Beretta M12 Subgun: The Spaghetti Uzi
“ The Italian firm of Pietro Beretta has long been known in this country for their semi-auto pistols of all sizes. What you may not know is that they also marketed some of the most popular submachine guns of the past century—for which they are very well known outside the US. One of these is the crowd-pleasing M12.”
” Beretta was one of the first companies in the world to manufacture what are considered submachine guns today. In fact, their wood-stocked M1918 9mm was the first conventional subgun ever issued to troops in combat and it was during World War One! Their later M1938 was one of the better subguns of WWII and is still in somewhat limited service around the world. With a lineage like this, it was almost predetermined that in 1953, the company would invent a new pistol caliber select fire burp gun for the modern age—and that’s where the M12 came in.
With a design team led by Domenico Salza (the engineer who later modified the M1 Garand into the popular BM59 box magazine 7.62mm NATO battle rifle) work progressed throughout the 1950s.”
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