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

  1. The function of the part is clearly explained in the manual.
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  2. Risto Mladich Obviously they could, but there is a trade-off between quantity and quality, and this is more stringent in wartime. The more soldiers you want to equip, the more quality controls you have to skip.
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  3. 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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  4. They replaced it with the Brixia mortar, that, being able of direct and indirect fire, and having a far higher ROF, was deemed to be a better solution.
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  5. Keep in mind that at the same time, Beretta manufactured the MG42/59 for the Italian Army.
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  6. "Corpo Forestale dello Stato". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Forestry_Corps
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  7. Although not a direct conversion, the Cei-Rigott bolt was clearly inspired by the Schmidt-rubin.
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  8. There should also be a version in 6.5x52 Carcano. 3000 (i'm relying on memory here) samples were ordered by the Italian Army to BSA Company in 1914, but, with the onset of the war, the deliveries were suspended by the British government and replaced with an order of weapons in 303 Brit for their army.
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  9. Infact. They carry AR70/90 or the newer ARX160. It depends on the unit.
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  10. 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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  11. Cause the goal was to not have a detachable magazine. We are used to the fact that, in movies, or at the range, with freshly serviced weapons, all works flawlessly, but at that time detachable magazines often had feeding issues, cause it was not easy to design a magazine that was so cheap to be discarded on the field, and so consistently built to not have feeding troubles. The Brits too designed a tilting magazine for the BREN (they didn't adopt it in the end, but the reloading was even more awkward and time consuming than that of the Breda. The very same fact that they considered it speaks volumes).
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  12. Actually the problems of the "open magazines" are mostly modern days guessings that none noticed when those weapons were in use.
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  13. Infact that sight was only for field use, and was developed cause the weapon was intended to be used with a shield, so the hole sight matched the hole in the shield. On the aircrafts a traditional circular "crosshair" sight was used. Despite what's usually said, the Villar Perosa was not designed to be an MG for aircrafts. It had always be intended to be an infantry weapon. Only the first 350 samples produced were given to the aviation (that, at that time, was a branch of the army), cause the army wanted the manufacturer to be ready for mass production first to introduce it on the field.
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  14. Good find! A shame for the field strip anyway. Can we hope you'll do it another time?
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  15. Here you go (in Italian, but the tables at the bottom are easily comprehensible). http://www.grurifrasca.net/Sito/Ricarica/pistole/9glisenti.html
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  16.  @diablojd52  Mechanically they were all select fire, but the M-14 and the selector switches were delivered separately. The selector switches were secured in the armory away from the rifles and only designated individuals were issued with rifles with the switch lever.
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  17. The Breda oil was made so to not freeze in cold environments, as vegetal oil does. For all the other weather conditions, vegetal oil was fine. And yes, Italian Army used olive oil for weapon manteinance back then. It was more abundant than other kind of oils. You can easily see lead made Italian Army oilers for Carcano rifles on the net (the lead prevented the vegetal oil from rancidify).
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  18.  @omartorres5688  It took decades to make it reliable. Still in WWII, more than 20 years after its introduction, it jammed easily, was hard to clean, and not really suited to work as an LMG (pencil barrel without quick exchange). As Ian stated, the Breda 30 was issued at first with two spare barrels. After the first battles, the provision was enhanced to four. A barrel needed to be changed after 200 rounds of rapid fire, so there was the real problem to fire more than 600 rounds of rapid fire with the Breda. It was 4 times what a BAR could do. Simply, if the BAR was not ideal, the US could throw more BAR at the problem.
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  19. chrisloUSA It's a classic case of "the better is the enemy of the good". Adopting the rifle in 1933, and even counting a further year to better adapt it to the Army's needs, the Italians would have had all the time to field it for the entire Army first than the war (also cause the rifle was very simple to produce). Then they decided to adopt a better anti-personel round than the 6.5 (and the 7.35 was. It tumbled more easily in the body, and had a flatter trajectory in the first 300m). Then they decided to give to the other designers a chance to submit better weapons than the Scotti (and both the Armaguerra 39 and the Breda PG probably were, but, by then it was too late), but, searching for the better, they lost the chance to have the good.
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  20. Judging from the level of machining required to make a Thompson, while this is made of stamped parts. A SMG made starting from this gun would probably have had a lot of advantages in production.
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  21. Actually, when this MG had been adopted (1930) the only design around that was really demonstrably better was the ZB vz. 26.
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  22. And think that this sample is made in the XX year of the fascist era, so from october 1942 to october 1943. It seems really impossible to find a Breda made weapon whose machining is less than perfect.
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  23. 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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  24. 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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  25. It depends on the design, but to cycle the action usually requires only a fraction of the recoil of the cartridge. Subsonic 9mm Luger loads that develops energies comparable to the 9mm Glisenti usually cycle the 9mm Luger pistols without problems.
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  26. Really there have been nothing "experimental" in the field use of the Villar Perosa. The MG had been approved for infantry use in nov. 1915 and a first batch of 1600 weapons was ordered. At the end of the conflict a total of14.564 MGs had been produced, and 836 millions of 9mm Glisenti round for them.
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  27. Breda 37 and 38 were very good MGs. The breda 30 was the only weapon fielded by the Italian Army in WWII that required an olier. All the derivate of the Hispano-Suiza HS.404, used by the allies in WWII, some of which is still in service, used oilers.
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  28. In reality much of the difference you see in respect to the STG 44 is given by the high bore axis of the Volkssturmgewehr and not by the action itself.
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  29. The BAR had been sanctified by the victory, but it was not such a great design.
