@@CaptainGrief66 the over stressed spring and feed lips don't seem like they're the problem, considering other designs that we consider to be reliable today. Poor engineering and metallurgy of the time?
Hi Ian, I'm so happy you made this video on my Granpa machinegun ! he was a young captain in WWI, heading a company of "mitraglieri" - machine-gunners - from the Volturno regiment, at the Solstice Battle on river Piave, around June 20th, 1918, and these were his guns ! He ended up being hit by a german Schwarzlose that "chewed up" his right arm, 11 bullets in it.He fell out of tne machin-gun nest into river Piave, where he was collected later that night by 2 Alpenjagers and sent to a german hospital, and from there to a POW camp on Balaton lake in Hungary, where an hingarian surgeon saved his right arm from gangrene... Thanks, really ! Franco
@@liammeech3702 no, by far Fiat Mod. 1914 was THE heavy machine-gun, mainly used on tripods in fixed positions - remember, WW1 in Italy was a "static" war, not just in the plain, but also on the Alps - the front was up to 3000 m and above...
4:26 "Revelli designed this himself, possibly under the influence of something" Must have been some good stuff to come up with that calamity of a magazine.
@@CaptainGrief66 It seems that there was a general idea that not only the Italians, but the French with the Hotckiss and the Japanese with the Hotchiss derivatives and others to try alternates to the problematic cloth belts. At the level of industrial development of the day, disintegrating link belts while known in concept were not really an option. Ian has previously spoken about the numerous problems with cloth belts, so it is natural that designers would come up with options to resolve the issues. BTW, the idea of box magazines had been known and successfully executed by Lee in the United States since the mid to late 1800s, but again the level of industrial technology and production pretty much made the idea of the production of thousands or millions of reliable disposable magazines almost as much of an technological undertaking as many firearms. Note that inially the British Lee-Enfield chained the magazine to the rifle. In the case of Italian machine guns there were several other designs that took great pains to find alternatives to use of belts, such as the expansion on the idea of stripper clips and feed strips. See the various Breda machine guns of WWII.
@@CaptainGrief66 And it worked well as it allowed to put a clip after the other. When the metallic belts became finally available they changed it into the model 35, with air cooled barrel and 8 mm ammo.
@@Marcellogo I have to agree that this looks superior to cloth belts and the clockwork drum magazines that made up the primary alternatives of the time. This magazine would have easily been at least as fast to load, compact and relatively light. The Italians spent a lot more time fighting in the villages and mountains than the trenches so mud was probably less of an issue as well.
Italian military: “I see you went closed bolt for increased accuracy” Revelli with his ten pound bolt and gigantic striker assembly: “well...yes but actually...no”
Yes, FIAT made guns. They also made tanks, missiles, aircraft, aircraft engines and advanced aerospace components (the aerospace business is now Avio SpA).
His Italian pronunciation is pretty good, he does his research. For example he pronounces Franchi and Brescia correctly, where most English speakers would get them wrong
It is absolutely insane to see how exquisitely this entire gun is machined. From the action cover, the bolt, the barrel/locking block assembly, all the little details that are so intricately made. All done on manual machines, one step at a time, across a factory's battery of machine tools. I love it.
Finally a more in-depth video on this unique and iconic Italian machine gun! To my knowledge this is the only video on the web that shows the disassembly of the FIAT-Revelli M1914.
The just released game Isonzo brought me here. I used this in my first play session and wondered "What the hell kind of feed system is this?". I at first I thought it was just 5x 10 cartridge strips on top of each other. Now that I know, wow, just wow.
They have yet to upload the clip on the Villar-Perosa despite Othais literally snatched the gun from Ian's hands more than a year ago, so I'm not holding my breath.
@@neutronalchemist3241 He has to be able to get to another Villar Perosa for disassembly to make the episode. They were only able to fire the one very briefly at the auction house.
I'm not sure what happened to their page. I visited to look for this MG, and (while they still have some Italian guns) I can't find their Italian playlist.
This is actually impressively rugged and simplistic for the era. I'm almost confident that I could detail strip and reassemble it without instructions.
Here in Italy there is an old movie with an officer explaining the basic use of the FIAT-Revelli in Sicilian dialect to recruits that barely understand Italian and don't know how to read a manual. The scene was inspired by true stories, in the poor and still largely underschooled Italy just 55 years from unification.
Hey I know this comment is kinda out of left field but I just wanted to give you props for your thumbnails. They should the name, the flag of where it comes from and a picture of each gun. All right there and easy to see. Very thoughtful.
And the seppos with the stabiliser on the Sherman tank. SOOO Top Secret that we can’t even train the gunner how to use it, so nobody ever did ( apart from the Brits) , which then stuffed up the potential for it to have been one on the most effective and accurate tank guns in WW2
Just make shure that it's one of the original 500's with the canvas roof. Just because you have a pintle-mounted machine gun on your car doesn't mean that you have to live with a huge hole in the roof.
