The Italian Guns.

[CharlesBronson]

I find one image of the Breda 37mm gun.

In Fiat Cansa FC 20 ter. The gun is laying in a side in order to be feed from above.

Quite impressive isnt ?

 

[CharlesBronson]

Ansaldo 102mm/40.


In late 1942 the Regia Aeronautica began to explore using its larger bomber, the Piaggio P-108B as a long rance maritime recce and attack aircraft, much like the way as the Fw 200 employment in the Luftwaffe.

For that task several types of armament were tested in this aircraft, including radio controlled topredos and armor piercing bombs. However the closeness to enemy Flak remained as a problem. An alternative to attack transport ships and destroyed was to employ heavy artillery piece.

Originally a 75 mm antitank cannon was to be used, but eventually the heavier 102mm was selected to arm the P-108A ( A for artigliere, artilleryman)

The Ansaldo fist tested the gun in ground shooting inside a mock up nose in october 1942.
In april 1943 2 P-108A were ready for test.

Ansaldo`s 102mm howitzer was emplaced in a solid nose aimed by the copilot with a Reflex San Giorgio gunsight with a line of fire tangent up to 4000 meters. It had weight of 680 kg, and was manually loaded from a revolving ammunition dispenser of 6 rounds. A total of 53 round could be carried in the frontal section of the aircraft, the complete gun ad related devices/ammunition weight over 1500 kilos. Some minor damage to the nose section forced to use a steel sheet to protect the structure from the muzzle blast.

The Piaggio P-108A was tested intensively until september 1943, the 4000 meters range was saw as excesive and most of the shots were carried out at 1500 metes for better view of the target. there is no information if this type entered in action. One was captured by the Luftwaffe and tested as well in Rechlin in early 1944.

 

[CharlesBronson]

I forgot to mention that the muzzle velocity of the 44 calibres 102 mm gun was 700mps. Armor penetration with apc projectile 165 mm @ 500 meters.

 

[red admiral]

Are you sure about the 102/44 gun? If you have a look here then Tony Williams identifies it as a 102/35 weapon.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Nice picture ! I made a mistake when i put "44" it is a 40 caliber gun.

Not sure about Tony information, maybe the barrel was shortened a bit to be emplaced in the bomber.

 

[Vincenzo]

Italian measurament of barrel was different form germans i don't know for others standard

 

[CharlesBronson]

Teorically the usual measurement included the chamber.

 

[CharlesBronson]

More pictures of the Breda S.A.F.A.T 7,7 in manually operated double and single mountings.

 

[Kocur]

This is a great thread and all those ordnance stickies are great too!
I can offer just one little correction:

The Breda S.A.F.A.T 12,7 mm was a belt fed, short recoil operated weapon, essentially a italian modified Browning M1921 mechanism, but shorter and slightly less heavy than the US machinegun.

I'm affraid that isn't so. Breda SAFAT and Browning hmgs look so similar one might think they must be similar internally too, but there the Italian gun was different from US one in every aspect. US M2 hmg bolt is locked by a lock sliding vertically in rear of barrel extension, while Breda SAFAT has it's lock in form of a 'hook' pivoted in rear of barrel. M2 pulls cartridges from belt and loweres them to feeding line in T-slot in face of bolt by pivoted extractor. In Breda SAFAT's bolt there are symetric extractors to pull cartridge from belt and it gets lowered to feeding line by a oblique ramp in receiver. Also belt and firing mechanisms of both guns are different. To sum up: Breda SAFAT is indigenous and as original as it gets and has nothing to do with Browning guns in it's operation, apart of course from the very basic principle of action of short barrel recoil.

 

[Vincenzo]

afaik breda it's derivated from browning .30 not the .50

 

[Micdrow]

Interesting stuff guys, many thanks!!!

 

[Kocur]

afaik breda it's derivated from browning .30 not the .50

Both Browning guns were very similar and Breda SAFAT was completely different from both.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Thanks for the correction, I shall look at my sources again.

 

[CharlesBronson]

The only Fiat fighter ever to carry 12,7 mm Breda S.A.F.A.Ts in the wings, the G50 bis A, the emplacement was not quite simple adding 0,8 meters to the wingspan.

 

[tomo pauk]

Nice one, Charles
Germans should've done the similar with 109 IMO...

 

[CharlesBronson]

They should, actually I think Mölders modified a Me-109F with wing MG 131s shortly before his dead in november 1941.

A video of the intrincated labour of marring the Fiat G50 with guns and engine could be seen here:

Archivio Storico Istituto Luce - video

 

[CharlesBronson]

Close-up to the MG 151 pod below Reggiane Re 2001 Caccia Notturna. Every pod contained only 70 rounds of 20x82mm ammunition.

 

[Dago Wop]

According to the preview, the February 2012 issue of the military history magazine "Storia Militare" will include an article concerning the Italian aviation turrets.

 

[CharlesBronson]

I hope to get it, in some way, grazie Dago.

Effectiveness of Breda 12.7mm machinegun ammunition:

Here is an account written by a British pilot based in Malta, that describes the effect of these guns on his plane. It's interesting to read what the (famous but underrated) HE esplosive round was capable of doing in real life.
So many people still think these rounds were "useless" or just "tore fabric or metal skins off".

The action describes one of the first actions of the Macchi C.202s over Malta.
The aerial combat took place on the 22th of October 1941.
One of the Hurricanes was shot down, another one landed heavily damaged withouth Italian losses.

Breda SAFAT 12,7mm guns - A real life account of their real power - Official 1C Company forum

 

[Southron]

As an interesting side note, in the 1950's Breda made a short run of M-1 Garand Infantry Rifles that were exact duplicates of the American originals as made by Springfield Armory and Winchester during World War II. The vast majority of Italian Garands were made in the 1950's by Beretta.The company had been supplied the old Winchester machinery left over from World War II by the U.S. Government. In the 1950's the Italian army and several other of our European NATO Allies used Garands to equip their armies.