Breda 30 6.5mm LMG

The Breda 30 was rather unusual for a light machine gun. It was fed from a fixed magazine attached to the right side of the weapon and was loaded using brass or steel 20-round stripper clips. In regular army units, one Breda 30 was issued to each squad (standard issue was 24 to 27 per battalion), although this was later changed to two weapons per squad. An Italian infantry company therefore had about six light machine guns in the early years of World War II (two per platoon), but this number eventually increased to twelve for the majority of the war (four per platoon).