They have yet to upload the one on the Villar-Perosa despite Othais literally snatched the gun from Ian's hands more than a year ago, so I'm not holding my breath.
I am honestly so fascinated by Italy in world war 1 such a unique and interesting military during that time period and the guns they used are nothing short of good looking or pretty slick.
To help with your Italian, when you see a double consonant the double L in Revelli you pronounce it with emphasis on the vowel before the double consonant and the double consonant is longer eg. re vELLi. Similar to stressing consonants in English. Hope this helps keep it up, great work !!!!
This is exactly the kind of mechanical ingenuity/absurdity that draws me to these old guns. I'm quite envious of you, Ian, for being able to handle and "explore" these old pieces. You really do have my dream job.
The FIAT-Revelli M1914 was the Italian standard issue machine gun in WW1. But it was far from the only one they used. There were probably as many Colt "Potato Digger", Vickers 'C', and St. Étienne Mle 1907 (in 8mm Lebel) machine guns in service as the M1914.
Always great to see videos on Italian small arms as my father is Italian and they made some interesting and different firearms like this one. I didn't realize before how different it is to the other HMGs, as on the outside it looks similar to all of the other water cooled HMGs.
"There won't be much Italian in this video, because I speak the third-best Italian" lol i just rewatched Inglorious Basterds the other day, love the reference, Ian!
Hi, I'm Fabio from Italy, thank you for your videos! I'm passioned in WW1 history, in particular on Italian Front. I want to tell you a true story about Fiat Revelli M14 machine gun. The most loved President of Italian Republic of our history was Sandro Pertini. Pertini was a boy during WW1 and served in Italian Army with the rank of second lieutenant of FIAT machine gunners. He was promoted lieutenant, wounded by gases and decorated by silver medal for an action on Bainsizza sector. After WW1, Pertini was agains Fascism and suffered in jail during the fascist dictature. Only a lot of year after WW2, Pertini became President of Italian Republic (when I was a child, in the '80). He was a very old and respected man. During a visit to the Italian military mission in Lebanon, a non-Italian machine gun fired a burst. Security was alarmed by the President's safety, but he calmly replied: "Don't worry, I was a machine gunner during the war". The war was WW1 and the Pertini's weapon was a Fiat Revelli M14. In a book I red that Pertini told: "FIAT makes excellent cars but very bad machine guns".
Another cool piece of history! It's always interesting to see such examples of early mass production machine-guns. Also, your Italian isn't as bad as you think, Ian; just a bit rugged. Great job!
I know Othias at C&Rsenal has been wanting to get one of those for demonstration purposes for a while now... hopefully when things calm down a bit he can get one and the rest of us can get an even more in depth look at the history of this thing. The Revelli Modello 1914 and the St. Etienne Mle 1907 are two of my favorites if only for the oddity of their design.
A very underappreciated weapon for how good it actually was, it earned the nickname "La Gloriosa 1914", it was by far one of the simpler, most cost effective and user friendly Machine Guns of the period alongside the Hotchkiss M1914, plus the FIAT-Revelli was easily serviceable if problems occured, the water circulation system is a really cool touch. Also I love how these things look and operate, it's unique.
@@zoiders tell me seriously what would be the problem with that gun. The only that I can truly be worried of is the lenght and exposure of the bolt, that can be gunked stuck in with debris. Otherwise, it appears slimmer than a Maxim and the loading system, altough strange, isnt actually prone to malfunction, at least at the same level as of a ammo belt made out of fucking cloth
@@zoiders Everyone clearly hasn't taken an honest look at the amount of parts, pins, machined screws and leaf springs inside a common Maxim gun, if you compare them honestly, you'll see how much more sensible the Revelli is. It has a delaying system and operates like a more modern weapon, a Maxim on the other hand has a rotating sprocket with gears and levers to index the belts, the bolt has action levers and a sliding interface that picks casings from the belts and pushed them to the chamber simultaneously while also laying spent shells on the ejection chute on some models, even the trigger is a mess of levers on those guns, not to mention how maxims have both locking blocks and are toggle locked.
Wow, this must be rare outside of Italy; would be nice to see it shooting. Fun fact: the original manual recommends to lubricate with olive oil, which is the most italian thing I could think of, and I'm Italian p.s.: you forgot a double l in "modello"
Actually there was no real problem with the 100 rds magazines. They were not used on the field because they had no real advantages (while a damaged magazine meant to discard 100 rounds instead of only 50). Even a 200 rds circular magazine was experimented for aerial use. i1.wp.com/www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fiat-magazine.jpg?resize=1024%2C567&ssl=1
Now that is a fascinating forgotten weapon! From the mousetrap box magazine to the delaying mechanism, everything about this weapon is unique, to say the least.
The amount of creativity and ingenuity on display in these early 20th century weapons (and other machines too) is frankly incredible. Can you imagine how smart these guys were compared to the average person, then or nowadays? I think it would take a NASA spacecraft engineer to come close today in terms of the innovation needed just to make the finished product.
