FrancescoDelRosso :

Sul forum Comando Supremo ho trovato quest interessanti osservazioni sull'impiego e le caratteristiche della mitragliera Breda 20 mm:


Oasis wrote:I had today a confirm by a NA vet of artillery (20 mm operator) that they almost never used it from the truck as no truck was suited for such an use (in 1. Articelere). They had always to offload it and was a hard duty, and most of the times they had to reload it immediately as the position in the front variated non only from day to day, but very often more times in the space of one day. And he told me that the operator of the gun, seated vertical and without any shield in front was a real target on the flat desert.

That was THE problem with all Italian automatic weapons in all the services: their weight or, to be more specific: the absence of recoil brakes. The 20mm autoguns is, in a way, paradigmatic to illustrate this (its maker notwithstanding).

They had a low ciclic speed: because the mount couldn't stand be to made even heavier (i.e. stronger) in order to sustain a higher ciclic speed (the higher the rounds per minute, the higher the stresses the weapon has to sustain, being recoil forces the most important). An even heavier mount would have made these weapons adapt to a fixed position use on earth only. Infact its weight (and also the brute force that it transmitted during fire trhough its mount to the surface where it was mounted, that called for it to be strong (heavy) enough to sustain the weapon) limited the number of autoguns in service in ships in comparison with other nation navies (at least at war beginning). Same goes for MAS': their woodden deck had to be heavily reinforced to allow the 20mm autoguns to be mounted there. The weapons were gas operated, this meant that no recoil was "subtracted" from the gun in order to automatize it. Other 20mm autoguns, like the ultrafamous Oerlikon (that was procured form Italy in some number), were recoil operated and had recoil braking system: just look at their mounts, how light and simple they are, with respect to those of 20mm Bredas. No wonder it was not used on the (wodden) wings of our fighters: I'm pretty sure a 20mm Breda would have blown the wings away from with its recoil force when firing, let alone the sheer gun dimensions and weight.

Sono perplesso riguardo alle considerazioni relative al sistema di assorbimento del rinculo dell'arma, in quanto tale "difetto" non lo ho trovato citato in precedenti pubblicazioni sull'arma in oggetto.

Grazie


Francesco

 Claudio_C. :