FIAT-Revelli Modello 1935

History

1935 Fiat Revelli Model 1935 (Modello 35) is a modernization of the World War I era FIAT Revelli Model 1914, first tested by the Italian Army in 1908. The original Model 1914 certainly received a lot of criticism for its serious flaws inherent in its design compared to its contemporaries (ie the German Maxim machine gun and the British Vickers machine gun).

The Italian product centers on the underperforming Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5x52mm military rifle cartridge, loaded into the machine gun via the same 5-round rifle dropper clip that falls into the fragile tin ammo cage. The peculiarities of the design also stipulated that during firing, the bolt was pushed out of the stern in an exposed manner, which put the operator in various dangers and at the same time caused the gun to come to a complete stop.

Each cartridge must be lubricated before entering the chamber, which in turn requires the integration of a full oil reservoir, and cartridges are now prone to attracting dust and grime - again potentially causing disruption. Like other machine guns of the period, the Model 1914 was water-cooled, requiring the use of an additional water tank and a large, bulky water-cooling jacket mounted on the barrel.

On the face of it, however, the Italian Army entered World War I with a severe shortage of usable small arms, and the Fiat Revelli 1914 made logistical sense.

Before World War II (1939-1945), many world powers focused on the modernization period, as many inventories still consisted of World War I-era weapons and equipment. The Italian Army stuck with their Model 1914 until 1934 when an attempt was made to modernize the model for service. The new design - named "FIAT-Revelli Modello 1935" and, as the name suggests, adopted in 1935 - ditched the bulky and flimsy cage magazine for the generally accepted belt feed device.

With this design direction, the fuel tank used in the 1914 model was also eliminated and replaced by a grooved chamber. The 6.5mm rifle cartridge was dropped in favor of the heavier (and larger) 8x59mm RB Breda cartridge, the same cartridge used in the upcoming 1937 Breda Heavy Machine Gun (M37).

Cartridges are now fed via a 50-round conveyor belt, several of which can be attached and stored in an optional hardened ammo box mounted on the left side of the receiver (or manually fed as usual). The water-cooled features of the Model 1914 were abandoned in the Model 1935, and the gun became a standard air-cooled design with a built-in perforated jacket.

The gun features a closed-bolt design, and the general operation of the gun is via a pair of spade grips on the rear of the receiver. A narrow ring along the barrel sheath makes changing the barrel easier, and a small conical flash suppressor is mounted on the muzzle.

Aiming is through the flip-back arrangement as well as the outpost.

The new gun has an overall length of 50 inches and a barrel length of 25.75 inches. Total unladen weight is 40 lbs and usually comes with a sturdy, low profile tripod assembly. The Model 35, like the Model 1914 before it, was a complete weapon system, including the machine gun unit itself, tripod mounts, and ammunition supply, with one machine gun section requiring multiple crews. The rate of fire is 500 rounds per minute and the muzzle velocity is 2600 feet per second.

Effective range is about 1,000 meters.

Notably, the weapon has also been reclassified as a "heavy" machine gun. Modifications were made by Societa Metallurgica Bresciana, Italy.

While all of these changes were made to significantly improve the original 1914 model, the Modello 35 did not benefit greatly from its modernization program. It seems that the Type 35 was still inherently too tied to the shortcomings of the Type 1914, so the new design never found a suitable basis. The knurling chamber didn't quite fix the fault, the cartridges still needed to be lubricated - re-run oil reservoirs were made for some stock, and the cartridges were also pre-lubricated before being installed on the belt.

The closed-bolt nature of the new design does not work well with continuous firing characters, as there is now a final round in the heated chamber when the operator terminates the cycle. This inevitably leads to the accidental "cooking" of live ammunition.

Nonetheless, the Modello 35 has practical utility for the modern Italian army, and the larger cartridge provides better range penetration and emphasises repeated shots to suppress enemy forces. Essentially, however, it offers little improvement on the initially problematic design.

Having said that, the Modello 35 actually has a shorter lifespan and is more memorable than the machine gun it was trying to replace. However, the Type 35 was issued to the Italian Armed Forces throughout World War II as a standard medium machine gun and remained in service until 1945, when it was finally abandoned shortly after the end of hostilities.

Societa Metallurgica Bresciana produced the Modello 35 machine gun from 1935 to 1943, when the Italians officially ended their support for Nazi Germany in September and sided with the Allies.

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