That would be a nightmare to field clean, especially considering how the bolt is essentially open to the elements, the magazine thing is filled with openings for dirt and grime and just how over complicated this damn thing is. All of that aside, this weapon is essentially a piece of art. I cannot imagine how much this thing would cost to machine and produce today.
Actually that action is simple even by modern standards (it's a scaled up pistol action, still used in the FN Fiftyseven and Ruger 57). In WWI only the Hotchkiss was simpler. The magazine is actually cleaner than a cloth belt and, as any magazine, it doesn't actually enter into the gun. The bolt only picks up the top cartridge.
I think what’s being forgotten here is that it must’ve been a pretty impressive sight to see those magazines full of cartridges loaded into the gun with all those bullets exposed pointed down range. Pretty cool...
Don't worry, your Italian is getting better and better; meanwhile, there are a lot of Italian guys here who can speak English and are following you! Keep up the good job! Also, you know that, as an Italian, as soon as you mentioned that there was a steam valve for hot water, I thought "Ah, yes, for making pasta!".
Fun fact, this feed mechanism was put on a RIFLE too, the experimental MAF 1921 or Tipo Terni 1921. Another version had a detachable box magazine. The need was for a weapon that could bridge the gap between a rifle and an SMG, the same idea that decades later would give birth to the assault rifle.
Look how the chest has leather patches over the few blocks to stop them rattling. Amazing attention to detail for what must have been a very rushed weapon.
I believe AKs and SVDs also have a similar dual nature thing which also led to import issues with SVDs when ATF thought that the out battery safeties on SVDs were auto sears or something like that, I think Ian has a video on that
Really not. You can very well open the inspection window and throw a handful of mud directly into it. It will probably keep on going like never happened. WWI HMGs were like the heavy industrial tools of the time. Massively overbuilt and stupidly reliable. There was very little than dirt, mud, ice or wear could do to them. dirt had all the space of the world to go without locking the surfaces, and the inertia of the parts was so big that they were self-cleaning in their movement.
Even if the design wasn't perfect or all that efficient it's still really cool to see a unique concept that someone who didn't have a whole of outside information just came up with.
I really like the engineering of this era: modern weapons have evolved over generations to be as simple and as efficient as possible: these weapons were trying to produce the same effect but within existing parameters. You can see that they were operating at the edge of knowledge and technology, without everything designers today take for granted, something people forget came from these machines.
This thing has Steam Punk written all over it with its external reciprocating bolt and magazine design. Different enough to be quirky and cool. Hopefully Othais and Mae at C&Rsenal will get to this Machine Gun soon. Would be interesting to get the full story and a shooting segment on this weapon.
No, it was actually better than CLOTH belts. They were kept in a wooden box until use so they came in clean. It worked and that was a catastrofe in longer term as it made them keep on with similar solution in WWII when they were totally outdated.
This seems a lot simpler and cost-effective than most other machine guns in ww1. The delaying mechanism doesn't generate a whole lot of confidence though, since there isn't much locking down by moment of inertia like roller or lever delay, just extra spring tension. Although I suppose the relatively underpowered nature of the Italian 6.5 and the heavy bolt enables it to run reliably enough?
It's a short recoil mechanism. The barrel and bolt are linked by a solid piece of metal. There's no power of the cartridge that can squash the locking block and unlock the mechanism in advance.
@@neutronalchemist3241 True. I rewatched it and find myself wrongly interpreting Ian's words on 12:46, which mislead me to believe that the bolt is locked by a lever-amplified spring tension from the wedge. Thank you for correcting me.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Revellli: “Now I just need to figure out the magazine...”
*Spots the cheese grater in the kitchen*
E
Diogenes bursts into the kitchen and grabs the cheese grater as he's thinking this
"Behold, a MAGAZINE!"
Firearms historians: drum magazines are complicated, expensive and unreliable.
Italians: nervous smiles and looking away.
That magazine is probably more reliable than a Drum, you don't have a single overworked spring nor over stressed feed lips as it's all duplicated.
@@CaptainGrief66 Yeah. The issues are instead related to the feed mechanism.
@@CaptainGrief66 the over stressed spring and feed lips don't seem like they're the problem, considering other designs that we consider to be reliable today. Poor engineering and metallurgy of the time?
@@z3r0_35 the problem it’s similar to the Chauchat’s magazine had : mud, dust, snow were the enemy of this magazine
@@litenantjv That too
Italian government: "So, does this machinegun use clips or magazines?"
FIAT: "Yes."
Now each magazin would have been filled with a tiny 5 round belt for completion of the "Use all the systems" achievment
So...... The true High capacity clipazine?
Breda, 20 years later:
High-capacity harmonica magazines?
