Tutto fumo e niente arrosto

Hello folks, and welcome back for another update of the Forgotten Hope Mod. First of all we have another small web page update for you. Thanks to the help of Orange, Maximilian Weisemann and Guybrush Threepwood the French-language version of the site is now all done and at your disposal. We hope all the French-speaking people out there, account themselves lucky and enjoy the opportunity to be able to review our page in their native language.

But that's enough of the preliminary skirmishing. For today's news update we have Italian infantry arms for you. McGibs was really busy and deserves a holiday named after him for the creation of these fancy toys. The most common weapons in the Italian army were rifles as in any other country. But the Italian Army was faced with a critical deficiency in the primary arm of their infantry throughout World War Two. The M1891 had seen service since World War I. As the cartridge was insufficiently powerful, a post-war shift to a 7.35 mm round was made, but only a few weapons had been modified before the next conflict began.

As a result, Allied soldiers had the edge on the Italian army in a typical firefight. And the open fields of the desert made the problem even worse. The only advantage was an extra round in the magazine, which was still too small compared to the British weapon, which was loaded with 10 cartridges. Two carbine versions also saw service, the M1891 carbine, which was a straight adaptation of its parent with reduced length. A second version was the M1938 with an overall length of 1015mm and caliber 7.35x52 mm. This later model appeared only in limited numbers.

Moving from bolt-action to automatic weapons, the Beretta 38A was the most reliable and prized Italian small arm of World War Two. The Beretta evolved from a pre-war police carbine into an effective submachine gun, and carried over the accuracy of its single shot predecessor into the automatic version. This weapon compares well with its Russian counterpart, the PPSh 41.

Also effective, though not without limitations, the Breda 37 represented perhaps the best of the various infantry weapons available to the Italian Army, outside of their excellent submachine guns. The use of lubricated ammunition invited stoppages, especially when introduced to the desert environment of North Africa. The Breda 37 typified the overall problems experienced by the Italian infantry. Every weapon outside of the submachine gun class included several unwelcome features. We hope you will enjoy them anyway.

That's all for today, but be sure to stop by our public forums to discuss this and other news updates!