Fiat-Revelli Modello 1914.
Italy had been using Maxim machine guns, but after WW1 started, the supply of those and all other machineguns as well as parts for same quickly dried up from all sources. Meaning they had to design their own. The result was a functioning weapon... under ideal conditions. A Captain Revelli designed it... perhaps he should have stayed in the infantry.
It might be easier to list what's right with it, but we'll go through a few of the bad features. To begin, it fires from a closed bolt. The down side of that, of course is the gun will become hot in combat. With a closed bolt, there's a round in the chamber when the gunner pauses. It will very likely 'cook off' from heat. Which might lead to the entire magazine going downrange when not intended. A 'runaway gun' as it was termed when I was in the service.
We next examine the bolt. It reciprocates in the open from the rear of the receiver, and gunners needed to be especially careful how they held the spade grips to avoid broken fingers. An Italian soldier's nickname for this MG was 'knuckle duster'. Being exposed with every round accelerated wear. There was no cocking handle - charging the chamber was done by grasping a T shaped part of the bolt and pulling hard. Near the spade grips was a selector for full or semi auto fire. A semi auto machine gun? Heck, why not?
A further obstacle of a closed bolt was primary extraction. When the gun got hot, tearing the rim or head off the 6,5 Carcano cartridges was a real possibility. With most of a case jammed in the chamber, the gun was out of service until it could be completely disassembled.The designer's solution was an oiler to lubricate each round.
Well and fine... unless you're in East Africa or another dusty environment. Dirt is drawn to the oil - oily dirt accumulates - the accumulated dirt wears parts and will eventually cause a stoppage. Also not a good thing in places like Russia where the extreme cold would congeal the oil, thus seizing the gun.
The feed system? Glad you asked! For reasons known only to himself, Captain Revelli scoffed at the proven belt system and went with a metal "packet" of 10 five
round clips stacked together in a sort of 'cage'. No, these were not the same as the 6 round clips used by Carcano rifles. That would have been too easy.
The 5 rounders weren't even as sturdy as the Mannlicher clips. When ejected from the gun, they would often become dented and unusable after bouncing off the ground.
But it was what they had, so gunners learned to work around some of the shortcomings. After seeing wide use in WW1, remaining examples soldiered on in parts of Africa into WW2.
In 1935, it was redesigned... to no good effect. We'll see about the succeeding design another evening. SW
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