Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Forgotten Weapons" channel.

  1.  @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 That's one of the reasons none designed new water cooled MGs after WWI, but they had been replaced by quick exchange barrels.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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  2.  @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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  3.  @BobSmith-dk8nw  I did, and it doesn't count. We are not talking of our personal experiences here. Those were other weapons used in other wars by crews with completely different training.
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  4. Very few blowback SMGs had a bolt hold open. The correct reload procedure for a right handed person is: hold the gun with your left hand by the safety / magazine holder and use your right hand to replace the magazine and operate the charging handle. Is not like you have much to do with your right hand (that's supposed to be your most able one) until the reload procedure is completed, so its better to use it to reload the gun. More, having the left hand on the magazine well, is very easy to change the magazine in the dark, or without looking (is the same reason the UZI designers wanted the magazine in the handle).
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  5. Beretta adapted the M2 semiauto-auto switch to full size M1 rifle receiver and used it on the BM59. There was no need to reinvent the wheel.
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  6. It disassembles exactly like the M1 carbine. The front screw is made to be unscrewed with the rim of a cartridge (see the shape https://youtu.be/IcGskHGcC3A?t=317 ). To unscrew the rear one is unnecessary (like in the M1 it's not part of the receiver but only reinforces the stock, Ian botched that one).
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  7. Beretta already used vertec grips on the Egyptian contract Beretta M1951 (that's the 92's direct ancestor). It was really not a novelity.
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  8. There's a similar gun in a SF novel I read years ago (On the Rim of the Mandala), it's called a "horto". The ray it generates can pierce almost anything, but is must be generated in both opposite directions.
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  9. Unfortunately the M45A1 was a good looking piece of garbage that couldn't complete the planned tests due to cracking slides, adopted out of any competitions due to the connections of Gen. William Keys.
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  10. Don't know for the Model T, but the Breda 30 surely had FAR less moving parts than much of the concurrent designs. MG34 bolt: 24 parts MG42 bolt: 16 parts BAR bolt: 18 parts BREN bolt: 30 parts! Breda 30 bolt, 4 parts.
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  11.  DOUG HEINS  So did the Breda. As Ian stated, the weapon was originally issued with two spare barrels. After the first battles, the provision had been enhanced to 4. that means that the Breda 30 gunners encountered the REAL problem of firing more than 600 rounds without interruption. Try this with a BAR.
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  12.  DOUG HEINS  I didn't miss it, but I've read wartime allied reports on the use of captured weapons that stated that the Breda 30 was "superior to the Bren in dusty conditions", and consider the opinion of those that had to daily fight vs. the actual weapon, and daily use the captured ones, superior to an harmchair review. Apparently you missed the difference between an information and an opinion.
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  13.  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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  14. The easiness of servicing was among the things Allied reports of the time praised about the Breda 30.
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  15. The first samples were real rifles, in 6mm Flobert or .22 Short. Then it was deemed too dangerous, and they were made blanks.
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  16. Probably more than the M2 Carbine, due to the reduced rate of fire.
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  17. This is the first weapon officially designed "pistola mitragliatrice" (the same than the German "machinepistol").
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  18. The number of parts (apart for the burst mechanism, that's an added feature, not necessary to the firing mechanism) is actually very limited. An M1 Garand is WAY more complicate, and more complicate to field strip too.
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  19. 9-Hole Review, that tested the .308 variant, commented it kicked hard to be a .308, "like a FAL on full gas".
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  20. Valhalleluja! https://youtu.be/S9WWz95ripA
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  21. There are several manufacturers of picatinny rails for the 70/90 (this is the closer to the original "Terni arsenal" one of the Italian Army https://www.dccsoftair.eu/slitte-fucili/1299-attacco-picatinny-rail-per-ar7090-defcon5.html ), and at least one manufacturer of a quad picatinny front handguard ( https://www.dccsoftair.eu/ris-armi/1917-ris-quad-rail-picatinny-x-ar7090-defcon5.html ). They are quite expensive tough.
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  22. No firearm (any single sample) can be sold by an Italian manufacturer without having been tested by a public proof house. The rifles obviously worked and cycled without signs of overpressure even when proofloaded. They had not been tested for field use, that requires different tolerancies than for range use. That was something that the designer should have taken into account when designing the rifle. Not something that the manufacturer could adjust by arbitrarily changing the given specs.