That's what they mean when they say "100 clips magazine"
Hi Ian, I'm so happy you made this video on my Granpa machinegun ! he was a young captain in WWI, heading a company of "mitraglieri" - machine-gunners - from the Volturno regiment, at the Solstice Battle on river Piave, around June 20th, 1918, and these were his guns ! He ended up being hit by a german Schwarzlose that "chewed up" his right arm, 11 bullets in it.He fell out of tne machin-gun nest into river Piave, where he was collected later that night by 2 Alpenjagers and sent to a german hospital, and from there to a POW camp on Balaton lake in Hungary, where an hingarian surgeon saved his right arm from gangrene...
Thanks, really ! Franco
Did he use a Villar perosa?
@@liammeech3702 no, by far Fiat Mod. 1914 was THE heavy machine-gun, mainly used on tripods in fixed positions - remember, WW1 in Italy was a "static" war, not just in the plain, but also on the Alps - the front was up to 3000 m and above...
Unbelievable, my grandfather also commanded a mitr’ squad as a maresciallo in WWI seeing active service in the alps. I’ve a photo somewhere
found the photo and with a little research the machine guns are the French St. Étienne Mle 1907
Wow, what a story. Thanks for sharing.
Well it certainly wins the “longest bolt” award.
That of the Hotchkiss was longer.
it doubles as a trench club
Well then, that makes two of us! 😁
It’s not about the length is how you use it lol
I remember there was this upscaled gun like 37mm which bolt was really big like a giant bullet
4:26 "Revelli designed this himself, possibly under the influence of something"
Must have been some good stuff to come up with that calamity of a magazine.
I'm guessing several bottles of red wine were involved. As an italian most crazy ideas come up with that "method"
Wouldn't call it a calamity since it worked.
@@CaptainGrief66 It seems that there was a general idea that not only the Italians, but the French with the Hotckiss and the Japanese with the Hotchiss derivatives and others to try alternates to the problematic cloth belts. At the level of industrial development of the day, disintegrating link belts while known in concept were not really an option. Ian has previously spoken about the numerous problems with cloth belts, so it is natural that designers would come up with options to resolve the issues. BTW, the idea of box magazines had been known and successfully executed by Lee in the United States since the mid to late 1800s, but again the level of industrial technology and production pretty much made the idea of the production of thousands or millions of reliable disposable magazines almost as much of an technological undertaking as many firearms. Note that inially the British Lee-Enfield chained the magazine to the rifle.
In the case of Italian machine guns there were several other designs that took great pains to find alternatives to use of belts, such as the expansion on the idea of stripper clips and feed strips. See the various Breda machine guns of WWII.
@@CaptainGrief66 And it worked well as it allowed to put a clip after the other.
When the metallic belts became finally available they changed it into the model 35, with air cooled barrel and 8 mm ammo.
@@Marcellogo I have to agree that this looks superior to cloth belts and the clockwork drum magazines that made up the primary alternatives of the time. This magazine would have easily been at least as fast to load, compact and relatively light. The Italians spent a lot more time fighting in the villages and mountains than the trenches so mud was probably less of an issue as well.
Italian military: “I see you went closed bolt for increased accuracy”
Revelli with his ten pound bolt and gigantic striker assembly: “well...yes but actually...no”
So instead of just stealing the maxim's design, FIAT just huffed glue for a few hours and built a gun out of legos.
And it worked perfectly well and wasn't stupidly complicated.
@@CaptainGrief66 That's cause they used legos and not mega blocks
@Frank Bear he said what he said
@Frank Bear oh you are one of those types of people....
This was before legos were even invented lol.
Ah yes, the legendary 20-stack, 20-feed magazine. The simplest method.
Magazines were unreliable or limited and cumbersome, this was a perfect solution.
@Co S Well, the 100-round did have 20 stacks of 5.
So now we know where the inspiration for the Bastard SMG from Metro 2033 comes from.
@@cnlbenmc I kind of seeing it being more based on a Sten being matched with a clip system
@@cnlbenmc that was inspired by the Hotchkiss M1909 Benét-Mercié machine gun
That "TORINO" happens only once in a decade. I feel so lucky to have witnessed it.
that was hilarious
Wish I could like two times just because of that TORINO
@@HaNNibal97smiTH Compaesano.... Ti saluto da Ivrea
And suddenly a well known sentence: 'My Fiat is overheating' changes in meaning a bit.
I'm keeping this in mind when driving my '71 fiat500... i'll be chuckling the whole drive lol
@@Rico_71 I have a FIAT sportster, *it is* an Italian sports car, shuddup!
@@gestaposantaclaus is it the 124 convertible? That's actually a lovely, fun car
I thought fiat’s were well known for their reliability?
@@dionjaywoollaston1349 they're reliably unreliable.
The M1 Garand clip makes a nice *ding* when ejected. I expect this mousetrap to make a chord. Or possibly the sound of me dropping my toolbag.
Ian: "Bwonjorno"
Me: *Brad Pitt speaking italian flashbacks*
Uhreevurderchee
That's exactly what I was thinking.
