augfc:The “Villar Perosa” and the first submachine gunsCol. Abiel Bethel Revelli was an
augfc:The “Villar Perosa” and the first submachine gunsCol. Abiel Bethel Revelli was an Italian aristocrat who rose to prominence during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911. He had previously designed a blowback-operated 6.5x52mm machine gun that would be adopted by the Italian Army during World War I. On the 8th of April 1914, he patented a pistol-calibre, twin-barreled machine gun, designed for use by aerial observers. In doing this he had unwittingly designed the first submachine gun.The rights to the patent were bought by a small factory in the Italian town of Villar Perosa, who produced the first examples in early 1915. It was tested by the Italian Air Force, but was ultimately never used in the role for which it was created, as it was determined that the 9mm Glisenti cartridge was too weak to do any substantial damage to enemy aircraft. However, the Army expressed an early interest in the weapon and adopted it later that year as the Revelli mod.1915.The weapon operated on a delayed-blowback principle, in which the bolt was attached to a rod via a guided lug. When the bolt traveled forward, the lug would reach a curve in the guide and cause the bolt to rotate about 45°, allowing the striker to make contact with the chambered bullet. Then, upon retraction, the bolt would be delayed by the friction it encountered while navigating itself out of the curve. It had no selective fire capability and fired only in full-auto.It should be noted that the now-ubiquitous name “Villar Perosa” (often incorrectly hyphenated) was never the official Italian designation for the weapon. It was produced as the Revelli mod.1915, named after its designer, and marketed officially as the “Revelli automatic machine gun”. The name “Villar Perosa” became popularized in English sources as the result of the 1915 Small Arms Committee report on the weapon, which referred to it as the “Villar Perosa machine gun”.The “Villar Perosa” twin-barreled machine gun.In action circa 1917.With World War I raging in western Europe, Italy used the conflict as an opportunity to annex contested Austrian land, which resulted in a war between Italy and Austria-Hungary, fought mostly among the mountainous Venetian Alps that marked the border region between the two countries. The rough terrain made it difficult to move heavy ordnance, however the light weight and compact size of the Villar Perosa made it very easy to swiftly carry. It was typically issued to Alpini troops in a wooden case, with detachable accessories such as a bipod and gunner shield. Initially the idea was to use the weapon was a portable machine gun, and it was used in this role to some success; enough that the Austro-Hungarians copied the concept twice. The first was a Hungarian modification of the Frommer Stop, converted into a machine pistol and placed upside-down on a tripod apparatus. The other was simply a 9x18mm conversion of the Villar Perosa produced by Steyr in Austria.By 1917 the war on the Italian Front had deteriorated into a bloody stalemate, characterized by brutal trench warfare. The Italian Army realized that the Villar Perosa’s high rate of fire and use of pistol-calibre bullets made it an ideal weapon for trench combat, although it was ergonomically unsuitable. It began to be issued to the Arditi on a wooden tray strapped to the user’s chest as a temporary measure to ease the problem. In 1918, a single-barreled infantry version was produced, specifically for trench warfare.There is some confusion among modern researchers as to what came first: the so-called “OVP” or the Beretta mod.1918. Most sources will tell you that the mod.1918 was an improved version of the OVP, and that the OVP was the original single-barreled model, designed during the war (I’ve seen some claims that it was designed as early as 1916). English Wikipedia goes so far as to claim that both weapons were produced by Beretta. Allow me to set the record straight.Beretta were the first to make a single-barreled version of the Villar Perosa, acting on the request of the Italian High Command. The commission probably came in around mid-to-late 1917. Beretta were tasked with converting existing Villar Perosas into infantry carbines and Tullio Marengoni was placed in charge of the project. By the beginning of 1918, the project was finished and the new weapon, the mod.1918, was accepted into service in January 1918. It was initially issued exclusively to the Arditi. When exactly it first saw combat use is hard to pinpoint, but there have been claims that it saw action as early as March. It was almost certainly fielded during the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto in late 1918. Unfortunately, there exists no real information about the weapon’s performance in battle.The Beretta mod.1918.The “OVP” did not come about until after the war had ended. It was a more refined take on the same concept, designed by Abiel Revelli and produced by Officine di Villar Perosa, NOT Beretta. Again, this weapon was never produced as the “OVP”; its official production name was the “Revelli automatic rifle” (since the term “submachine gun” had yet to be coined). “OVP” is simply the manufacturer’s initial, and it seems bizarre that this weapon should be referred to with the “O” prefix whereas the twin-barreled weapon it is based on is simply the “VP”. The name seems to have arisen from English sources trying to avoid confusion between the two weapons. Henceforth I will refer to it by its actual name.The Revelli SMG was designed in late 1918 and did not enter production until 1919. The basic design was similar to that of the mod.1918, except it featured a cylindrical cocking sleeve that wrapped around the bolt, an extended barrel, and a twin-trigger mechanism for selective fire. Its first buyer was the Italian Army, who adopted the weapon in 1921. Revelli himself then embarked on an international marketing campaign throughout the 1920s in an attempt to entice other customers, and it saw military trials in a few countries, including Britain. However, the concept of the submachine gun was still new at that point, so interest was limited. By about 1930 the weapon has ceased manufacture, owing to poor sales.The Revelli automatic carbine.It first saw action during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, and was still in issue during World War II, where it was used against the British in North Africa. As the war progressed, the Revelli was generally phased out in favor of the Beretta Model 38 and its variants, and after the war the Revelli was retracted from service. Again, there isn’t much information available regarding the Revelli’s combat performance, although captured examples were tested at RSAF Enfield and were considered to be reliable, accurate and lightweight.In order to accommodate the production of both the Beretta mod.1918 and the Revelli SMG, surplus Villar Perosas were salvaged for their parts. Consequently, few examples survived intact and thus the Villar Perosa is now a very rare weapon. Ironically, the mod.1918 would itself be subjected to the same treatment when Beretta decided in 1930 to use its parts to produce a semi-automatic police carbine known as the mod.1918/30. -- source link