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  23. They were the name of the state arsenals.
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  24.  @Danimark_92  So they were the name of the manufacturers, not simply of the city.
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  25.  @Danimark_92  "Brescia" written on a Carcano rifle indicates a precise manufacturer (ONLY ONE), not a city. It indicates that the manufacturer is the state arsenal of Berscia (not other manufacturers located in Brescia. ONLY ONE), not the city. In diferent cities there were different state arsenals, that were different manufacturers. There was nothing like a "royal arsenal" that was located in different cities. There was an arsenal in Turin, One in Brescia, one in Terni, one in Torre Annunziata... that were different industrial entities.
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  26. If you see a Glock clone you say it's a Glock clone. Don't call it a 1911 clone because they use the same Browning tilting barrel system.
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  27.  @quentinmichel7581  And what does it matter if there had been some gun in the middle? Glock is still a Browning tilting barrel system like that of the 1911. And kind of no matter how you wrap it, the barrel & locking block system setup ... you lay the two systems side-by-side on the table and who's the daddy is without question. It's the 1911 all day long. BTW, Muser patented the tilting locking block later used by Walther, and the first commercial (and even quite successful) double action semi-auto pistol had been the Wiener Waffenfabrik “Little Tom”.
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  28.  @quentinmichel7581  And so? What does it changes if a gun had been adopted for a service or not? Does it change the gun in some way? And didn't Browning also kind of pioneer the tilting barrel semiautomatic Service pistol as well?
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  29.  @quentinmichel7581  The slotted cam is only a simplification. It' doesnt' change the operating system. Beretta simplified too. See the complex shape of the barrel of the P-38, to house the tilting block, in respect to that of the Beretta.
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  30.  @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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  31. It happens so often that "glock leg" (shooting himself while holstering or drawing the gun) had became a common term. Striker fired handguns are basically single action pistols with a cocked hammer, without safety and with a crappy trigger.
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  32. Infact in almost 80 years of use of MG34 and MG42/MG3 none noticed this being a problem at all. It becomes one when you are talking of a gun that today is almost universally considered a failed design (wartime reports were not so one-sided actually), but on the functioning of wich you only have third-hand reports, and so you are guessing what could be "wrong" with it.
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  33. From a manufacturing/finishing point of view, no WWII Breda made weapon is less than excellent.
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  34. To see it firing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWZNfSqY1A8
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  35.  @tomaspabon2484  You can see a picture of a similar one for the Italian SIA 1918 light machine gun. Similar needs, similar solutions.
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  36. It's the MAB 38/49, that's not even the last model to be manufactured (it will be the 38/57, adopted by the Carabinieri).
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  37. It's what they are most known for, and what they still manufacture in Italy.
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  38. Really not.
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  39. Sometimes I wonder what the viewers actually see when they watch theese clips. It's acutally a lot easier to strip field this than a BAR. The bolt of this gun is made of 4 parts in total. The one of an MG34 is made of 28 parts.
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  40. There is the video about the Breda PG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0utf9Wu--W8&t=6s
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  41. 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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  42. It was the Blish lock of its days. IRL, for when the piston had moved those about 3mm necessary to close the ports, the bullet had long left the barrel and the pressure in it dropped to safe level. The system didn't offer any advantage over conventional ones, and had several disadvantages in return.
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  43. It will probably fix the occasional ruptured cases and most of the failures to feed (it depends on the quality of the magazine too). Not the failures to eject.
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  44. It had been replaced by plastic, that's cheaper.
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  45. That multi-lug bolt had been already used on the 1912 Carcano semiauto conversion, for the same reason. To limit the degrees of rotation of the bolt before unlocking in a short recoil action. https://youtu.be/jrp7QLSlKD4
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  46. Both SIG and Beretta refused to submit pistols for the XM10 trials. The Army used off-the-shelf M9 as control weapons.
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  47. Like all the pre-war cartridges, it was too big for what it developed.
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  48. 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.
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  49. The Marine Corp never adopted the M45A1. They adopted the M9A1.
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  50. 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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