Between 1952 and 1956 an Italian designer named Cesare Lercker from Bologna developed a series of pistols and submachine guns. He worked with Beretta, although it is unclear if he did the work at their request of it the showed interest in the design after he came up with it. The submachine gun we are looking at today is chambered for .380 Automatic, while his pistols used .25 ACP. Only a handful of the submachine guns were made before the project was shut down by Italian authorities. While Lercker received government permission to make his guns, he did not have the authorization to make fully automatic firearms – it seems like there may have simply been a misunderstanding about the terminology of “automatic pistols” – but for right or wrong the project ended in about 1956.
Thanks to Beretta for giving me access to this example from their reference museum to show to film for you!
Finally, obscure and really forgotten/unknown stuff !!
For what I know, The problem with Lercker firearms had ben that it was passed the law that prohibited auto fire for civilian weapons, and, since they were intended to be civilian PDW…
Nice gun, I liked the .25acp one… On a video on here, awhile back. I would have stuck that on this as the forward pistol grip and called it Il Duce! For sales in, Sicily or somewhere. Warm up/main event.
High rate of fire! You owe me 25 cents! And your change… Or what do you mean you haven’t got 25 cents!! I’d go “forgetta about it” personally, but I am not in the Mafia etc… Il Duce see, sales.
I think it should be called Il Logorace, as digital logorrhea is running rampant in comments here, hehe
Been thinking quite a bit about (Drones) you know… “I know” these big shahed/geran things aren’t drones in the sense of the Soviets has radio guided v1’s basically, sort of cruise missiles as doubtless did others. So what is an actual drone… Not them, must be the electric ones of whatever size.
Was looking at lippisch p.13a a Nazi end of war “Plane” coal… East Germany improved ligite, a shit sort of coal to be coke… Sort of, stuff. Stuff. Now I thought like Space ex sort of reusable lark, electric drones can go quite high. Would it not be cheaper, to lippisch ram jet “Drones” as a payload from electric drones dropping them. And thus you could swarm areas with (Jet) powered “Drones” see what I mean, we do mini lippisch p.13a coal engines spinningbaskers with east german type ligite, and swarm bomb these as jet “Drones” as interceptors. One way after all.
So the fancy electric ones, just carry them up… Seems cheaper to me. Swarm like.
Range depends on height dropped from…
Why? Well the reason is, think about it “Bar overall cost” radar says attack in sector blah, blah, so you only fly electric bit “Drone” on demand, to respond to said attack; it then lands/reloads.
The “projectiles” are cheap and quick, must be better to try and make it cheaper… Must be. Cost.
Hee… Cost. Important. Was once. And will be again. Cold war was nonsense, no war. Be war now.
“(…)what is an actual drone… Not them, must be the electric(…)”
False, as in 1940s U.S. Navy did use TDR-1 assault drone https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.php?aircraft_id=2459 which relied on piston engines for propulsion.
Drooooone… Kool aid, like it. Yeah!
And even before that, in the 1930s the British Royal Navy had several drone projects such as the Larynx;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAE_Larynx
And the Queen Bee/Queen Wasp target drones;
https://navyhistory.au/queen-bee-radio-controlled-target-aircraft-of-the-1930s/
While the two “Queens” were purely AA gunnery targets, the Larynx (“Long Range Gun, Lynx Engine”) was intended as a radio controlled anti-ship missile.
During WW2, the Miles Hoop-La was proposed to the Air Ministry;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Aircraft#Missiles
https://www.armedconflicts.com/files/9b553c58_100.jpg
Meanwhile here in the United States, Charles F. Kettering was mass-producing a very similar drone with a short-life four-cylinder, two-stroke piston engine. Given the green light, he could have been mass-launching them against Germany from England by early 1942. See The Secret War aka Wheezers and Dodgers by Gerald Pawle.
Drone warfare is older than most people realize today.
clear ether
eon
Oh thats great to hear, thanks! 🙂 No I mean it, anyone “else” would be like oh no we are all going to die, according to TV news. But no, it isn’t new and get stuffed enemy folk Eon et al was sorting it out in the 50’s 60’s, 70’s be along those lines! Which counts. It does, thanks Eon. Phew, type thing.
My TV said it is only drones carrying cisgender ICE agents infected with COVID that we have to worry about
Do not forget the Aeronautica Lombarda A.R.
Remotely piloted wooden kamikaze drone, powered by a 1000 hp FIAT A.80 (intended to be old engines taken from B.R.20 bombers, for one last use) armed with two standard production 1000kg bombs, without stabilizing fins, buried in the fuselage.
After successful test flights, two prototypes were ready to be used against Allied ships leading to the Salerno Landing, when Sept. 8 armistice happened.
For that matter the Germans experimented with single-seater aircraft lugging an explosives-laden Ju-88, releasing, and guiding the unmanned plane via radio. This ‘Mistel’ arrangement was not much successful. JFK,s older brother was killed in an Allied effort of the similar kind. His plane packing explosives blew up before he could exit and let the RC operator in a nearby plane take over. So yes, there was a good deal of interest in UAV 80+ years ago.
Strictly speaking, the Mistel Ju88s were unguided after the pilot fighter (usually a Bf109E) separated. The Aphrodite B-17s and B-24s were radio-guided from an accompanying PV-2 Harpoon. So neither one was technically a “drone”.
The problem in the Kennedy blowup was that RF activity in the ground path caused electrical static discharge in the fuzing system. Even today, when there’s a bomb report, the first thing LEO do is prohibit radio use within a certain distance of where it’s supposed to be.
(I’ll keep that distance to myself if you don’t mind.)
clear ether
eon
“(…)Mistel Ju88s were unguided after the pilot fighter (usually a Bf109E) separated.(…)neither(…)technically a “drone”.(…)”
III Reich did actually developed remote-controlled unmanned aeroplane knwon as Argus As 292 https://www.luftarchiv.de/index.htm?/bordgerate/drohne.htm which carried 1 or 2 photographic camera.
“(…)problem in the Kennedy blowup was that RF activity in the ground path caused electrical static discharge in the fuzing system.”
I was aware about premature denotation itself, but no its’ cause. Now I must ask: how did they managed to find that? After all few tons* of TORPEX seems enough obliterate any physical evidence.
* metric
“(…)what is an actual drone… Not them, must be the electric(…)”
Even namesake for this word https://simpleflying.com/dh82b-queen-bee-britain-1st-drone-ww2/ was piston-engine powered.
V1 missile, type. A drone,
is electic, like a dildo but negative.
Fact. Weeeeeee!
Please provide reliable source supporting this claim.
Re: cause of explosion one article mentions ‘lack of shielding on television cables’ as possibly causing an electromagnetic field that ‘closed a relay in a detonater circuit.’ The author says there had been warnings about this during the development of the gear. He also notes the complete destruction of the aircraft leaves this speculation. So it scarcely rules out the stray radio signal theory. The website is ‘todayifoundout.com
First route of investigation should be: did this “phenomenon” happen anywhere else in ww2
The guns bolt and barrel setup was used later in bulky argent. FMK 3, but needing to separate the bolt in 2 parts to remove barrel was ommited, which was ofc very prudent. Every smg with recoil spring around the barrel needs to have a fairly long one.
However, here also is one very interesting feature, receiver cap with extension that somewhat controlled the rate of fire, that is unseen so far.
Mr. M has become much too Francophiled for Italian guns. For “Voila!” please read “Presto!”