That scene is hilarious
Maghareetee
Yes, FIAT made guns. They also made tanks, missiles, aircraft, aircraft engines and advanced aerospace components (the aerospace business is now Avio SpA).
FIAT was to Italy what Samsung is to South Korea.
Having a decent mustache forgives a lot of mistakes when speaking Italian.
Scusi, bada de bupi?
@@blackidna Peter, what are you doing?
You have it wrong, that’s the French you think of. For us Italians, it only requires liberal hand emphasis!
Italian is 40% gestures and facial expressions anyway.
@Graham Stewart have you seen how narrow the streets are there, understandably lol. Glad my family emigrated to the land of wide lanes and kangaroos
Italian machine gun Corp collar badges actually showed if you were a fiat or maxim gunner Grazie gun guru
That's very cool
Of course they did. Leave it to the Italians to make it a fashion statement denoting what gun you crew
I like it
@@womble321 was a ww1 weapon only pretty much ....just snow and ice there
@@huasohvac uniforms by Versace lol
Ah the Fiat Revellis !
The "Jackhammer bolt" series of machine-gun.
This is one of the coolest guns mechanically ive ever watched you disassemble. Thanks for bringing it to us
Im not here for guns; I'm here for Ian's italian pronunciation
One's informative, they're both entertaining
His Italian pronunciation is pretty good, he does his research. For example he pronounces Franchi and Brescia correctly, where most English speakers would get them wrong
@@tommyvega7948 yea i was surprised! He did a not bad job
I still remember the "moscietto 91" 😅
@@StempiaProductions that was a classic. Felt closer to my heritage in that video
Ah, when guns had more parts than a movie based on Tolstoy.
This MG has very few parts actually, even by modern standards. They are big. Like any industrial tool design of the time.
I think this has pretty few parts. And design is kind clever.
@@juhomaki-petaja Clever maybe, but it doesn't disguise the fact that this thing is a kludge.
@@theofficialsikris Yes but it is 100y system.
You got to give him credit for solving the problem with sealing the barrel to the water jacket connection when the gun was firing.
It is absolutely insane to see how exquisitely this entire gun is machined. From the action cover, the bolt, the barrel/locking block assembly, all the little details that are so intricately made. All done on manual machines, one step at a time, across a factory's battery of machine tools. I love it.
Looks like it was inspired by Mauser C96
"Oh, that's not smoke, it's steam. Steam from the FIAT Revellis we're having."
I thought we were having Maxims
Oh no no no, Revellis, it's a North-italian dialect.
In this part of the country?
At this part of the war?
@@inconel7185 localised entirely toothe italian automitive plant in torino
My great grandfather earned a silver medal of valor with one of these at the pass of Montello.
Probably for loading this gun...
Taking box magazines to a whole new level.
Hey, we're probably gonna be fighting in the Alps, so let's invent a totally unique, untested block magazine!
Si, si!
Not a box magazine, a box of magazines
@@Ashfielder Wouldn't that be the case he showed, a box of blocks?
Not box magazines, crate magazines.
@@nonamesplease6288 There were tested 50 rounds magazines at the time?
finaly I understand how this meme of a clipazine works, thank you
Yeah, not too dissimilar to an assault glockazine
ruclips.net/video/2SwNqvUZSW8/видео.html 3D working
This has to go to C&Rsenal. Probably needs work though.
Nella tana del coniglio andiamo!
Poor Bruno.
I second this.
Finally a more in-depth video on this unique and iconic Italian machine gun! To my knowledge this is the only video on the web that shows the disassembly of the FIAT-Revelli M1914.
_Wait, let me get my 1914 vintage Fiat out of the garage._
*Wow, that must be a really expensive car?*
_Haha, yes. Car_
The just released game Isonzo brought me here. I used this in my first play session and wondered "What the hell kind of feed system is this?". I at first I thought it was just 5x 10 cartridge strips on top of each other. Now that I know, wow, just wow.
Isonzo gang
I hope Othais and Mae at C&Rsenal will get their hands on this.
Agreed this thing has to have a heck of a story.
They have yet to upload the clip on the Villar-Perosa despite Othais literally snatched the gun from Ian's hands more than a year ago, so I'm not holding my breath.
Neutron Alchemist I’m sure there’s a pretty large back log
@@neutronalchemist3241 He has to be able to get to another Villar Perosa for disassembly to make the episode. They were only able to fire the one very briefly at the auction house.
I'm not sure what happened to their page. I visited to look for this MG, and (while they still have some Italian guns) I can't find their Italian playlist.
If battles were determined by the coolness of either side’s weapons, Italy wouldn’t have had to do battle on the Isonzo so many times.
Yea because the Austro Hungarians would have won the first time
@@universal1014 But they lost in Vittorio Veneto in the end, so: "il Piave mormorava....."
