The Moschetto Automatico Beretta

History

Background

The interbellum was an era of extremely fast-paced development for submachine guns. A relatively novel concept, born out of the First World War, some of the earliest conceptualisations of submachine guns, and proto-submachine guns, were Italian. Colonel Abiel Bethel Revelli de Beaumont, an aristocratic piedmontese Army officer and prolific arms designer, was the brains behind the one of the first fully-automatic, pistol-calibre long guns: the Fiat Modello 1915 (more commonly known to anglophones as the Villar Perosa). Although it was itself not a true sub-machine gun, being built as a twin-mounted support and aircraft gun, he recognised even as early as 1915 that the design could be adapted to a single, shoulder-fired unit. This concept would eventually be made a reality in two different forms - both OVP and Beretta developed single-barrel submachine guns based on the mechanism and design of the Mod. 15. However, while Revelli had demonstrated the first OVP automatic carbine prototype to the Italian Army in 1916, neither design would enter full production - and military service - until after the German MP 18/I had arrived on the scene and taken the crown as the first true submachine gun.

Nonetheless, the Italian Army saw the potential for a good submachine gun design, and Beretta knew that a capable design would bring them strong sales. Consequently, they appointed their leading designer, Tullio Marengoni, to start work on a replacement design for the Beretta Mod. 18. Marengoni had also led the project to develop that design, and so was already well-acquainted with the mechanics and requirements of any new submachine gun. The project was a private endeavour by Beretta themselves - although they anticipated that military contracts could be easily won by a successful design, Marengoni was unbound by specific requirements for the design.

His first development to reach mass production (or, at least, something approaching it) was the Modello 18/30. This was a carbine, limited to semiautomatic fire only, with a reasonably conventional layout. The magazine was moved to the traditional position underneath the receiver (as opposed to the top feed favoured by the Mod. 15 and derivatives), with a folding cruciform bayonet of similar design to the Carcano Moschetto M91 fitted at the muzzle. Although mechanically sound, the Mod. 18/30 only saw limited orders being placed - the Argentine and Italian national police forces both purchased small quantities, but no more than that. Marengoni was unbowed, though, and Beretta still saw promise in his work, and continued to fund his project. 

By 1935, Marengoni had further refined the concept, and the basic format of what would become the MAB was complete for the Modello 1935, although this was still a semiautomatic-only carbine for police usage. With three more years of work, though, the design was ready for assessment by the Regio Esercito Italiano [Royal Italian Army; abbreviated to REI]. 

Marengoni Presents the MAB

Marengoni saw his design as a self-loading carbine first, and a submachine gun second, and this is obvious from the gun's fundamental layout. It had dual triggers for semi- or fully-automatic fire, a fixed wooden buttstock, a tangent rear sight adjustable out to 500m and a relatively long barrel, from which the shooter's hands were protected by a full-length perforated barrel jacket. To prevent ingress of foreign matter in adverse conditions, the magazine well and cocking handle slot were both protected by sliding dust covers. The gun came with excellent double-stack, double-feed magazines holding 40 rounds of 9x19mm Parabellum (typically of a special, higher-powered load than would be used for pistols), and with a folding knife bayonet. 

From the beginning, the various Italian military and paramilitary forces showed a level of interest in the Moschetto Automatico Beretta Modello 1938, and early contracts were placed by the Polizia dell'Africa Italiana [Police of Italian Africa; PAI] in 1938. The Corpo delle Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza [Corps of the Guards of Public Security, the Italian national police force who are nowadays known as the Polizia di Stato or State Police; PS] also ordered a quantity of guns in 1939. The REI, however, did not yet bite. The nascent MAB 38 was expensive, and had yet to prove itself in the field. Once Italy had entered the Second World War, however, the die was cast, and a slightly simplified variant - the Modello 1938A - was ordered en masse for the army. This version did away with the bayonet lug and the dust cover on the magazine well, as well as reducing the complexity of the recoil compensator. It was also later adopted by the Regina Marina [Royal Navy; RM] and Regia Aeronautica [Royal Air Force; RA]. 

Wartime Service and Simplifications

As the war wore on, the various armed forces continued to purchase and use the MAB in reasonable numbers. As time went by, and the situation developed to Italy's detriment, though, it was clear that the MAB was far more expensive, complicated and better-built than it needed to be. Examples captured by British forces in North Africa were very highly regarded, yes, but replacing said captured examples was hitting the treasury hard. Marengoni and his team were thus instructed to develop and present versions of the design which could be manufactured faster, and for less money, but would retain the level of short-range firepower that the initial variants had boasted. 

The Modello 38/42, building on an earlier experiment in producing a MAB derivative for airborne forces, was the result. The wooden stock was shortened at the fore-end, no longer protruding in front of the magazine well, and the design of the cocking handle slide and dust cover was greatly simplified to a single piece of stamped steel. The barrel jacket was done away with, as were the adjustable sights. The barrel was shortened, and the compensator both machined integrally to the barrel and made simplified even further than had already been done. The barrel was initially fluted to aid cooling, but this too was abandoned with the smooth-barrelled Mod. 38/43. 

By the time the final wartime variant of the MAB, the Mod. 38/44, was introduced, Italy's situation was getting very dire indeed. The government had surrendered to the allies, and the Royal forces - REI, RA, and RM - had demobilised. Nonetheless, the Beretta factory was located in Brescia, in the heartland of Mussolini's northern rump state, the Italian Social Republic. They continued to supply MABs to the fascist paramilitaries (the MVSN), as well as the armed forces of the RSI. Beretta even managed to spare the resources and time to fulfil export orders with Fascist Italy's allies in Nazi Germany and Romania, and these were primarily Mod. 38/44s. These guns were identical to the Mod. 38/43, except that the construction of the receiver end cap and recoil springs had been refined in the pursuit of even further production efficiency. 

All in all, hundreds of thousands of MABs served in the Second World War. They were issued to the forces of the Kingdom of Italy, both pre- and post-surrender, to the RSI, to Nazi Germany and to fascist Romania. Captured examples were used by the Allies in North Africa and Europe, and were popular with the partisan movements of Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and France. 

Postwar Developments

Before continuing, it is worth a brief note to say that the postwar nomenclature systems used by Beretta get very confusing: the same designations were reused for several different guns, and the entire family of submachine guns was redesignated at least once. The author has made his best efforts to understand and explain all of the various variants produced and offered by Beretta for domestic and international sales to military, police and commercial customers.