The Perino Model 1908 was an early machine gun of Italian origin designed earlier in 1901 by Giuseppe Perino, an engineer (Tecnico dell'Artiglieria). Perino's design apparently was the first Italian-designed machine gun, and in its original configuration weighed in at a heavy 27 kilograms (60 lb), which made it largely unsuitable to field utilization and apt only for fortifications; a lightened 1910 version brought the weight down to 15 kilograms (33 lb). The gun was nonetheless adopted by the Regio Esercito and saw some use alongside the Fiat-Revelli Modello 14 and the Maxim guns. It had a unique feed mechanism, with a hopper on the side of the gun filled with up to five twenty-round clips rather than being belt fed. This allowed the loader to constantly keep the gun at maximum capacity, meaning the gun crew never had to stop to reload.
References
^Esposito, Gabriele, Armies of the Italian-Turkish War: Conquest of Libya, 1911–1912 Osprey Publishing (2020)
McNab, Chris: Twentieth-century Small Arms, Grange Books, 2004; ISBN 1-84013-381-3
Nevio Mantoan, Weapons and Equipment of the Italian Army in the Great War 1915-1918, Gino Rossato Editore, First Edition. July 1996.