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  30. The first is a false problem. Indipendently on where the front sight is, the rear one is not on the barrel, so, if the barrel moves after the cleaning, it had to be rezeroed anyway. Moreover, much of the AR15 style rifles users, use rail mounted optics / sights anyway. For the second. Everyone is entitled of his own impressions. I can see very tight fittings compared to the flimsy look of many "tactical" carbines.
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  31. Yeah. There was at least one spare for gun.
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  32. Only in 1977, altough many assault rifles had already been designed for it, since the parent cartridge was already in use by the US. The French, that had to replace the ageing MAS 49/56, adopted the FAMAS right after, in 1978. British and Italians adopted a 5.56 Assault rifle in 1985 (L85-A1 and Beretta AR 70/90), and the Germans waited until 1995 for the G36.
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  33. It was not common. Italian rifles of the time tended to reuse the Carcano carbines sights. It's possible that this had been inspired by the big rotating knob sight adjustment of the ZB vz. 26 LMG.
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  34. Infact "cartridges of the world" credit it of an energy barely above that of a .380 ACP. If that's the case, the gun is neat, but seriously overweight and overengineered.
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  35. The 7mm British ammo energy was almost exactly in the middle between the German 7.92 mm Kurtz and the Soviet 7.62x39, so it was aligned with the known intermediate cartridge designs of it's era (but with a somewhat lighter and faster projectile).
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  36.  @Predator42ID  Browning's system is not the only one used today.
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  37. This MG worked perfectly.
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  38. Conventional slide, not internal slide. The trigger group is different. It has a firing pin block (CZ75 acquired it only in 1992, with the "b") and a decocker. The "barrel guide slot" is similar because both derived it from the SIG P210.
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  39. Why? WWI reports found that 90% of the rifles exchanges were done at less than 100m, and almost the totality at less than 300m. The 7.35 bullet was lighter than the 6.5 and so faster at the muzzle, so it had a flatter trajectory (and the one of the 6.5 was already very flat) in the first 300m, so, to hit a human sized target from 0 to 300m it was enough to aim at the center of the mass. Farther than 300m, the possibility of hitting someone (especially targets that are not standing still) with iron sights is really low even with perfectly adjusted sights.
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  40. It falls for gravity. If the clip si a little deformed, it maybe not fall alone, but it will anyway when the next clip is pushed in.
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  41. In Italian a "calibro" is a caliper, and it measures in mm.
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  42. Actually the Breda 30 could provide far more firepower than a BAR. As Ian stated, the weapon was originally issued with two spare barrels. After the first battles, the provision was increased to four. A barrel has to be changed after 200 rounds of almost continuous fire, so it happened quite often that those weapons fired more than 600 rounds continuously. That's full HMG territory.
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  43.  @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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  44. It doesn't seem to be required infact.
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  45.  @SoWe1  Yes, there is that mechanical piece. The locking block. The locking block mechanically links the bolt with the barrel. It's face is in contact, with the bolt and it's pushed rearward by it, but its back is in contact with the barrel extention, so it pushes back the barrel at the same speed until it rotates out of the way. It's exactly the same working principle of the Browning 1917-1919. Only the block rotates instead of falling. Here's a 3d animation of the functioning of the gun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SwNqvUZSW8&t=8s Notice that's a scaled-up version of the action of the Glisenti 1910 pistol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NplYrBFTWrA&t=2s
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  46. It wasn't meant to be an aircraft mounted MG. It and had been adapted to aerial use in very limited numbers, simply because the Army destined the first 350 samples manufactured to the Aviation (that was a branch of the Army at that time) because they wanted it to be in full production first to start to distribute it to the troops. It was meant to be a point weapon. Like a long range shotgun. See the enemy, fill it's position with a dozen projectiles. Pretty useful to guard bottlenecks in the barbed wires or in alpine trails.
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  47. The M45A1 was adopted out of any competition due to the connections of Gen. William Keys. It had nothing to do with desires or performances.
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  48. BM stands for "Beretta Modifica", a modification of an existing model. So much it was a modification that many BM59 issued to the Italian troops had been done using original US made M1 receivers, and still had the original Springfield or Winchester markings on them. http://www.collezionareexordinanza.it/uploads/source/IMG_6484_1.jpg
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  49.  @hendriktonisson2915  For the last one, it's a completely made-up problem. Were the crews of belt-fed machine guns supposed to reload spent belts? This MG was made PRECISELY for sustained fire. It was a MG made specifically for suppressive fire (while, IE, the MG42 was a point weapon, and German Gunners were instructed to not use it for suppressive fire) because, as said, to insert the strips one after the other reduces the dead times in respect to changing belts.
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  50.  @hendriktonisson2915  The problem is exactly that you are jumping back and forth between now and WWII. "that is the reason why no one used feed strips after WW2" We are not using WWII belts either for that matter. The belts we use NOW are different form the WWII ones. Belts had to EVOLVE to phase out strips. "To my knowledge in WW2 MG ammo was not always distributed in belts and the usage of disintegrating belts was limited to aircraft MGs so reloading belts was quite common." NOT UNDER FIRE. IT WAS A BACKLINE ACTIVITY and it was made with belt loaders. The difference with the Breda 37 strip loader, is that the Breda 37 strip loader is faster than any manual belt loader I've seen. "Most GPMGs do not really require constantly holding the belt" NOW (and why the hell are you talking about GPMGs? This is a WWII MG). In WWII an MG jamming was not a question of "if", nor of "when". It was a question of "how often" and, since holding the belt reduced the jammings, it was done every time possible. Actually to change a belt requires MUCH morte time than simply keeping on inserting strips one after the other. The Breda Strips can be inserted without stopping fire at all. Again GPMG? GPMG are what's used NOW. This is a WWII MG!
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