Notes: This was the standard heavy machinegun of the Italian military from 1937 to 1945, and like many Italian automatic weapons of the period, it had several peculiarities. The first was its feed; it was fed from a metal strip on the left side of the gun, and the gun pulled a cartridge off the strip, fired it, and then neatly put it into another strip on the right side of the gun. This led to a rather complicated receiver and extractor mechanism. The rounds had to be lubricated before they were loaded into this metal strips, or loading and extraction would be far from certain. Despite these strange features, the Breda 37 remained popular with Italian gunners throughout World War 2. A tripod or vehicular mount is required to use this weapon.

Notes: This was the first domestically-designed machinegun to appear in Italy. Like must Italian designs of the period, it is a mechanically strange weapon. It is fed from a 50-round "ammunition cage" that was itself loaded from 5-round clips of rifle ammunition. It has an external buffer rod that jumps up out of the receiver when firing; this is right in front of the spade grips and was said to be alarming when the weapon is fired, particularly when the gunner is aiming. The M-1914 also has an oil tank to lubricate the rounds; without the oil, feeding and extraction is not a certain thing. Despite all this, the M-1914 served until 1945, when it was sold off to various countries around the world.

Notes: This is an improved M-1914. The water jacket was removed and replaced with an air-cooling jacket; the caliber was changed to 8mm Breda; the lubrication system for the rounds was made unnecessary by improvements to the feed system; and the ammunition cage was replaced by a conventional belt feed. Unfortunately, the feed system that supposedly made lubrication of the cartridges unnecessary didn’t work, and a lubrication mechanism had to be added back into the weapon. The M-1935 also had an alarming tendency to cook off. The Italians used them until 1945, and then destroyed most of them.

Notes: This is for all intents and purposes a World War 2-era MG-42 that has been given a change in caliber with as little other changes as possible. The 7.62mm NATO version is also used by Nigeria, Chile, Mozambique, Portugal, and Denmark. As deliveries of the Minimi to Italian troops have been greatly slowed for budgetary reasons, a version of the MG-42/59 has also been manufactured using 5.56mm NATO ammunition.

Twilight 2000 Notes: The 5.56mm NATO version became the standard squad automatic weapon as sources for the Minimi quickly dried up.

Merc 2000 Notes: The 5.56mm NATO version became a speedbump in the arms road as shipments of the Minimi were accelerated.