Breda-SAFAT machine gun

Breda-SAFAT, (Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche / Breda Meccanica Bresciana - Società Anonima Fabbrica Armi Torino) was an Italian weapons manufacturer of the 1930s and 1940s that designed and produced a range of machine-guns and cannon primarily for use in aircraft. Based on the M1919 Browning machine gun, the Italian guns were chambered to fire indigenous ammunition with 7.7 mm (0.303 in) and 12.7 mm (0.500 in) calibres, predominantly ball, tracer for the 7.7mm, including high-explosive-incendiary-tracer (HEIT) (filled with 0.8 grams of PETN), or armour-piercing (AP) for the 12.7mm.

Design and development

During the 1930s both Breda and SAFAT (a division of FIAT) were tasked with producing designs for a new range of machine-guns for use in aircraft of the Regia Aeronautica, the offering from Breda being preferred. FIAT contested the decision but lost resulting in the sale of SAFAT to Breda to form Breda-SAFAT.

Despite the aim of producing an airborne machine-gun equal or superior to other similar weapons, the use of low propellant capacity rounds resulted in significantly lower muzzle velocities than other weapons of similar calibres. Other inadequacies included high weight and modest rates of fire as well as the ineffectiveness of the HEIT high explosive round.