scratch, and that takes time AND MONEY.
That’s why it seems are mainly manufacturers that don’t have to compete on the market and/or are government funded that nowadays decide to invest in designing double feed pistols (see Norinco CF98, GSh-18, MP-443 Grach…)
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To make it shoot from a mag and be select fire, but none of the thecnical solutions had been reused.
The MB59 actually "made it right". It uses a proprietary mag that feed reliably. A straight op rod, more apt to full auto fire than the original bent one. The selector is completely different, it links the op rod with the sear, so that, only when the action is in full battery, it releases the hammer. That way the action is safer and more reliable, and the ROF is reduced to 750 RPM. It has a muzzle brake that compensates the recoil, the muzzle flip and the spin that the bullets engaging in the rifling give to the rifle (the last seems a minor issue, but it's actually what makes the bursts in 7.62 battle rifles uncontrollable, since the shooter instinctively tends to compensate the muzzle flip, but can't compensate the spin, so the burst widens in a spiraliform pattern). Every rifle was provided with a bipod, to function as a squad LMG when needed.
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Bring me Peter pan "m14s were full auto?"
Yes and no. They could have, or not, the selector installed. Originally the M14 was intended to replace the M1 and the BAR with a single design, but the conception was still that of the riflemen squad, with the M14 in semiauto only, supported by LMGs, that were M14 with the selector and the bipod.
But, when the soldiers begun to fight enemies armed with assault rifles, many formations switched all their M14 to full auto. At least to have a higher volume of fire.
To hit what you was aiming at, was another story.
The problem in using a full power cartridge like the 7.62 NATO in full auto is triple. There is the recoil, there is the muzzle flip, and there is the spin that the bullets give to the rifle (the reaction to the bullets being put in rotation by the rifling). The shooter, instinctively, tend to compensate the muzzle flip, so the burst tend to widen in a spiraliform pattern.
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Infact. The weapon was developed for the ground role. IT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE AN AIRCRAFT GUN. Less than four-hundred samples of more than 14.000 built saw limited use on aircrafts (at that time the Air Corp was a branch of the Army) waiting for the model to be in full scale production first than distributing it to the troops. It was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The bipod was added when it was seen that the shield was too heavy to be carried in attack, and, with the bipod, the weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar, there were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon was developed for the ground role. IT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE AN AIRCRAFT GUN. Less than four-hundred samples of more than 14.000 built saw limited use on aircrafts (at that time the Air Corp was a branch of the Army) waiting for the model to be in full scale production first than distributing it to the troops. It was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar, there were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon was developed for the ground role. IT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE AN AIRCRAFT GUN. Less than four-hundred samples of more than 14.000 built saw limited use on aircrafts (at that time the Air Corp was a branch of the Army) waiting for the model to be in full scale production first than distributing it to the troops. It was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar, there were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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Actually it had been an higly successful weapon.
The weapon was developed for the ground role. IT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE AN AIRCRAFT GUN. Less than four-hundred samples of more than 14.000 built saw limited use on aircrafts (at that time the Air Corp was a branch of the Army) waiting for the model to be in full scale production first than distributing it to the troops. It was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. There were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon was developed for the ground role. IT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE AN AIRCRAFT GUN. Less than four-hundred samples of more than 14.000 built saw limited use on aircrafts (at that time the Air Corp was a branch of the Army) waiting for the model to be in full scale production first than distributing it to the troops. It was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar, there were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon was developed for the ground role. IT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE AN AIRCRAFT GUN. Less than four-hundred samples of more than 14.000 built saw limited use on aircrafts (at that time the Air Corp was a branch of the Army) waiting for the model to be in full scale production first than distributing it to the troops. It was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to develop the OVP18 and the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. There were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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When it was in use it was no "good", it was "the best".
The weapon had been higly successful. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar, there were only bolt action rifles and showels. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon was supposed to be used with a shield, and with it it was plenty stable. https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/smg/smg127/villar-perosa_1915_3.jpg That hole sight was literally the only hole in the shield.
The weapon was designed to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. Put it to surveil obligatory passages (alpine trails, openings in the barbed wire) and, when an enemy shows up, throw a short burst in his direction. With half a dozen 9mm Glisenti bullets in his body, he’ll think better.
The MG-42 for example, with its 1200rpm ROF was designed with this job in mind. Not fire continuosly, but fire when you actually see the enemy.
Given the charateristics of the two warfares, it was more suited the Villar Perosa to WWI (when you almost always had some obligatory passage to surveil) than the MG-42 to WWII.
The weapon had been higly successful in the attack role too. So much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, bipod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had, that were bolt action rifles and showels.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years field the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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The weapon had been higly successful, so much that the Austrians copied it, double barrel, tripod and all. At the end of the conflict a total of 14.564 MGs had been produced (so, more than 29000 barrels, VS only about 5000 MP18), and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti rounds for them.
Mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after having thrown a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the SMG in his hands to clear it, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Because there was not any MP18, or anything similar. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had.
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to develop the OVP18 and the MAB18 (that were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not because the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but because it was so satisfactory that none felt the urge to modify it.
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@robosoldier11 The problem with Italian field equipment was of quantity, not of quality. Every WWII army had a mix of issued items, some very good, some good, some decent, some subpar. The BAR, IE, was an abysmal LMG, but the US could simply "throw more BAR at the problem".
The ubiquitous 47/32 Mod. 1935 cannon was as good an AT gun as the as the 3,7 cm PaK 36 and Ordnance QF 2 lb, with the advantage to have anti-personnel HE shells also. Problem was that often it had ONLY HE shells provided.
Later in the war, all those guns had been made obsolete by new tank models.
The Cannone da 75/32 Mod. 1937 was as good as the German 7,5 cm PaK 97/38, but, again, it had been made in little quantities.
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It's actually quite surprising none noticed, during the development of the weapon, that the Blish lock was completely useless, and so, to leave it, would have added unnecessary complexity to the gun. However, that was not the last time. It had been only during WWII that someone bothered to see if the .30 Carbine round could be conveniently fired in a blowback sytem, and discovered that a 570 grams bolt was enough even for proofloads. All the M1 carbine manufactured, with their gas systems and rotating bolts, could have been replaced by much cheaper to produce, simpler to service, and even more reliable, blowback weapons.
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For 1934 It was VERY simple to make. The BAR, BREN, MG34 and Type99 (and both the BREN and MG1934 had been selected in 1938, the Type99 in 1939) had more complex machining. Among the most used LMGs of the time, Only the DP28 could be considered simpler to manufacture.
Generally, though I like it, it seems like a promising prototype put in production before all the elements had been figured out throughly.
Very good and simple operating mechanism, barrel change mechanism, general ergonomy, controls, gas settings…
But three sets of lugs? That bipod (I’ve seen better in WWI)… no handle to grab a scorching hot barrel… And that magazine…
It could have easily been so MUCH better.
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@quentinmichel7581 Not to be contentious, but what matters technically if a gun had been adopted by someone or not? All the military adopted firearms are better in those "certain standards/performance parameters" than all the not military ones? There had never been a lemon adopted by someone? There had never been a good not-adopted-by-anyone firearm? And when exactly did we start to talk about "certain standards/performance parameters" at all? You were talking about "copying" and nothing else.
BTW the Walther PP had not been developed as a military gun, but a Police one (PP, Pistole Polizei), in .32 ACP, like the Little Tom was available in .25 ACP and .32 ACP. It ended up serving in the Wermacht like the SAO Mauser, Sauer, and literally EVERYTHING the Germans managed to put their hands on, because the breechlock P-38 was a too complex gun to mass produce when workers had more important things to do. There is nothing in his construction specifically made for military use, and is actually a more picky gun than many others, even for '30s standards.
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"Sure, we'll just pretend that..."
It's nota question of "pretend". None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"Villar Perosa is not a saturation weapon you say"
I said from the start the use it was destined.
"And yet you obviously focused on claiming..."
It had been you that, not knowing anything about ballistic, questioned the sights on the weapon. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
About adresing something. You can try to adress the fact thet the subsequent MAB 18/30, that fired the same cartridge, had adjustable sights up to 500m.
"Are you suggesting that they fired the weapon in an accurate firing..."
as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
"And so it's a weapon not meant for saturation..."
Infact the MG42 was not meant for saturation, and had a very high ROF. We have already adressed the topic.
"Which incidentally you kept claiming that it is not a flaw"
I don't need it. Only in your head a single flaw makes a weapon ineffective, so you are desperately search for one. Reality is that an unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine. The Villar Perosa instead was the first SMG, so there was not "plenty" of others to confront it, but in it had been copied by the second, so it's charateristics were evidently not considered a hindrance, and were even envied.
"Instead you tried to claim "unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective" so you DO recognize that the ROF on it was in fact a flaw,"
No. I'm telling you that only in your head a single flaw makes a weapon ineffective. Reality is that an unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine. The Villar Perosa instead was the first SMG, so there was not "plenty" of others to confront it, but in it had been copied by the second, so it's charateristics were evidently not considered a hindrance, and were even envied.
