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Concept
Villar Perosa aircraft submachine gun
Summary
The Revelli Automatic Machine Gun, official designation FIAT Mod. 1915 and commonly nicknamed the Vilar Perosa, was an Italian portable automatic weapon developed during World War I by the Officine di Villar Perosa.
As it was designed to use 9x19mm ammunition, it is said to be the first submachine gun, although not a true submachine gun by modern standards. Due to its extremely high rate of fire, it was nicknamed Pernacchia (literally raspberry, in that context meaning something like fart gun) by its operators.
The Villar Perosa was designed as a portable double-barrel machine gun firing a handgun round. It consisted of two independent coupled weapons, each with its own barrel, firing mechanism, and separate 25-round magazine.
The Villar Perosa operated on a delayed-blowback action. On the forward part of each bolts is an extension housing a guided slot. These slots are engaged by a lug which cause the bolts to rotate 45° upon firing. The bolt's retraction is delayed by the inertia forced by the lug as the bolt rotates. Both bolts ride on a spring-loaded guide rod.
All weapons of the Villar Perosa family, including the O.V.P. submachine gun and Revelli-Beretta carbine, were originally intended to fire a variant of the 9mm Glisenti cartridge, known as Glisenti M.915 "Per Mitragliatrici" ("For Machine-Guns"). This was a higher-velocity version of the standard Glisenti cartridge with an over-powder wad, designed to improve the penetration abilities of the weak base cartridge.
The original patent was filed in April 1914 by Abiel Bethel Revelli, a Piedmontese officer who was active in designing most of the Italian Army's automatic weapons in the early 20th century.
A common myth is that this weapon was originally designed as an aircraft gun, and adapted for infantry. In reality ground use was taken into consideration from the very beginning, particularly for the Bersaglieri's cyclist battalions. At the time the Italian Army was experimenting with adapting machineguns to be carried or fired from a bicycle, including a special folding bicycle that carried a Fiat-Revelli machine-gun underneath the seat.
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