@@carta8399 il piave lo straniero non lo ha attraversato
@@federicorampin3300 precisamente
This is actually impressively rugged and simplistic for the era. I'm almost confident that I could detail strip and reassemble it without instructions.
Here in Italy there is an old movie with an officer explaining the basic use of the FIAT-Revelli in Sicilian dialect to recruits that barely understand Italian and don't know how to read a manual.
The scene was inspired by true stories, in the poor and still largely underschooled Italy just 55 years from unification.
Hey I know this comment is kinda out of left field but I just wanted to give you props for your thumbnails.
They should the name, the flag of where it comes from and a picture of each gun. All right there and easy to see. Very thoughtful.
italy: its top secret the enemy cannot find out about it"
*Is never used in battle because it is top secret*
The French had a similar problem with the Mitralleause in the Franco-Prussian War. At same point, secrecy becomes counter-productive.
And the seppos with the stabiliser on the Sherman tank. SOOO Top Secret that we can’t even train the gunner how to use it, so nobody ever did ( apart from the Brits) , which then stuffed up the potential for it to have been one on the most effective and accurate tank guns in WW2
You see... If by some ill-gotten means I got my hands on one I'd have to mount it on a fiat 500
A lambretta with a side car!
@Hydin Biden Drive offensively!
Just make shure that it's one of the original 500's with the canvas roof. Just because you have a pintle-mounted machine gun on your car doesn't mean that you have to live with a huge hole in the roof.
Why do I get a feeling Othais and Mae are lined up next to do a video with the gun?
I hope so!
Please!!!!
They have yet to upload the one on the Villar-Perosa despite Othais literally snatched the gun from Ian's hands more than a year ago, so I'm not holding my breath.
Was just thinking the same thing!
Yes, let's get it in the whitebox.
I am honestly so fascinated by Italy in world war 1 such a unique and interesting military during that time period and the guns they used are nothing short of good looking or pretty slick.
I agree.
There was still piedmontese military tradition in that
I genuinely did not want this episode to end. Great story and explanation. Thanks, Ian.
Buongiorno to you, Gun Jesus!🇮🇹
I wanna put this on my Fiat. Greatest technical ever.
That thing probably weighs half of a fiat 500 including ammo, water and water cooling system.
You could prolly get away with the 500L Crossover
124 would be perfect 😉
Mama mia that's the most Italian thing ever. All it needs now is firing spaghetti out the front.
Doesn't fiat still make commercial trucks?
The mechanism for this is pretty beautiful. I don't think anyone would want to be in the mud fighting with it, but it is beautiful.
To help with your Italian, when you see a double consonant the double L in Revelli you pronounce it with emphasis on the vowel before the double consonant and the double consonant is longer eg. re vELLi. Similar to stressing consonants in English. Hope this helps keep it up, great work !!!!
This is exactly the kind of mechanical ingenuity/absurdity that draws me to these old guns. I'm quite envious of you, Ian, for being able to handle and "explore" these old pieces. You really do have my dream job.
You know it’s Italian when it’s been 6 minutes and we’re still talking about the magazine
The FIAT-Revelli M1914 was the Italian standard issue machine gun in WW1. But it was far from the only one they used.
There were probably as many Colt "Potato Digger", Vickers 'C', and St. Étienne Mle 1907 (in 8mm Lebel) machine guns in service as the M1914.
Always great to see videos on Italian small arms as my father is Italian and they made some interesting and different firearms like this one. I didn't realize before how different it is to the other HMGs, as on the outside it looks similar to all of the other water cooled HMGs.
"There won't be much Italian in this video, because I speak the third-best Italian" lol i just rewatched Inglorious Basterds the other day, love the reference, Ian!
Love the engineering on this one, weird or not it is certainly well made and very cool.
Hi, I'm Fabio from Italy, thank you for your videos!
I'm passioned in WW1 history, in particular on Italian Front.
I want to tell you a true story about Fiat Revelli M14 machine gun.
The most loved President of Italian Republic of our history was Sandro Pertini.
Pertini was a boy during WW1 and served in Italian Army with the rank of second lieutenant of FIAT machine gunners.
He was promoted lieutenant, wounded by gases and decorated by silver medal for an action on Bainsizza sector.
After WW1, Pertini was agains Fascism and suffered in jail during the fascist dictature.
Only a lot of year after WW2, Pertini became President of Italian Republic (when I was a child, in the '80).
He was a very old and respected man.
During a visit to the Italian military mission in Lebanon, a non-Italian machine gun fired a burst. Security was alarmed by the President's safety, but he calmly replied: "Don't worry, I was a machine gunner during the war".
The war was WW1 and the Pertini's weapon was a Fiat Revelli M14.
In a book I red that Pertini told: "FIAT makes excellent cars but very bad machine guns".
Another cool piece of history! It's always interesting to see such examples of early mass production machine-guns.
Also, your Italian isn't as bad as you think, Ian; just a bit rugged.
Great job!