"And then you tried to use Garand ... this during a time when basically every single other rifle in service, all used clips..."
It had been you dthat come up with the nonsense that, if the subvsequent weapons had been done differently, than the previous one had to be ineffective. But that's true opnly in your head. Reality is that even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
When the Villar Perosa was used, there was not "any other SMG". It had been the first, and the second was copied from it. So it's charateristics were even envied.
"the ROF is not an issue, using MG42..."
I have mentioned plenty of SMGs. The fact that you keep ignoring them, raises the doubt if you are doing it for your convenience or cause you are not so good at reading too.
A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional. Anyway, even a single unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
"in order to justify..."
Unfortunately for you, I don't have to "justfy" anything. You claimed that High ROF means that a weapon is ineffective, and you brought nothing to justify that claim. Instead there are many examples of successful designs with high ROF.
"If the weapon is "efficient"..."
...it had been made in substantial numbers, its use increased throughout the war, and it had been copied by it's enemies.
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"LOL, and did you think i did not see that edit..."
Another thing that exists only in your head. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"Oh boy, you might have a hard..."
It takes two to tango. You have something for being owned evidently.
"And unlike say a Garand..."
It was you that kept saying nonsense about the ineffectiveness of the weapon basing that on the fact that it had some charateristics that had not ben used after it. Reality is that an unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine. The Villar Perosa instead was the first SMG, so there was not "plenty" of others to confront it, but in it had been copied by the second, so it's charateristics were evidently not considered a hindrance, and were even envied.
"except you just did"
You should really do something for your mental issues. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"And of course... until now..."
ONly in your head the fact that it was possible to do better means that the weapons was uneffective when it had been used. Reality is that an unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine. The Villar Perosa design was obsolete at the end of WWI, but it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"You can also keep dreaming..."
Your mental issues continues to play tricks to you. I clearly stated that the Villar Perosa was not a saturation weapon.
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"They are all also much more competent than you..."
They are. Infact It's not me that is questioning their work without knowing anything of the topic he is writinga about. It's you.
"which they will state clearly NONE of which are of course foolish enough to claim maximum ballistic range"
To claim that 400 or 500 m are the maximum ballistic range only further demonstrates that you know nothing about ballistic. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
About adresing something. You can try to adress the fact thet the subsequent MAB 18/30, that fired the same cartridge, had adjustable sights up to 500m.
"You also seems to have a case of selective attention..."
The fact that an high ROF makes a weapon ineffective is a thing that exists only in your head. A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional. Anyway, even a single unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
"Best SMG of WW1?"
I already suspected that you are not fully capable to understand what you read. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"But oh no..."
Unfortunately for you, this topic had been already fully adressed. The fact that it was possible to do better does not imply the SMG was ineffective when it had been used in any place that isn't your head. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
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"Might want to do something about copy..."
Since you only manage to reiterate topics I already adressed, is much simpler this way.
"So because someone..."
Is pretty funny how first you didn't know a pistol bullet was effective at long distances. Once I told you the probele was that, for you, it was impossible to aim at that distances. Now that I told you that its' possible with a weapon much more difficult to ain than a SMG on a support (a pistol with iron sights), you return back to your previous nonsense.
The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proofs" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
About adresing something. You can try to adress the fact thet the subsequent MAB 18/30, that fired the same cartridge, had adjustable sights up to 500m.
"You have a very interesting definition of effective"
It's obvious that you know nothing about ballistic and about the Glisenti cartridge. To use a 9mm para beyond 100m is a "questionable action" cause it's difficult to aim, especially with an handgun, not cause the bullet isn't dangerous. At 400m a 9mm Para still delivers an energy comparable to that of a .32 ACP at the muzzle. Are you implying that a .32 ACP at point blank isn't dangerous? With a FMJ bullet is an energy sufficient to completely go through a human body. The MAB38 in 9mm Para was widely know to be lethal still at 500m. Even a .22 LR can inflict serious wounds at 400m.
As for the cartridges, the 9mm Glisenti used in the Villa Perosa is in the same ballpark of the milder commercial 9mm Para loads. The ones that USCCo made for the Italian Army (89.460.000 of them during WWI) were charged with 4gr bullseye. Many reloaders use that charge for their 9mm Para and 45 ACP rounds.
"All you've been doing with SMG..."
...Is demonstrating to you that the fact that an high ROF makes a weapon ineffective is a thing that exists only in your head. A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional. Anyway, even a single unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
It's replacement...
Again. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
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"sure you did, including machine pistol as well, but you totally won't touch their ROF right?"
I have mentioned plenty of SMGs and reported the rpm of all of them. The fact that you keep ignoring them, raises the doubt if you are doing it for your convenience or cause you are not so good at reading too.
"you address that the weapon..."
You came up wit the nonsense that a high ROF is alone a thing that makes a weapon ineffective. Reality is that a ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional. Anyway, even a single unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
About adresing something. You can try to adress the fact thet the subsequent MAB 18/30, that fired the same cartridge, had adjustable sights up to 500m.
"but you can't... "
I plenty adressed both the topics. The fact that you keep ignoring them, raises the doubt if you are doing it for your convenience or cause you are not so good at reading too.
"What's next?"
Not much really, since you are incapable to bring new topics, and keep on repeating the old nonsense I already adressed. A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional.
"You've been making total sense so far indeed... trying to justify..."
Unfortunately for you, I don't have to "justfy" anything. You claimed that High ROF means that a weapon is ineffective, and you brought nothing to justify that claim. Instead there are many examples of successful designs with high ROF.
"and 9mm Glisenti being effective..."
The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proofs" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
About adresing something. You can try to adress the fact thet the subsequent MAB 18/30, that fired the same cartridge, had adjustable sights up to 500m.
"Did you think that with Villar Perosa's rate of fire you could..."
The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proofs" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
"did you seriously think... that because a weapon had a sights that indicates..."
The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proofs" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
"WOW, i guess the Thompson..."
The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proofs" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts.
The .45 ACP has a slightly worse ballistic coefficient than the 9mm bullet of the 9mm para and 9mm Glisenti, so it loose energy first. But there are no dubt that a .45 ACP bullet is dangerous at 500 yards. The actual distance precision shooting record with a Colt 1911 (8 hits out of then aimed shots at a 36" bullseye, with iron sights) is of 600 yards.
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"but of course"
I have mentioned plenty of SMGs. The fact that you keep ignoring them, raises the doubt if you are doing it for your convenience or cause you are not so good at reading too.
You came up wit the nonsense that a high ROF is alone a thing that makes a weapon ineffective. Reality is that a ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional, and a single unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
"with the effective range of 9mm Glisenti with the effective range of 9mm Glisenti... which u constantly like to claim..."
Sorry, but in the real world I adressed completely the topic. The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proofs" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts. You can keep on believing that a 300m sight had been placed on that weapon as a joke, or cause, like the Germans, the French, the Czechs, the Koreans, the Russian, and so on, the Italians did not know what they were doing when they designed the weapon.
Reality is that all of them were much more competent than you.
"A soldier using a Villar Perosa..."
Had an SMG in his hands, to clear a trench or stop an assault. The alternative was a bolt action rifle. The SMG was more efficient. Infact it had been copied.
"And of course... you would not touch..."
Sorry, but in the real world I adressed completely the topic. You came up wit the nonsense that a high ROF is alone a thing that makes a weapon ineffective. Reality is that a ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional, and a single unwanted charateristic isn't enough to say that a weapon is ineffective, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
About touching something. You can try to adress the fact thet the subsequent MAB 18/30, that fired the same cartridge, had adjustable sights up to 500m.
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"Disprove? the other way around, since the weapon had no..."
The fact that you don't know somethind is not a proof that it didn't exists (It seems is more a proof of the contrary though).
"and i already see it from the beginning that you completely avoid touching anything regarding effective range with Villar Perosa, and rightfully so"
Sorry, but in the real world I adressed completely the argument. The fact that you are incapable to understand anything of ballistic and so keep on taking your uninformed guess as "proof" (calling them "common sense") doesn't change the facts.
"Oh so you want argue..."
I have mentioned plenty of SMGs. The fact that you keep ignoring them, raises the doubt if you are doing it for your convenience or cause you are not so good at reading too. As said: "A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional."
And, again. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
Again. That an high ROF makes a weapon ineffective is a thing that exists only in your head. A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional. Besides, even a weapon with a defect could be very good. the M1 Garand had been a very good, even exceptional. weapon, despite the fact that none used an en-blok clip to feed a semiauto rifle after it, and despite the fact that it could have been better using a magazine.
"Or what? perhaps you'd like to suggest..."
You keep on being plagued by mental issues, since I already adressed the topic of how the weapon had been used, both in attack and in defense.
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"sure, like..."
No, like all the SMG that had been mentioned in my previous post, and that you keep ignoring, raising the doubt if you are doing it for your convenience or cause you are not so good at reading too. As said: "A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional."
