Villar-Perosa aircraft submachine gun

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Villar-Perosa
Type	Submachine gun
Place of origin	Kingdom of Italy
Service history
Used by	Italian Army
Wars	World War I
Production history
Designed	1914
Specifications
Weight	6.5 kg (loaded short barreled version)

Cartridge	9 mm Glisenti
Caliber	9 mm
Action	blowback
Rate of fire	3,000 round/min
Muzzle velocity	1,050 ft/s (320 m/s)^{[citation needed]}
Effective range	1,800 m (2,200 yd)^{[citation needed]}
Feed system	Box Magazine

The Villar-Perosa aircraft submachine gun was an Italian double barreled machine gun designed by Bethel Abiel Revelli, a Major in the Italian Army in 1914. The weapon fired pistol calibre 9 mm Glisenti ammunition, a reduced-power version of the famous 9 mm Para, at the extremely high rate of fire of 3,000 rounds per minutes, or 1,500 rounds per minute per barrel. It was arguably the first submachine gun.

1 History
2 Description
3 See also
4 External links
5 References

[edit] History

Revelli applied for patents for the design on 8 April 1914, and subsequently assigned the patents to the Villar-Perosa company. The weapon was used by the Italian airforce and army during the First World War. Reportedly it was more successful in the ground role, as the pistol calibre bullets did not have sufficient striking power for bringing down aircraft.

A large number of the ground version of the weapon fell into the hands of German and Austrian forces following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto.

[edit] Description

The weapon consisted of two identical barrels and breech blocks linked by a connecting cross bar. It was a simple air-cooled retarded blow-back design with the bolt and striker weighing only ten ounces (280 grams). The total recoil travel was only 1.75 inches (4.5 cm), which combined with the light breech block resulted in an extremely high rate of fire. The weapon was fed from two curved magazines that could hold either 25 or 50 rounds each.

The weapon was relatively light with a loaded short barreled gun weighing just 14 pounds and 4 ounces (6.5 kg).