I know Othias at C&Rsenal has been wanting to get one of those for demonstration purposes for a while now... hopefully when things calm down a bit he can get one and the rest of us can get an even more in depth look at the history of this thing. The Revelli Modello 1914 and the St. Etienne Mle 1907 are two of my favorites if only for the oddity of their design.
"in scioltezza" like we say in italy
Nel chilling proprio
Il treno regionale.
Arrivederci!
Mamma, prendo la FIAT...
Ritorni per pranzo?
Ho la Sig Sauer che fa fuoco power
LMAO the hand gesturing really drives the point home. lots of love from italy
Here we are from italy at forgotten weapons! greatings!
You know your design is bananas when Ian stumbles when even trying to describe it.
A very underappreciated weapon for how good it actually was, it earned the nickname "La Gloriosa 1914", it was by far one of the simpler, most cost effective and user friendly Machine Guns of the period alongside the Hotchkiss M1914, plus the FIAT-Revelli was easily serviceable if problems occured, the water circulation system is a really cool touch.
Also I love how these things look and operate, it's unique.
Caro OtakuComrade, dopo anni di visione dei video di Ian apprezzo la tua fedeltà nel commentare positivamente le nostre armi. È sempre un piacere.
@@lucacali8423
Il piacere è il mio, se c'è credito da dare ai progettisti è il caso di farlo
@@zoiders tell me seriously what would be the problem with that gun. The only that I can truly be worried of is the lenght and exposure of the bolt, that can be gunked stuck in with debris. Otherwise, it appears slimmer than a Maxim and the loading system, altough strange, isnt actually prone to malfunction, at least at the same level as of a ammo belt made out of fucking cloth
@@zoiders Are you abvle to point out any real problem with this design?
@@zoiders
Everyone clearly hasn't taken an honest look at the amount of parts, pins, machined screws and leaf springs inside a common Maxim gun, if you compare them honestly, you'll see how much more sensible the Revelli is.
It has a delaying system and operates like a more modern weapon, a Maxim on the other hand has a rotating sprocket with gears and levers to index the belts, the bolt has action levers and a sliding interface that picks casings from the belts and pushed them to the chamber simultaneously while also laying spent shells on the ejection chute on some models, even the trigger is a mess of levers on those guns, not to mention how maxims have both locking blocks and are toggle locked.
I had to pause the video for a full minute to stop laughing at that subtle Inglorious Basterds reference. Well played, Gun Jesus.
Wow, this must be rare outside of Italy; would be nice to see it shooting. Fun fact: the original manual recommends to lubricate with olive oil, which is the most italian thing I could think of, and I'm Italian
p.s.: you forgot a double l in "modello"
1:00 understatement of the century
Wow, that magazine system is amazing ... there's nothing preventing the system to work with larger or smaller magazines other than weight ....
Actually there was no real problem with the 100 rds magazines. They were not used on the field because they had no real advantages (while a damaged magazine meant to discard 100 rounds instead of only 50). Even a 200 rds circular magazine was experimented for aerial use. i1.wp.com/www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fiat-magazine.jpg?resize=1024%2C567&ssl=1
Now that is a fascinating forgotten weapon! From the mousetrap box magazine to the delaying mechanism, everything about this weapon is unique, to say the least.
Thank you , good to see it for real. vbbsmyt has very good animations of this gun.
The amount of creativity and ingenuity on display in these early 20th century weapons (and other machines too) is frankly incredible. Can you imagine how smart these guys were compared to the average person, then or nowadays? I think it would take a NASA spacecraft engineer to come close today in terms of the innovation needed just to make the finished product.
I agree.
I waited for my Entire Life for a video of the Revelli machine gun review by you
THANK YOU SO MUCH❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I know what you mean. There's not too many information available on the web about the Italian machine guns of the World Wars.
I like the magazine block concept
Looks like they offered a reward for using a bayonet as a firing pin.
I suppose the classic "FIAT stands for Fix It Again Tony" joke also worked for the Italian Army in the 1910s.
That would be a nightmare to field clean, especially considering how the bolt is essentially open to the elements, the magazine thing is filled with openings for dirt and grime and just how over complicated this damn thing is. All of that aside, this weapon is essentially a piece of art. I cannot imagine how much this thing would cost to machine and produce today.
Actually that action is simple even by modern standards (it's a scaled up pistol action, still used in the FN Fiftyseven and Ruger 57). In WWI only the Hotchkiss was simpler.
The magazine is actually cleaner than a cloth belt and, as any magazine, it doesn't actually enter into the gun. The bolt only picks up the top cartridge.
I've been debating on watching either Valkyrie or Inglourious Basterds for the past couple days, now you made up my mind.
So that pressure valve is just a built in espresso maker.
Ur joking but it might have been done.
What do you mean “just”?
I kind of like that magazine. It's a neat idea
I’ve wondered about these. Thanks Ian!!
I think what’s being forgotten here is that it must’ve been a pretty impressive sight to see those magazines full of cartridges loaded into the gun with all those bullets exposed pointed down range. Pretty cool...