The fact that you keep ignoring the basics of ballistic does not change the fact that a 9mm Glisenti bullet is still lethal at 300m. A 9mm Para is still plenty dangerous at 500m. A 9mm Glisenti bullet effectiveness only fall 30m short of a 9mm Para one. the fact that there are rounds that are better at that range doesn't change this fact. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
"But I have enough common sense..."
Unfortunately you have not common sense. What you have are uninformed guess that you keep taking as "proofs" of something, when they are disproved by widely available datas.
"And yep you can keep"
I know I can. Unfortunately for you, that's the reality, and you have brought nothing to disprove it.
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Again. Your claims are based on knowing nothing about any weapon of any time. Automatic weapons of comparable ROF had been designed and used all the way, form the Villar Perosa to modern times. Other than MGs and assault rifles, I already gave you examples of SMGs with comparable ROF, but you know so little about the topic, that you didn't even understand they are SMGs.
Unfortunately for you, I don't have to "justfy" anything. You claimed that High ROF means that a weapon is ineffective, and you brought nothing to justify that claim. Instead there are many examples of successful designs with high ROF.
Keep stating uninformed bullshit about bullet effectiveness is not going to keep you anywere. A 9mm Glisenti bullet is still lethal at 300m. A 9mm Para is still plenty dangerous at 500m. A 9mm Glisenti bullet effectiveness only fall 30m short of a 9mm Para one. the fact that there are rounds that are better at that range doesn't change this fact. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
Again. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
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Oh, dear. Someone keep writing of things he don't know only to reply.
Obviously the Germans did not know what they were doing when they designed a 1200 rpm MG. The French did not know what they were doing when they designed a 1050 rpm assault rifle,and upgraded it to 1150 rpm in its second iteration. The Czechs did not know what they were doing whan they designed the 1150 rpm Skorpion Evo 3. The Koreans did not know what they were doing when they designed the 1100 rpm Daewoo Telecom K7. The Russians did not know what they were doing when they designed the 1000 rpm PP-91 KEDR, and so on... Despite all the first hand accounts, they had been terribly ineffective weapons. Cause Iono Sama says that high ROF is ineffective and undesidered, and only him knows weapons.
Unfortunately, in the real world, you know nothing about what you are writing about. Weapon designers and militaries that commissioned them are not fools, and know their job FAR better than you do.
"And oh please, you don't seriously..."
Sorry, but ignoring reality is non going to bring you anywere. A 9mm Glisenti bullet is still lethal at 300m. A 9mm Para is still plenty dangerous at 500m (to write "DEFINITELY" in capital letters does not make you any more believable, it only shows more clearly that you don't know anything about ballistic) A 9mm Glisenti bullet effectiveness only fall 30m short of a 9mm Para one. To aim at that distance is possible, and, as already said, those sights were not intended fo precision shooting. So you are arguing over nothing.
"No one bothered..."
Except the ones that had to fight agains it, and that you are conveniently ignoring. Pretty funny indeed.
Again. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"Wait what's that? Chauchat was made a lot as well? oh.. it was bad? What? they used it just because they got nothing else like it but the weapon was terrible?"
No. It was not. That's only another demonstration that you know nothing of what you are talking about.
The Chauchat, in its original calibre, was a reliable weapon, and it had been an INCREDIBLY effective design. Federov designed it's Federov Avtomat after being impressed by the volume of fire the Chauchats could deliever. It's effectiveness was exactly in ease of manufacturing. In a partly occupied country, the French managed to build FIVE TIMES more Chauchat than the number of Lewis Gun that UK and US made in the same time. On a one-vs-one basis, the Lewis Gun was a better design, but, five versus one, there was not comparison.
Sorry, but real world works differently than into your head.
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"Being a fanboy..."
Unfortunately, you continue to write without knowing anything about the topic.
A ROF in excess of 1000 rpm is more common today than in WWII, when 500-600 rpm were the norm, and the 1200 rpm of the MG-42 (that continues to have been used extensively and effectively with 50 rounds belts) were exceptional.
IE, the FAMAS F1 had been made with an average ROF of 1050 rpm. When the French designed the refined G2 version, they INCREASED the ROF to 1150 RPM.
Cause they thought it was useful.
And the FAMAS uses a 25 round magazine.
And again. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI. That's only a straw man you built. I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"and sure.. 9mm Glisenti"
Unfortunately you keep on writing without knowing anyting about ballistic.
it's raher funny however that you keep asking me to "go find" something, when you are incapable to find anything besides uninformed guess.
The 9mm Glisenti is a subsonic round. It comes out from the muzzle being just subsonic.
The 9mm Para is a supersonic round. It comes out from the muzzle being just supersonic (with conventional loads. Sometimes subsonic loads are used in 9mm Para, to enhance accuracy).
For the rest, they are identical.
For subsonic speeds, the drags increases with the cube of the speed.
But, when an object goes transonic, due to compressibility, the drag increases up to ten times that figure.
For that reason, supersonic bullets rapidly loose speed, until they become subsonic, and, from that moment, their speed decreases much more slowly.
A 9mm Para (124 grains, fmj) become subsonic in the first 30m of its trajectory. From that moment it has the same speed, and trajectory of a Glisenti bullet.
What a 9mm Para does at 500m, a 9mm Glisenti does at 470m.
Try better.
At the end of the day, everywere outside your head, the Villar Perosa had never been designed having aerial warfare in mind. It had been designed from the start as an infantry weapon, and had been used in that role with success, infact it had been made in substantial numbers, its use increased throughout the war, and it had been copied by it's enemies.
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Again. To demonstrate that the Villar Perosa was good there is the fact that it had been made in substantial numbers, it's use increased constantly thorughout the war, and it had been copied by the enemies.
Those are facts.
To demonstrate that it wasn't good, you have brought nothing other that figments of your mind.
-To decide to ignore facts is your choice.
-Your statement on ROF is simply false. Modern SMGs, assault rifles and MGs have generally higher ROF than LMGs and MGs of the past, and just inferior (when they are inferior) than those of the Villar Perosa.
-General statements, often refuted, about "1st iteration" doesn't demonstrate anything. The Villar Perosa had been made in substantial numbers, it's use increased constantly thorughout the war, and it had been copied by the enemies. Those are facts. To ignore them only to keep on discussing is your choice.
It's obvious that you know nothing about ballistic and about the Glisenti cartridge. To use a 9mm para beyond 100m is a "questionable action" cause it's difficult to aim, especially with an handgun, not cause the bullet isn't dangerous. At 400m a 9mm Para still delivers an energy comparable to that of a .32 ACP at the muzzle. Are you implying that a .32 ACP at point blank isn't dangerous? With a FMJ bullet is an energy sufficient to completely go through a human body. The MAB38 in 9mm Para was widely know to be lethal still at 500m. Even a .22 LR can inflict serious wounds at 400m.
As for the cartridges, the 9mm Glisenti used in the Villa Perosa is in the same ballpark of the milder commercial 9mm Para loads. The ones that USCCo made for the Italian Army (89.460.000 of them during WWI) were charged with 4gr bullseye. Many reloaders use that charge for their 9mm Para and 45 ACP rounds.
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Simply, to demonstrate that the Villar Perosa was good there is the fact that it had been made in substantial numbers, it's use increased constantly thorughout the war, and it had been copied by the enemies.
Those are facts.
To demonstrate that it wasn't good, you have brought nothing other that figments of your mind.
About the Cavalier.
It seems that you didn't realized it. You just demonstrated infact that none that could have had ANYTHING else would have bought it, and even them wanted it only for free.
Hardly a demonstration that the P51 platform was sought after, after the war, isn't it?
"Generally speaking, a design that is actually good will survive..."
As said, that' true only in your head. There had been many succesful, efficient, and even ground-breaking tecnologies that simply disappeared after something better had been developed. None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI, and I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
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The Frommer Stop M17, like it could function in full auto with a 25 round mag in a double barrel configuration, could have functioned the same way mounted on a single stock, obtaining double the weapons with the same resouces. Why the Austrians would have want to "increase the number of weapon with similar capability" of the Villar Perosa if there was a so obvious way to make a better weapon with half the resources?
Evidently cause it was not so obvious. What is obvious is that they spent resources to have an equivalent of what their enemies had, cause they thought it was good.
Ahhh... so, if your reasoning does not applies. you change the terms of it, going from "copied" to "distributed" (usually for free. What a sign of success...).
Had the Italians gave avay their Villar Perosa for free at the end of WWI, you can take for granted that someone would have accepted them.
But, in the case of the Villar Perosa, there was still a way to use it in contemporary warfare. And that was done.
Dont' make a fool of yourself. The P-51s were given away so freely by the US precisely cause they knew they were rapidly becoming obsolete, and were happy to get rid of them.
Besides, US gave enough P-51 to equip a relevant part of an Air Force to few countries (many had very few samples of them) what for the others? Why none tried to copy it, if it was so good? Why none tried to produce P-51s for those countries that have had only four or five samples from the US, if it was so good? Again, cause the P-51 was rapidly becoming obsolete. It can't be used in it's original role of fighter, and could only be used to fill the gap in ground attack role until it was phased out.
