The Perino Model 1908 was an early
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
of Italian origin designed earlier in 1901 by
Giuseppe Perino
Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph,
from Latin Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף.
It is the most common name in Italy and is unique (97%) to it.
The feminine form of the name is Giusep ...
, an engineer (Tecnico dell'Artiglieria). Perino's design apparently was the first Italian-designed machine gun, and in its original configuration weighed in at a heavy , which made it largely unsuitable to field utilization and apt only for fortifications; a lightened 1910 version brought the weight down to . The gun was nonetheless adopted by the
Regio Esercito
The Royal Italian Army ( it, Regio Esercito, , Royal Army) was the land force of the Kingdom of Italy, established with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. During the 19th century Italy started to unify into one country, and in 1861 Manfre ...
and saw some use alongside the
Fiat-Revelli Modello 14 and the
Maxim gun
The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world.
The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most associated with imperial conquest" by historian M ...
s. It had a unique feed mechanism, with a hopper on the side of the gun filled with up to five twenty-round clips rather than being belt fed. This allowed the loader to constantly keep the gun at maximum capacity, meaning the gun crew never had to stop to reload.
References
* McNab, Chris: ''Twentieth-century Small Arms'', Grange Books, 2004;
* Nevio Mantoan, ''Weapons and Equipment of the Italian Army in the Great War 1915-1918'', Gino Rossato Editore, First Edition. July 1996.
External links
thedonovan.com: A picture of a World War I Alpino, with the assault version of the Perino
Italian Perino Machine Gun - Forgotten WeaponsYouTube animation showing mechanism of Perino machine gun
Early machine guns
Medium machine guns
World War I machine guns
Machine guns of Italy
World War I Italian infantry weapons
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