Detail of the two Breda-SAFAT 12.7mm (0.50-inch) machine gun’s mounting of an Italian fighter Macchi MC.202 Folgore (Lightning) with the ammo belt in foreground. Clear visible the ammunitions of this excellent weapon which could fire a high-explosive-incendiary-tracer (HEIT) round with 0.8 grams of PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate). The Italian fighter pilots preferred the armor-piercing and incendiary rounds to the weak destructive capability of a mere 0.8 grams of explosive. The Breda-SAFAT 12.7mm had a rate of fire of 700 rounds/min (575 rounds/min synchronized) and a muzzle velocity of 765 m/s. Victor Sierra



Folgore’s weapons

Close up of the ammo belt of one of two Breda-SAFAT 12.7mm (0.50-inch) machine gun of an Italian Regia Aeronautica’s Macchi MC.200 Saetta. Photo taken during the rearming of one of this fighters on an unknown location, but perhaps not in North Africa (note the armorer’s dress). Employed also by the bombers together other MG types, the Breda-SAFAT 12.7mm was the classic weapons of Italian fighters, biplane and monoplane, two machine guns over the nose, fire synchronized with the propeller, prior of the German Mauser 20 mm cannon mounted on Reggiane Re.2001CN (Night Fighter) and on the Series 5 fighter (Macchi MC.205, Fiat G.55 Series 1 and Reggiane Re.2005). Victor Sierra

Italian fighter’s ammunitions

Close up of the nose of an Italian fighter Caproni-Reggiane Re.2001 be about the takeoff (the pilot boarding aided by his ground crew man). Cleary visible over the cowling the muzzle of his two Breda-SAFAT 12.7 mm machine gun synchronized with the propeller. But the Re.2001 Falco II (Hawk IInd) was armed also with two Breda-SAFAT 7,7mm machine guns on the wing, first Italian fighter in active duty of WW2 with four weapons. The Re.2001’s Night Fighter version (Re.2001CN) replaced the wing mounted 7,7mm with two Mauser 20mm cannons, first Italian plane armed with this German weapon. Victor Sierra