And that of P-51 was only a case among many. Many optimal WWII designis had not been nor distributed nor copied (FW 190D? TA 152?). Simply, everyone knew that, for how much they had been good during the war, they were obsolete at the end of it. Infact the only WWII aircrafts that had been copied after it were the Me-262 (Sukhoi Su-9-11-13) and the B-29 (Tupolev Tu-4), that were the last technologies developed into it.
The Cavalier Mustang really demonstrates that none really wanted a P-51 after WWII. That the only idea of using it in it's original role of fighter was laughable (they, again, tried to sell it for ground attack). And even the one to use it against low-tech guerrilla fighters, by then, was frowned upon to say the least. In general, it had been a utter failure, with only 21 samples build, most of them given away by the US to Bolivia for free.
None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI, and I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
"Something that's good..."
And that's the "law of Iono Sama for what's good?". Sorry, but it does not apply outside you head. There had been many succesful, efficient, and even ground-breaking tecnologies that simply disappeared after something better had been developed.
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"The state Austria was" means nothing. To make a SMG like the Villar Perosa need double the resouces than to make a single barrel MG. So it's very strange that the Austrians, after having seen the drawbacks of this weird Italian idea, instead to made the oh-so-obvious improvements, decided to field the second SMG of the world, and to make it identical to the first, with a SMG composed of two indipendent barrels.
Why the Austrians would have want to "increase the number of weapon with similar capability" if there was a so obvious way to make a better weapon with half the resources?
Evidently cause it was not so obvious.
And they initially didn't copy the design in the sense you mean. The Sturmpistole M18 (1918) was a Villar Perosa copy in 9mm Steyr, but the Frommer Stop M17 (1917) was a copy in the sense that it was mounted, had double barrel, ecc, but the action was original, so they designed it from scratch to have a weapon that could function like a Villar Perosa (and only later they resorted to completely copy the Italian design, probably cause it worked better).
So, in the end, your is not common sense. You are only guessing about things you dont' know.
It's interesting however how you come from asking "sources" to stating as matter of facts some misinformed guessing.
"And a single weapon like SMG wasn't much of an effect on the war? Maybe, maybe the Germans with their MP18..."
Infact they won WWI, didn't they? You are using an example that contraddict your tesis.
"But the most telling testament..."
Please. Is like saying that, since none copied the P51-D, that's a demonstration that the P51-D sucked. Spare me this nonsense, and avoid arguing with your straw men only to write something. Even a troll should mantain some dignity.
None said that the Villar Perosa was the best SMG of WWI, and I clearly stated that the design was obsolete at the end of it. But it had been an efficient and effective weapon during it, and infact, during it, it had been copied.
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"The state Austria was" means nothing. To make a SMG like the Villar Perosa need double the resouces than to make a single barrel MG. So it's very strange that the Austrians, after having seen the drawbacks of this weird Italian idea, instead to made the oh-so-obvious improvements, decided to field the second SMG of the world, and to make it identical to the first, with a SMG composed of two indipendent barrels.
But obviously that's cause the Austrians were idiots, that didn't knew how to fight like Iono Sama.
What you are expecting from a battlefield you knows nothing of, has little importance. I already explained why a single field weapon couldn't change the course of the war. Your observations only mean "but I was expecting it could change it". Simply, in the gret scheme of things, SMGs are not so important.
Sorry, but I think you don't have a grasp not only on what happened on the Italian front, but on the scale of the operations of WWI at all. A production of 14.000 MGs is respectable, but not stunning. The Austrians manufactured several tens of thousands of Schwarzlose M1907/12 (that was, indeed, a very good weapon) during the war.
The Italians had not started with any "hard offensive". At the start of the war the army was not fully mobilized, and so it could not perform a full-scale attack. The early Isonzo battles were small-scale ones, and the Villar Perosa had not even been fielded yet.
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Infact it had been a widely produced weapon that was more effective than what was available at the time.
As I said. I dont' think you know much of the course of operations on the Italian front on WWI. To sum up the prformances of sereval armies over several years with a single word is pointless, for how much internetian commenters like to do that, especially when they know nothing about what they are talking of.
To think that a single fielded weapon could change the course of the war is... naif to say the least.
In WWI casualties, the part of the lion was that of the artillery. To an artillery shell is indifferent if the target has a Villar Perosa or his bare hands.
To use a SMG in attack, you have to come to see the enemy first. While you are running through the no man's land, what you have in you hands is indifferent.
Stalemates on WWI were related mainly on wrong tactics. Even when the necessity of specialized shock troops had been recognized, those of all the side of the conflict were instructed, when they conquered an enemy trench, to wait there for the regular troops to relieve them, trying to repel the counter attacks in the meantime. That obvioulsy led to huge losses to conquer few palms of land that often can't be taken for long. That situation lasted until late 1917 (when different tactics started to be used) and is not changed by the presence of a SMG.
Armies are not equipped with a single weapon. They usually have a mix that includes some exceptional weapon, some good one, some mediocre, and some abysmal, and, obviously, numbers counts. IE the French, among the major powers, had probably the worst long rifles of the war, but they managed to field an incredible number of Chauchat LMGs, and had a very good HMG in the Hotckiss. Italians, for about two years, had the only SMG of the war, but they fielded a comparatively small number of HMGs, and even less LMGs (also cause the Villar Perosa did part of the LMG job). So, even if the Villar Perosa, for some time, had been a very good weapon, the overall equipment of the Italian Army was not so exceptional.
"and when arming oneself..."
So it's very strange that the Austrians, after having seen the drawbacks of this weird Italian idea, instead to made the oh-so-obvious improvements, decided to field the second SMG of the world, and to make it identical to the first, with a SMG composed of two indipendent barrels.
But obviously that's cause the Austrians were idiots, that didn't knew how to fight like Iono Sama.
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Infact, a substantial number of Villar Perosa remain, in various museums or privately owned. there are weapons more produced, more recently, that are harder to find.
For the others. At the beginning of 1918, the first samples of MAB18 were distributed among the troops. Suddenly the main users of the Villar Perosa, the Arditi shocktroops, found that there was a weapon more suited for the attack role than the Villar Perosa was, and began to insistently demand that their Villar Perosa were replaced with MAB18. The Villar Perosa literally went from being a perfectly fine and advanced weapons, to being obsolete, in a matter of weeks.
So, at the end of the war, the Italian Army had this stockpile of obsolete MGs, and had to figure out what to do with them.
Many were simply too worn out to be of any use (the Italians produced something like 836 millions of rounds for them, so more than 57.000 rounds for weapon, or almost 29.000 rounds for barrel), and were destroyed.
Other were stored, and were destroyed some year later (the Army is not a conservation institute. When something is useless it's simply scrapped).
Many of them were disassembled, the barrels separated, and transformed in OVP18 SMGs. There were so many of them infact, that Beretta was not able to do so that the more advanced MAB18/30 was adopted by the army. The OVP 18 was still in use at the beginning of WWII.
When, finally, the army adopted the further improved MAB38, the main part of the OVP18s were assigned to colonial troops, and ended their life in Libya and East Africa. Many were captured by the British, but, being substantially obsolete, and charged with a round that was not easily available, they had not interest in them and simply discarded them. So, the main part of the Villar Perosa, turned in OVP18s simply rusted out somewere in Africa.
Is not that I believe it was an effective weapon. Simply it was.
Sorry, I think that you have not enough knowledge of the operations on the Italian front in WWI to deal with the subject.
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The weapon that had been submitted to the army, the weapon that had been tested, the weapon that had been adopted and the weapon that had been fielded, was an infantry weapon.
the shielded "variant" was the only variant when the weapon was adopted, and is the only shown in the manual.
That the weapon was unsuited for ground use is your opinion. Not knowing who you are, I'm inclined to think that, between you and Col. Conso, the one that's ignorant about basic infantry combat isn't Col. Conso.
That "the weapon was very obviously not good in ground role" is, again only your opinion.
The people so quickly "realized that such high ROF was counter productive in a ground combat" that the MG-34 was designed to have 1000 rpm ROF and, after two years of war exprience, his replacement was designed to have 1200 rpm ROF.
What you call "the obvious thing", that's to put a single Villar Perosa Barrel on a Moschetto TS stock, could have been done after six month from the first deployment of the weapon, if indeed it was felt necessary. But it wasn't. Other modifications had been implemented (IE, the tubular mag retainer was replaced by a conventional spring release, the shield was discarded, a bipod was added...), but not that.
Cause, mind this. THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER AROUND.
When the guy with the Villar Perosa, after throwing a couple of offensive grenades into the enemy trench to stun the enemies, came over the edge with the machine gun in his hands to finish them, he didn’t find the guy with the MP18 waiting for him. Cause there was not any MP18, or anything similar. What he had in his hands was incredibly better for that role than anything the enemy had (and infact the Austrians copied it, DOUBLE BARREL AND ALL, first with the Frommer Stop M.17 and then with Sturmpistole M.18 THEIR FIRST SUBMACHINEGUNS WERE COPIES OF THE VILLAR PEROSA).