It seems like a giant Glisenti both in terms of how it operates and how that action is assembled.
The designer is the same infact.
Since its the same designer, I'm not surprised. I AM surprised by how sturdy it looks.
The way this goes together is amazing. It is like a 19th century puzzle box.
I'm watching this while waiting for the spaghetti to cook, great video as always! From an italian fan.
Don't worry, your Italian is getting better and better; meanwhile, there are a lot of Italian guys here who can speak English and are following you! Keep up the good job! Also, you know that, as an Italian, as soon as you mentioned that there was a steam valve for hot water, I thought "Ah, yes, for making pasta!".
The mythical “Clipazine”
Fun fact, this feed mechanism was put on a RIFLE too, the experimental MAF 1921 or Tipo Terni 1921. Another version had a detachable box magazine. The need was for a weapon that could bridge the gap between a rifle and an SMG, the same idea that decades later would give birth to the assault rifle.
Loved this one. Never even thought about Italian heavy mg, thought they just used maxims like the rest. Fascinating 😁
vary cool I got to see an ww 1 italian MG thank you and all the people that helped
Look how the chest has leather patches over the few blocks to stop them rattling. Amazing attention to detail for what must have been a very rushed weapon.
Wonderful!
Just a little note, the m14/35 was in 8x59 Breda.
The out of battery safety also appears to double as the auto-sear.
I believe AKs and SVDs also have a similar dual nature thing which also led to import issues with SVDs when ATF thought that the out battery safeties on SVDs were auto sears or something like that, I think Ian has a video on that
That open magazine and bolt combo would have been a nightmare of stoppages in the trenches.
Really not.
You can very well open the inspection window and throw a handful of mud directly into it. It will probably keep on going like never happened.
WWI HMGs were like the heavy industrial tools of the time. Massively overbuilt and stupidly reliable. There was very little than dirt, mud, ice or wear could do to them. dirt had all the space of the world to go without locking the surfaces, and the inertia of the parts was so big that they were self-cleaning in their movement.
It was also starring in Louis Trenker's "Berge in Flammen" as the automatic weapon of the Alpini.
Even if the design wasn't perfect or all that efficient it's still really cool to see a unique concept that someone who didn't have a whole of outside information just came up with.
Revelli while developing the gun: We're gonna need a bigger bolt
I really like the engineering of this era: modern weapons have evolved over generations to be as simple and as efficient as possible: these weapons were trying to produce the same effect but within existing parameters. You can see that they were operating at the edge of knowledge and technology, without everything designers today take for granted, something people forget came from these machines.
This thing has Steam Punk written all over it with its external reciprocating bolt and magazine design. Different enough to be quirky and cool.
Hopefully Othais and Mae at C&Rsenal will get to this Machine Gun soon. Would be interesting to get the full story and a shooting segment on this weapon.
These look amazing, also very reliable
Type 11 LMG: "I have a very unusual feed system!"
FIAT-Revelli Mod.14: "Hold my Amaretto..."
3:05 “I want to talk about it’s quirky features” - me waiting to hear he Doug score on this gun
I wonder how many people in the procurement department took a look at that and figured that the designer had never met any soldiers.
*Ian disassembles the FIAT Ravelli*
Gun owner “Ian re-assembly the gun, we’re gonna sell it”
Ian “Arrivederci”
That was awesome dude. Thank you for giving me part of a 30 year wish, to fire one. Seeing this is good enough for another 30 year wait.
The engineering on that particular weapon is interesting but now not forgotten.
History and I thanx you Ian.
I first thought, that’s a really nifty ammunition feeding system. I then thought that is not a good idea for muddy trench warfare.
No, it was actually better than CLOTH belts. They were kept in a wooden box until use so they came in clean.
It worked and that was a catastrofe in longer term as it made them keep on with similar solution in WWII when they were totally outdated.
@@Marcellogo I see.
@@Marcellogo "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" does have its drawbacks.
Excellent presentation! Thank you. Geoff Who is amazed by mechanical designs.
This seems a lot simpler and cost-effective than most other machine guns in ww1. The delaying mechanism doesn't generate a whole lot of confidence though, since there isn't much locking down by moment of inertia like roller or lever delay, just extra spring tension. Although I suppose the relatively underpowered nature of the Italian 6.5 and the heavy bolt enables it to run reliably enough?
It's a short recoil mechanism. The barrel and bolt are linked by a solid piece of metal. There's no power of the cartridge that can squash the locking block and unlock the mechanism in advance.
@@neutronalchemist3241 True. I rewatched it and find myself wrongly interpreting Ian's words on 12:46, which mislead me to believe that the bolt is locked by a lever-amplified spring tension from the wedge. Thank you for correcting me.
@@kevintang5473 You are welcome. There's a great animation of the working of this gun. ruclips.net/video/2SwNqvUZSW8/видео.html