After having adopted the Villar Perosa, the Italians took almos three years to develop the OVP18 and the MAB18 (that, as said, were nothing more than a single Villar Perosa barrel mounted on a Moschetto TS stock) not cause the Villar Perosa was unsatisfactory, but cause it was so satisfactory that they produced more than 14.000 complete MGs, so almost 30.000 single barrels, without feeling the urge to modify it.
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Yes, that shield. It's evident (even without looking at the manual) how the round plate was intended from the start to be used with it. Into the shield it's an integral part of the protection. Without the shield it is only an overweight link between the barrels. There is no need to do it so beefy only to ink the barrels.
As already stated, the first 350 MGs produced had been given to the Air Force. It's cause 350 MGs were a significative number for it, and an insignificant one for the infantry. The Army wanted the manufacturer to be ready to mass produce the weapon first to field it. Moreover, to use the MG on an aircraft required only to mount it and say to the observer-gunner how it worked. On the air, it was "everyone for himself". To use it for infantry use required to form the MG sections, train them to function as a squad, assign them to the battallions, make sure that the senior officiers knew the possibilities and limits of the weapons...
What were the original intentions of Revelli, is not significant. The weapon for which the manual had been printed, the weapon that had been tested and the weapon that had been adopted, was an infantry weapon. Maybe that he wanted to design the first aerial MG of the world, maybe he wanted to design the first cartridge-powered toothpick of the world. Where is the source that denegates the latter possibility? Sources are not speculations over the intentions.
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a) From the fact that it had been used from the start as an infantry weapon, and in incredibly higher numbers than the few that had been used by the Air Force.
b) Cause the existing sources, already mentioned, that you prefer to ignore (see for example Vittorio Bobba, "Pistola mitragliatrice Villar Perosa Mod. 1915", in, Armigeri dl Piave, Quaderni di Oplologia n.11 2000, pp. 67-86) states that way. The same manual of the weapon ("Istruzioni per il funzionamento e la manutenzione della pistola mitragliatrice per cartucce regolamentari per pistola modello 1910". Note that this manual, even if stamped in 1916, was written first than the official adoption of the weapon, infact it doesn't contain what will be the official name "Pistola Mitragliatrice Fiat Mod. 1915, but identifies it as "submachinegun for the mil/spec cartridges of the M1910 handgun") Does not contain any hint of an aerial use, and the only sample images where the weapon is shown in an environment, are in infantry use with the shield mounted.
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All the English sources maybe, but, when they deals with other nation's designs, and especially unusual ones they usually only repeat what someone said before.
More than 14.000 Villar Perosa MGs had been manufactured during the war. The box of this one is the number 4216. In 1915 Italy only had some hundreds of aircrafts they could have used this MG on. There had never been a huge number of Villar Perosa dismounted from aircrafts to find a use for. In reality the weapon was adopted in 1915 as "Pistola mitragliatrice FIAT modello 15" as a field weapon, and only the first 350 samples had been given to the Aviation (a small branch of the army at that time) cause the Army wanted the manufacturer to be ready to mass produce it first to field it.
As for the rate of fire, it serves the same purlose of the 1200 rpm ROF of the MG-42. they both had not been designed for suppression fire (heavy MGs were intended for that role), but to cover obligatory passages (through the barbed wires, or the mountain trails) and fire only when you actually see the enemy. Since the enemy is no stupid, he is visible only for a brief time, and, for this, a huge ROF is required to hit him.
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Extended 50 rounds magazines were used by the aerial SMGs. However this gun has never been designed to be an aircraft SMG. It only happened that the first 350 samples (of over 14.000 produced) had been given to the Air Force (that, at that time, was a branch of the Army) cause the Army wanted the weapon ready to be mass produced first to start to field it. The MGs used on the aircrafts had a different mounting, without the round plate and with normal aerial sights. The round plate was intended to be used on the field with the shield. When used with the shield, the plate was integral part of the protection, and the hole sight was the only opening in it.
As for the rate of fire, it serves the same purpose of the 1200 rpm ROF of the MG-42. they both had not been designed for suppression fire (heavy MGs were intended for that role), but to cover obligatory passages (through the barbed wires, or the mountain trails) and fire only when you actually see the enemy. Since the enemy is no stupid, he is visible only for a brief time, and, for this, a huge ROF is required to hit him.
In 1916 Capt. Bassi, creator of the Arditi, begun to use it, without the shield, to clear the enemy trenches. A stretch ot trench is 20m long at best. With a single burst of the Villar Perosa you can saturate it without even seeing. That's useful, since the assaults were often performed at night.
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Blair Maynard
"I didnt start the MG42 comparison"
It was a comparison of kind of intended use. The intended use of both was that of point weapons. A lot of bullets on a little space in a short time. Not long bursts.
"The lesson of the MG42 is that "higher rate of fire is not always better". According to Wikipedia, the MG42's main drawback was ammunition consumption."
The Italians manufactured 836 million Glisenti rounds for 14.564 Villar Perosa manufacutred. More than 28.000 rounds for barrel. It seems that they were prepared for the consumption.
"If the MG42 gunner chose to use the 50-round belt "pods"..."
The standard lenght of the MG42 belt was 50 rounds. It could be lenghtened by linking several belts. But, again, you are comparing what's arguably the most avdvanced MG of WWII with WWI weapon.
"he would have to change magazines once every 50 rounds, while the Villar-Perosa gunner has to change magazines twice every 50 rounds."
Please, The 50 rounds drum of the MG42 was only a can that contained a 50 rounds belt. In order to change the drum the gunner had to: remove the spent drum, open the new drum, attach the new drum to the MG, open the action of the MG, extract the end of the belt from the drum, place the end of the belt on the action, close the MG.
It takes MUCH less time to change a pair of magazines, and you have not a spent belt hanging from the MG while you are running.
But, again, you are comparing what's arguably the most avdvanced MG of WWII with WWI weapon.
"Sure it would be a GREAT gun to defend narrow passages when a large number of troops try to get through at the same time, and you have the ability to spread or an angle your shots so that you arent putting all the bullets into the first person, but a Lewis gun would also be pretty useful there too"
And a Maxim, and a Schwartzlose, and a MG08, and a Hotchkiss... Have I said that others MG are useless? But the Villar Perosa has it's advantages. It's lighter, it's easier to manufacture and service, it's thougher (with the shield, the weapon is practically invulnerable to rifle-caliber projectiles), and its ROF makes it a point weapon.
"AND the Lewis gun..."
The Lewis gun was a very good LMG, but the Lewis Gun was heavy, expensive, sensible to dirt, It's drum was difficult to change (see vintage and modern clips. The servent can't really replace the drum while remaining in prone position. In the end, again, it was easeir and faster to replace a pair of magazines) its low ROF makes possible for the soldiers in the trench to return fire. The Lewis gun was really more apt for ambushes, when the gun could be placed in partially covered position, than to run on the battlefield and clear trenches.
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It had been MUCH useful as it was.
In attack, first, a sling that allowed to use it while walking, or running, designed by Col. Giuseppe Bassi, was added, then it was used a wooden stock that allowed to use the weapon on shoulder, and the MG had been extensively used for clearing trenches starting from 1916.
Maybe it could have been done better for that role, but remember that, since1916 to late 1918, it was the best thing around for that role anyway.
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@hendriktonisson2915 The names are misleading here. The Breda 37 had not been adopted in 1937, and the Fiat-Revelli 1914/35 had not been adopted in 1935.
1935 is the year when it had been adopted the ammo, "Cartuccia per mitragliatrice Mod. 1935" (cartridge for machine-gun mod. 1935).
The Breda 37, a scaled down version of the 20mm Breda 20/65 (1935), that was a scaled down version of the 37mm Breda 37/54 (1932), both tray-fed, had been adopted, first by the Navy, in 1936 (and even the production started in 1936), and infact it had been first called Breda 36, and the early boxes of ammos were marked Breda 36.
The Fiat-Revelli M1914/35 had not been made by FIAT, that quit manufacturing small arms in 1930. It was a conversion made by MBT. I don't know when they exactly started converting old WWI MGs, but it's higly improbable they came up with the complete conversion and the belt in 1935. The instruction manual of the gun is dated 1937.
So that belt simply didn't exist when the Breda 37 had been designed.
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@Gaspard129 I've clearly offended your (ignorant) sensibilities pointing out that you pretended to talk about Italy's logistic situation in World War 2 without knowing anything about it, as you are now ignoring, or you are simply too stupid to understand, that I talked about decisions made by US , Netherlands and Sweden at the same time.
You clearly are unable to understand that the Italian Army used two rifle cartridges in WWII like the US Army did.
You are clearly clutching at straw, pretending your very personal opinion on relative convenience of cartridges for bolt action rifles to count for something in respect to the opinion of the people that HAD to operate them.
You are clearly unable to understand that, deciding a round for a rifle in 1932, it would have fielded with the rifle, not before it, and the decision to stick with the wrong caliber in 1932 led to have to use two not-so-great calibers in 1940.
Other than not even understanding even what a "rifle caliber machine gun" is, since you put .50 caliber MGs in it, you are not even able to understand that every army, US one included, has a residual use of old weapons in old calibers.
You are evidently simply too ignorant and stupid to judge if the Italian Army benefited to have a heavier caliber for MMGs or not. Your strictly personal opinion on the matter has exactly ZERO factual value.
Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention Norway among the nations that, in WWII, used an heavier round for MMGs (Colt M/29 in 7.92X61 Norwegian) and kept 6.5 Swedish for BOLT ACTION rifle.
Now answer this question, my idiot friend.
Since Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway decided to stick to 6.5 for BOLT ACTION rifles, and use an heavier round for MMGs.
What army fielded a MMG in 6.5 in WWII?
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@Gaspard129 Now let me spell it for you.
1) the Italian army used TWO rifle cartridges exactly like the US one. That's factual. They took that decision having judged the 6.5 Carcano / 7.35 Carcano a good cartridge for individual rifles and LMGs but not for MMGs. You are none to judge if they were right, or if they benefited from it or not. Your strictly personal opinion on the matter has exactly ZERO factual value.
2) The Italian army decided to use TWO rifle calibers in 1935, BEFORE their entry in WWII. The US Army decided to use TWO rifle calibers in 1940, BEFORE their entry in WWII. What was special in 1932 so that it was not possible to take that decision then? The oh-so-cash-strapped US Army, back then, was adopting a new, semiauto (because semiautos were notoriously poor men's rifles in the '30s) rifle, and the moment to change the service cartridge is usually EXACTLY when a new rifle is adopted.
Italian Army used TWO rifle cartridges in WWII exactly like the US one, with the difference that the Italian cartridges were strictly separated, ONE for MMGs, ONE for rifles and LMGs. US had one for MMG, LMGs and rifles, and another for other rifles. Who "made for unnecessary complication"? (your very personal opinion on tangible benefits has little value).
McArthur was obviously wrong in sticking to .30-06, since the US Army had to adopt another cartridge 8 years later, finding itself with two rifle cartridges, none of them really satisfactory when used by riflemen and LMGs.
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@Gaspard129 Sorry, it seems to me that you answered before really having understood my post, so, please, try reading slower this time.
"our entire inventory of machine guns was in .30-06, dude..."
And so? If I SPECIFICALLY said that the .30-06 SHOULD HAVE BEEN USED ONLY FOR THE MMGs, what's the problem if "our entire inventory of machine guns was in .30-06"? Reason more. There were more than enough of them to use the inventory of .30-06 ammos, so the fact that there were many .30-06 ammos already in the arsenals WAS A FALSE PROBLEM.
"And you think the different ammunition for aerial, naval, ground service is of no importance..."
As a matter of fact, despite having been througly bombed, among the many shortcomings the Italian army suffered, there had NEVER been a shortcoming of ammo production. Italian aircrafts and ships always took off and set sails with the magazines at full capacity. That's because, in respect to the number of rifle caliber ammos the Army needs, the number .303 needed by the aviation was completely residual.
As a matter of fact (2) the .303 was a residual caliber for the aviation that had almost entirely switched to the 12.7X81, and, since the Italian Army, like the German one, didn't use weapons in .50 caliber (the next step from the 8mm Breda was the 20×138mmB Long Solothurn) what the Air force did chose was completely indifferent.
As a matter of fact (3) the residual use of 13.2mm by the Navy didn't cause any problem because, having switched to the 20×138mmB Long Solothurn for almost all the units since the mid '30s, the Navy already had enough 13.2 rounds in the inventory, for the few units that still used it in WWII, to supply them for not one but two world wars.
"To your point about a lighter rifle/lmg cartridge like .30 Remington and heavier mmg cartridge like .30-06, this makes sense from a tactical perspective. It potentially creates a serious complication from a strategic level..."
Again, since the .30-06 was not really satisfactory for any use other than in MMGs, the US Army ENDED UP USING TWO RIFLE CALIBERS ANYWAY, with the only difference that NONE of the two calibers was really optimal for the riflemen, being the .30-06 too heavy and the .30 Carbine too light. So what was specifically the logistical problem in having TWO good calibers, one for MMGs (the .30-06) and one for riflemen and LMGs (a kind of .30 Remington), instead of having TWO so-so calibers? McArthur simply made a mistake.
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@Gaspard129 7.35 Carcano was not really used. .303 British was used only in aerial MGs, 12.7X81mm (.5 Vickers) was used only in aerial heavy MGs, 13.2x99mm
Hotchkiss was used only in residual (it had already been replaced by the 20mm Breda automatic gun on any unit large enough to carry it) AA mgs of the Navy.
So the Army used TWO different cartridges for rifles and machine guns.
BTW McArthur was dead wrong. There was not that big reserve of 30-06 ammos, not to say of BAR, in the US inventory, in the .30s, to justify sticking to it (or to the BAR for that matter). And, since the .30-06 was unsuitable for many uses, they had to introduce A SECOND CALIBER anyway, the .30 Carbine. That was still not optimal anyway.
The only thing that can be said in his defense is that the .276 pedersen was little better, and its only real advantage were two rounds more in the M1 clip.
A round similar to the .30 Remington for infantry rifles, carbines and LMGs, and the .30-06 for the MMG, would have been the optimal solution.
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It's not a question of deciphering. The manual is clear, and only talks about field use and shows field use.
Sorry, but this "everyone" you speak of is only the English speaking world, and it does because of Chinn's "The Machine Gun". Unfortunately, for how much a good work it was, it's not the only case where "the Machine Gun" is inaccurate.The order for the Third Army had been made as soon as the weapon had been adopted and, again, a facility capable to produce 500 weapons for month for the needs of a 1915 Air Force is beyond ridiculous. At the start of the conflict (may 1915 for Italy) the Italian Air Corp had 86 combat aircrafts in total. In a month they would have produced more guns than the aircrafts capable to mount them. Still in April 1918 The Air Corp had 232 fighters, 66 bombers and 205 recognitors.
You know that it's not like this that it works. To say that it was intended for aircraft use you have to find documents stating that BEFORE it had been really used on aircrafts. Unfortunately you can't point to any of those, because that wasn't it's intended use. Instead there is plenty of documents that point out to it's intended use as a field weapon from the start. Because THAT was its intended use.
There are pictures of the weapon used on aircraft because it had been used on aircrafts TOO. To say it was it's intended use from the start is like saying that the intended use of the Mondragon was on aircrafts, because the Germans used it that way.
I already said to you that the English manual is form 1917 at least.
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As someone who spends most of his time reading manuals and information about guns you should know that there should be some information, including the weapons technical manual, that suggests that IT WAS manufactured with aircraft in mind to say it was.
BUT THERE ISN'T ANY, while there is plenty of info about it's projected field use. Fact this that the gun had not been proposed by the designer as an aicraft weapon (in april 1914, when it had been patented there was not even the concept of "aircraft weapon"), it had not been tested as an aircraft weapon, it had not been adopted as an aircraft weapon, it had not been ordered as an aircraft weapon and, from the capacity of the production facility, is easy to know that its manufacturer knew he wasn't going to produce an aircraft weapon.
M1915 is the name of the gun. The English manual on Forgottenweapons' site is not dated, and, since it talks of "experiences in the field" and of the gun being manufactured by the "Canadian General Electric company" I higly doubt it being from 1915. It's more probably of 1917 (the year the Canadian General Electric Company started to produce it), and probably quite late on that year.
Conso was the chief of the department. He decided about the tests. Due to his favourable technical relation the gun was adopted as M1915 light machinegun.
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The Beretta 57 had been designed in competition with the Franchi LF58 (that was inspired by the Stg.44 in shape, like the Beretta 57 was inspired by the M1 carbine http://www.exordinanza.net/reprint/Franchi_LF-58-59/LF58.jpg ).
The problem adressed was that of the controllability of fire. Any sane manufacturer knew that .308 Win. was not controllable in full auto. While the Brits tried to impose the .280 British, the Italian manufacturers thought there was no need to reinvent the wheel and, since the Carabinieri had already adopted a good number of surplus M1 carbines, so the round was already in use by the Army, tried to offer ARs in .30 Carbine (if more muzzle speed was required, the cartridge could have been easily necked down, so saving all the design apart for the barrel).
In the end, the 6.72 NATO was forced on all NATO countries, so there was no market for .30 Carbine rifles. When it was time to switch to 5.56 NATO, other manufacturing tecniques were available.
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Top tier design, terrible execution.
Motivations vary. On one side, the Santa Barbara Arsenal had not mass produced anything for decades before the AMELI (the problem with state-owned arsenals, that made so they went out of fashion, except for maintenance. You can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems). See similar problems for the British SA80 rifle (but there the design was flawed also).
On the other, by some account, CETME deceived the government. To make the weapons up to spec with the (by any account) exceptional prototypes they would have costed much more than the government wanted to spend. They had to reduce the costs of the individual weapon in production by 40%, and so the disaster was served.
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The problem was the choice of making it SS, not the carburizing method, that was only an attempt to make the design work.
Low temperature carburization of stainless steel, up until the '90s, was an empirical process. You didn't know in advance what alloys were carburizable and what was the appropriate process for any of them. It could only be learned trough trials and errors. It's not by chance that the first stainless steel pistol was released only in 1965, and it was a revolver (S&W 60) so it didn't need many hardened parts. When stainless semiautos began to be introduced, in the mid '70s, all of them had galling problems. In 1983, Randall introduced a line of stainless-steel pistols. The guns were advertised with the slogan “Randall, The Only Stainless Steel Fit For Duty.” because all the previous ones weren't. The trick was to use different alloys for frame and slide and use different hardening treatments, that reduces the galling problem,however it not completely eliminates it. Today is less felt largely thanks to better lubricants.
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It depended on the spalling effect. Problem is that the spalling effect works, and not always (it depends on the quality of the armor) only for impacts very close to 90° and, even when it worked, you had only a piece of steel of the dimensions of a small coin flying into the armor, not an explosion.
To make an example, The Brits had problems with their QF two-pounder AT guns, because, not having explosive bullets for them, often even multiple penetrations were not enough to stop an enemy tank, and those were 40mm projectiles weighting 1kg!
Obviously, being the Wz. 35 relatively cheap, you can manufacture more of them, and more projectiles, so there were more occasions to shoot, and so more chances to obtain a decisive hit, but more danger for the shooters too, since they were more targets for the tank's reaction.
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IE Col. Edoardo Versè "Impiego tattico delle unità di fanteria dotate del nuovo armamento". Already in the “T batallion” model of 1918 the infantry rifle was relegated to a secondary role, while the MGs and SMGs had the main one (the end of the war stopped the implementation). Simply the infantry rifle was not used by shock troops, IE the Arditi, during the attacks, used SMGs, hand grenades, knives, pistols, but not rifles. While in defense it had a marginal effectiveness in respect to machineguns.
“Semantic” is to point to an HMG and say “that’s an LMG”. It’s not, it remains an HMG. “Semantic” is to say that the “MG34 was a 100% mature design in 1934” (probably because it has a “34” in the name). It was not until 1938.
The Madsen LMG weighted 9.07 kg, the Chauchat weighted 9.07 kg. The SIA 1918, adopted the same year of the MG08/18, weighted 10.7kg, and had a quick exchange barrel already. Those were not “unreasonably modern standards”.
Garand started to develop his rifle pretty late, took a wrong turn, had to change caliber, took another (minor) wrong turn and so had a pretty long development. But already the Carcano semiauto conversion of 1912 was deemed to be serviceable. Other projects had been hampered not by the technology, but by unreasonable requests of the military (muzzle blast actuated instead of gas actuated, possibility to be used as bolt actions…).
I never bashed machineguns.
You are again talking like the Garand was the only semiauto rifle ever made, and yes, “logistic considerations” includes the fact that, after WWI, there were shitloads of bolt actions available.
To say that the Scotti is not an example of something the way it was, but it would have been having the gas piston in another position is utter nonsense. Scotti produced a perfectly serviceable LMG in 6.5 Carcano, using the same gas system (it was used as tank gun until it was replaced by the Breda 38 in 8mm Breda) The short stroke gas piston was perfectly feasible even with WWI metallurgy, it was only a question of thinking of it.
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Studies performed after WWI concluded that the infantry bolt action rifle had been the least useful among all the weapon issued to infantrymen. Pistols, hand grenades, even knives and showels had been more effective. The recomendation for the Italian Army was to switch to "automatic muskeets" for all the infantrymen bar designated marksmen. So the Terni arsenal developed the Terni M1921 along with an intermefiate power round for it https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/raigap/40496274/928974/928974_original.jpg
The rise od fascism, economic considerations, and the conservatism of the Army prevented its adoption, but the Army still wanted a semiauto rifle in a full blown cartridge, since that was anyway a big improvement over the bolt action rifle (enemies rarely show up one at a time at 1.5 sec. distance, to give you the time to operate the bolt and realign).
The bolt and trigger assemblies of the Scotti rifle are actually simpler than those of a Carcano rifle (that's a very simple bolt action). Yeah, there is the gas piston, but the increase of complexity is negligible. Already in 1915, Maj. luigi gucci noted that, in adopting a semiauto rifle for the army, the price of the rifle was, in the end, marginal if compared to the price of the ammos for it (then, the price of a brand new semiauto rifle, not a conversion was estimated in 60L, that of a single Carcano cartridge was 0.1L, so a semiauto rifle costed like 600 cartridges).
Belt fed LMGs in the '30s were not a thing (the first one was adopted in 1938). Even the MG34 and MG42, when used in the LMG role, had many limitations (IE to change a 50 rounds belt requires more time than to change a pair of box magazines, so limiting the practical ROF). It required several decades after WWII for the concept of "general purpose machine gun" to impose itself, and it's not a definitive victory (see the Marines replacing the M249 with the M27).
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A nice comparison with the contemporary N33 Swiss rifle prototype you reviewed in another video could be done.
As far as it seems, the N33 aspect seems more "modern" and refined. Not surprisingly, since it haven't to reuse pieces of a 19th century rifle.
At first sight, the N33 action seems simpler too. Tilting bolt engaged in the back of the receiver vs rotating bolt with lugs engaged in helicoidal slots in the front of the receiver.
Then, in reality, the N33 bolt and carrier are pieces of fine watchmaking, with a lot of presumably costly machining involved, while the Mod.X bolt and carrier are as simple and crude as they can be.
The Mod.X has an effective safety, that seals the action and locks the bolt in forward position, on an empty chamber. The N33 safety is not as effective, since it don't seal the action, and allow the bolt to move back (enough to extract a round? In this case it would be even dangerous).
The Mod.X uses a dated Manlicher clip system that holds six rounds. The N33 uses a modern detachable magazine that holds... five rounds (military brass minds at work here "give too much rounds to a soldier, and he'll waste them!").
Unfortunately we didn't see the N33 working.
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+MacNutz2
That's totally wrong. Mussolini left the Socialist Party in october 1914 to found an interventionist newspaper, "Il Popolo d'Italia", and, when Italy finally entred in WWI (may 1915), he voluntereed, served as a "Bersagliere" (elite light infantry corp) Private, was promoted Corporal for merit (official motivation: "Attività esemplare, qualità battagliere, serenità di mente, incuranza ai disagi, zelo, regolarità nell'adempimento dei suoi doveri, primo in ogni impresa di lavoro e ardimento", "Exemplar activity, fighting qualities, serenity of mind, does not care of discomforts, zeal, reliable in the fulfillment of his duties, first in every enterprise of work and bravery"), and ended his military career being seriously wounded by the explosion of a grenade launcher during a training exercise in february 1917.
All in all he had a rather exemplar military service. Not that the service in the trenches gave him some quality as a strategist, obviously, but he was a brave man.
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This is a visit to the Pietta factory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdnbNJKJ9ZE
As you can see, they use the same tooling to make their repro revolvers and their modern line of semiauto rifles and shotguns. They work in batches. "today revolvers, tomorrow semiauto rifles".
It's obvious that those machines can make anything in between. A Fyodorov Avtomat like a M1 Carbine. They only need the right imput. They can make them BETTER actually. With more consistent tolerances than the originals EVER had.
So why they don't do it?
Because, while manufacturing is not really a problem, designing is. Manual repeaters (revolvers, lever actions...) solve a lot of problems, because timing is decided and force is applied by the shooter. In a semiauto/auto weapon there are a lot of bits that have to work togheter for the weapon to work.
Much of those old designs required handfitting, because the admitted tolerances were so that, in a batch of supposedly identical parts, the right ones had to be chosen and coupled for the weapon to work. Worse, there was the "cascade matching" problem. When you took, IE, three parts that matched toghether, because they were all at one end of the tolerance scale, and then there was no fourth part that matched with them, because it should have been beyond the scale. It was a so common issue that, for the Winchester .224 prototype (the competitor of the AR15 in the CONARC competition) Winchester explicitly stated that they designed their rifle so that it couldn't happen. And we were in the late '50s. It was still a severe problem for the M60 MG.
Modern CNC machines can't work like that. so the modern designer has to come out with his own completely different, set of admitted tolerances.
Not to say that steel of the original composition is often unobtanium.
The REAL problem is that most of those designs were not that great to begin with. Even the most successful ones, (IE, the M1 Carbine, to say one) were good FOR THEIR TIME.
But the eventual purchaser of a modern repro would expect form it MODERN reliability and durability, otherwise "This is shit! The manufcturer scammed me!".
For the designer of the repro, it's like a nightmare. To him is like designing a completely new weapon, with the adjunctive constraint that he can't choose the solutions he KNOWS will work flawlessly. He has to keep it consistent with original solutions that he know work "so-so".
That's why modern repros, even when existing, mostly dont' have part interchangeability with the originals.
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This is a visit to the Pietta factory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdnbNJKJ9ZE
As you can see, they use the same tooling to make their repro revolvers and their modern line of semiauto rifles and shotguns. They work in batches. "today revolvers, tomorrow semiauto rifles".
It's obvious that those machines can make anything in between. A Fyodorov Avtomat like a M1 Carbine. They only need the right imput. They can make them BETTER actually. With more consistent tolerances than the originals EVER had.
So why they don't do it?
Because, while manufacturing is not really a problem, designing is. Manual repeaters (revolvers, lever actions...) solve a lot of problems, because timing is decided and force is applied by the shooter. In a semiauto/auto weapon there are a lot of bits that have to work togheter for the weapon to work.
Much of those old designs required handfitting, because the admitted tolerances were so that, in a batch of supposedly identical parts, the right ones had to be chosen and coupled for the weapon to work. Worse, there was the "cascade matching" problem. When you took, IE, three parts that matched toghether, because they were all at one end of the tolerance scale, and then there was no fourth part that matched with them, because it should have been beyond the scale. It was a so common issue that, for the Winchester .224 prototype (the competitor of the AR15 in the CONARC competition) Winchester explicitly stated that they designed their rifle so that it couldn't happen. And we were in the late '50s. It was still a severe problem for the M60 MG.
Modern CNC machines can't work like that. so the modern designer has to come out with his own completely different, set of admitted tolerances.
Not to say that steel of the original composition is often unobtanium.
The REAL problem is that most of those designs were not that great to begin with. Even the most successful ones, (IE, the M1 Carbine, just to say one) were good FOR THEIR TIME.
But the eventual purchaser of a modern repro would expect form it MODERN reliability and durability, otherwise "This is shit! The manufcturer scammed me!". It doesn't exist "it seldomly work because the originals were like that too".
For the designer of the repro, it's like a nightmare. To him is like designing a completely new weapon, with the adjunctive constraint that he can't choose the solutions he KNOWS will work flawlessly. He has to keep it consistent with original solutions that he know work "so-so".
That's why modern repros, even when existing, mostly dont' have part interchangeability with the originals.
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Sorry, but the Army didn't want ANYTNING else than the M9.
The XM10 trials had nothing to do with slide separation, It was the Congress forcing the Army to redo the test to appease S&W, since, reading the XM9 requirements to the letter, it shouldn't have been eliminated after the life expectancy test, as it did. That's because, thus performing worse than both Beretta and SIG, it was still above the minimum required (the S&W had been eliminated after one of the three pistols tested cracked a frame before having fired 5000 rounds, but the requirement was for a life expectancy of over 5000 rounds ON AVERAGE, and, on average, the life expectancy was over 5000 rounds) and so it should have passed and competed on price with Beretta and SIG.
In the end, Beretta won the XM10 trials without even competing. It refused to submit pistols for the tests, and so the Army used off-the-shelf guns.
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Because it didn't "won the M9 trial in everything but cost".
In the service life test only the 92F and the H&K P7 reached the 7000 rounds threshold with all three pistols intact. The P226 cracked a frame at 6523 rounds fired, but was allowed to pass, since the requirement was just for a service life, on average, of over 5000 rounds.
the P226 failed the dry mud test, with only 79% reliability in those conditions. Being that significantly lower than the 1911 control weapon, it should have been eliminated due to the rules of the competition (notice that instead, in the XM17 trials, there was conveniently not a M9 control weapon around to be seen). It was allowed to keep on competing, because the Army wanted at least two manufacturers to compete on price, so it was simply decided that the dry mud test result was "not so important" and the result was simply not considered.
So, not counting the result of the tests were the 92F performed better than the P226, then the P226 performed better than the 92F.
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There is nothing saying this action not being sound. The Isard spring has 28 twists, the 1911 32, the Astra 27. The thickness of the wire is about the same. In all likelyhood they had about the same stiffness when new.
The stiffness of the mainspring has practically no importance in keeping the action of a blowback handgun closed for enough time to safely eject the case. It's the mass of the slide that does all the work. The only real function of a stiffer mainspring is to mitigate the felt recoil and the force with which the slide slams into the receiver at the end of it's travel, so a stiffer spring prolongs the life of the frame/slide. However, the force that has to be absorbed is the same for blowback and short recoil pistols. Infact, IE, the Hi-Point mainspring has the same stiffnes of the Glock. More than pointing to the dimension of the spring, Ian should have measured the stiffness of the spring. A smaller spring can have the same stiffness of a bigger one, it wears out quickier, and so has to be replaced more often, but the durability of the spring was probably not the main concern of the designers of this handgun.
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Really is the contrary. Field strip is very fast, disassemble requires time.
To have access to the gas chamber and the gas ports (that's the thing that requires cleaning, there is not actually much that could happen to the piston and op rod) you only have to remove the muzzle cover.
To inspect the recoil spring, you can remove it from the trap door.
To remove the bolt you only have to remove the dust cover and the rear buffer ("when the dust cover is off, it just slides out") and it comes out from the rear of the receiver. It isn't needed to remove the receiver from the stock.
Like almost every bolt action rifle up to then, and several semiauto rifle after then, this rifle is not made to have the trigger group and the receiver removed often from the stock. While the parts that require cleaning, and/or have to be replaced more often (for the second case, almost universally the recoil spring and the firing pin) are very easily reachable.
An M1 Garand, for example, is made with a completely different philosopy. The rifle can be easily disassembled, but is not really field-strippable. To reach the firing pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have several small parts flying around you).
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Also because the Breda single-lug rising bolt action is a VERY interesting action that Breda employed successfully from 6.5 Carcano to 37mm AA automatic guns. It's simple (that bolt is made of five pieces in total, charging handle included), lightweight (see the dimensions) and it locks on the front of the bolt.
The last part is important because we see, I.E., that the tilting bolt, that was very popular in the '30s-'40s-'50s (SVT40, STG44, FAL...) is no more used, because, locking on the rear of the bolt, it requires a sturdy receiver for all the lenght of the bolt itself, while, locking on the front, rotating bolt actions like those of the AR and AK, can have the receiver made of aluminium or light sheets of steel.
The Breda action, thus not being a rotating one, has this advantage too.
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The rifle is actually very simple. Except for the burst mechanism, that's an added part not integral to the design, it's made of very few parts.
In this rifle. Is very easy to have access/remove the parts that requires more servicing (gas ports and bolt assembly) or that have to be replaced more often (statistically, the recoil spring and the firing pin). You can replace them in seconds and without tools, that was not a given at that time.
To completely disassemble the rifle is more complicated, but it had not to be done that often. In almost all the bolt action and semiauto rifles made until then (and several made afther then, think of the Gewehr 41 and 43 for example) the receiver and the trigger group were not made to be removed from the stock that often, infact they were secured with bolts and screws.
An M1 Garand for example is made with a completely different philosophy. The rifle is easily disassemblable, but not really field strippable. To have access to the firinng pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have a lot of small parts flying arounf you).
What can annoy of this design, is that the entire gas piston is not easily accessible, but in reality, all the "magic" happens under the muzzle cover, that contains the exhaust ports too, is exposed once the muzzle cover is off and can be fully cleaned. The rest of the piston is only a piece of steel to which very little could happen.
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The rifle is actually very simple. Except for the burst mechanism, that's an added part not integral to the design, it's made of very few parts.
In this rifle. Is very easy to have access/remove the parts that requires more servicing (gas ports and bolt assembly) or that have to be replaced more often (statistically, the recoil spring and the firing pin). You can replace them in seconds and without tools, that was not a given at that time.
To completely disassemble the rifle is more complicated, but it had not to be done that often. In almost all the bolt action and semiauto rifles made until then (and several made afther then, think of the Gewehr 41 and 43 for example) the receiver and the trigger group were not made to be removed from the stock that often, infact they were secured with bolts and screws.
An M1 Garand for example is made with a completely different philosophy. The rifle is easily disassemblable, but not really field strippable. To have access to the firinng pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have a lot of small parts flying arounf you).
What can annoy of this design, is that the entire gas piston is not easily accessible, but in reality, all the "magic" happens under the muzzle cover, that contains the exhaust ports too, is exposed once the muzzle cover is off and can be fully cleaned. The rest of the piston is only a piece of steel to which very little could happen.
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Actually the rifle is very simple. Apart for the burst mechanism, that's an added part, not required for it to work, the parts count is the lowest it could be, and the field strip can be made in seconds without tools, that was not a given at that time.
To have access to the gas chamber and the gas ports (that's the thing that requires cleaning, there is not actually much that could happen to the piston and op rod) you only have to remove the muzzle cover. To inspect the recoil spring, you can remove it from the trap door. To remove the bolt you only have to remove the dust cover and the rear buffer ("when the dust cover is off, it just slides out") and it comes out from the rear of the receiver. It isn't needed to remove the receiver from the stock.
Like almost every bolt action rifle up to then, and several semiauto rifle after then, this rifle is not made to have the trigger group and the receiver removed often from the stock. While the parts that require cleaning, and/or have to be replaced more often (for the second case, almost universally the recoil spring and the firing pin) are very easily reachable.
An M1 Garand, for example, is made with a completely different philosopy. The rifle can be easily disassembled, but is not really field-strippable. To reach the firing pin, you have to completely take the rifle apart (and have several small parts flying around you).
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