Frommer Pistolen-MG Model 1917: A Crazy Villar Perosa Copy
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After encountering Italian Villar Perosa machine pistols in the field, Austro-Hungarian troops requested a similar weapon. The project was given to FÉG to work on, and the result was the Pistolen-MG Model 1917: a pair of Frommer Stop pistols with long barrels and 25-round magazines, redesigned to fire from the open bolt, mounted to an adorably tiny tripod and spade grips.
Only a few dozen of these were made for testing, and they were not accepted for military service. Many thanks to Joschi Schuy for giving me access to film that fantastic surviving example for you!
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I love that its not a straight copy but rather two upside down Frommer Stops in a mount. It's the two kids in a trenchcoat of automatic firearms.
Lol that’s a brilliant anecdote.
@@whoshotashleybabbitt4924 You mean analogy
Two kids in a trench-coat of squad support weapons?
Actually the Austrians ended up straigh out copying the Villar Perosa with the Sturmpistole M.1918 in 9X23mm Steyr.
I was trying to articulate my feelings for this little cutie pie and you sir ripped the words from heart. Salut
When pictured alone you think it must be massive. When pictured with a person it looks adorable.
Right? It's just S M O L........
Yes it does, the first gun I'd call cute.
Omg this lol
You read my mind
@@bobhill3941 kolibri is probsbly the cutest pistol ive seen
Looks like one of Tippman's scaled down reproduction sorts of guns.
One of very few entries into the category of Heavy Machine Pistol
until i saw this video i never even considered them to exist, but here we are...
I needed this as a kid.
With a fieldpiece like this my GI Joe Battalion would have won every engagement. Even against the Transformers.
It would have been good for converting Barbie's Jeep into a Technical
@@sharonrigs7999 Ha! Can't have that! General Barbie already had her Malibu Dream Fortress and her Fast Attack Pink Corvette. With Sgt. Ken leading her force of teddy bears, nekkid baby dolls and Raggedy Ann and Andy SOCOM Team, the last thing my Real American Heroes needed was to face a barrage of .32 cal. artillery fire. I had enough trouble keeping them equipped and up to strength when half of them had lost their weapons during the Assault on Dog House Hill. Lost a lot of good men that day...
Pop found 'em with the lawnmower later, though. Faced a demotion and stockade time over that debacle.
Last channel I'd expect to have a conversation about Barbie and G.I. Joe in the comment section. Just proves how popular Ian is, and how diverse the 2A community can be. Thanks for playing along, our comments are gonna confuse the hell out of some people!
Can't forget having terminator fighting darth vader on top of a moutain (which was simply a pile of clothes)
@@thecommunistloli1042 Hey man, He Man lost an arm during the Battle Of Laundry Mountain, you show some respect.
@@ianfinrir8724 yeah nothing will cure the ptsd of thomas the tank engine modified bomber ships bombing the zones close to the mountain...
The star wars clone trooper hasn't been the same since the day he saw a bomb take the life of lego man and losing an arm in the process
The Frommer Stop and Steyer Hahn are some of the most aesthetically pleasing designs.
The 1907 Roth Steyr is almost as interesting.
This was one of three Villar Perosa "copies" trialed by the Austro-Hungarians in early 1917. The other two were made by ŒWG (Doppelpistole) and Škoda (Sturmpistole). The Sturmpistole was a straight copy of the Villar Perosa chambered in 9x23mm Steyr, with some minor modifications to the design. The Sturmpistole was selected in the summer of 1917 and was pressed into service with frontline machine gun battalions just before the Battle of Caporetto, where they were first used in combat. An order for 10,000 of these guns was reportedly placed, but the Austro-Hungarians captured so many genuine Villar Perosas at Caporetto that the priority for manufacturing these new guns decreased. In the end, it is thought that only about 250 were actually made.
Thank you
The Swiss made a really goofy aerial observers gun with the same general concept. The flieger doppelpistole
@@EyePatchGuy88 "We want 10,000 Villar Perosas."
"But sir, we've acquired 10,000 Villar Perosas."
"What do you mean?"
"We've routed the Italians at Caporetto and they left at least 10,000. I think."
"What do you mean 'I think?'"
"We're still counting them."
@@EyePatchGuy88 They captured about 2,200 Italian Villar Perosas at Caporetto (on top of the guns they had already captured prior), so nowhere near 10,000. However this was still enough to arm the Sturmbataillons and therefore there wasn't a huge rush to make more Sturmpistoles, which were encountering many production difficulties and had proved to be unreliable in combat. Issuing captured Villar Perosas was the more economical option.
The Italians themselves made about 15,000 Villar Perosas in total, but the records seem to indicate that no more than about 7,000 were actually in service at any given time.
sturmpistole , hmm that what warhammer officers would use
I'm just impressed someone looked at a Villar Perosa and was like, "What if we made THAT too?"
That tripod is downright adorable, though.
Even better when you say to command, we need one of them and they're simply like "OK!"
I guess the punishment is being made to reload 30 Frommer mags
People seems to like to point out the limitations of the Villar Perosa, forgetting that, as long as it had no competition (so until 1918) it was simply the best thing around.
@@neutronalchemist3241 This is true, but also people don't actually appreciate how effective the Villar Perosa was during the First World War. The fact of the matter is that very little credible research has been done outside of Italy into the combat record of the Villar Perosa, and most modern observers tend to simply dismiss it as impractical on first glance and make unsubstantiated judgements about it.
The MP 18 gets all the credit, but the Villar Perosa was far more widely tested in combat and had a greater impact on infantry tactics at the time. The MP 18 was barely used and there are very few accounts of its use in combat.
@@jameslawrence2446 also, as Ian said, its a lot of firepower for the time and you can fit it in a tiny space. A couple guys with these in a tight alpine pass would be at least somewhat effective i would imagine.
Don't forget hallucinogenic drugs have been around for a while!
Such an obscure firearm, thank you for making a video on it. Austria-Hungary really had some nice weapons in WW1.
Well I’m gonna say this is the coolest thing I’ve seen on FG in a while and that’s really saying something considering what Ian brings us on a daily basis….damn that’s a cool gun
I gotta agree with Ian wholeheartedly and I’m sure others get it too, the Villar Perosa is just awkward and it just “looks wrong” this Frommer take really seems a lot better I guess that .32 calibre was gonna be a real limitation at least the VP is 9 mm Glisenti
wasn't 9mm glisenti the super low pressure weak 9mm parabellum copy? and also the ammo they ran in the frommers and by extension these was higher pressure than 32acp in US.
Actually the Austrians ended up straigh out copying the Villar Perosa with the Sturmpistole M.1918 in 9X23mm Steyr.
Mind, the thing about mountain warfare is that there are two ranges you fight at: extremely close and extremely long. You are either shooting at a guy well under a hundred meters or you are taking shots at someone several hundreds of meters away, because of the way slopes, rocks, and angles work when moving on mountain sides. Basically, the issue is that if your enemy is entrenched on a mountainside, you more or less have to be right on top of them to get an angle of fire with small arms, making pistol-caliber weapons like submachineguns and variations of machinepistol more practical than a rifle. To get angles of fire at greater ranges, you really have to be far away, often on another mountain, and at those ranges, you are better off with mounted weapons like machineguns or small artillery that can effectively engage at 1,000+ meters. Rare is the time you have a nice clean shoot at 400 meters on a mountain side, the range the rifles were optimized for at the time.
So...with that in mind, these little machinepistols on mounts are a reasonably good way to hose-down any unfortunate Italians who manage to get within 25 meters of your Habsburgian position by moving among the rocks. The Italians pop up to rush that last 25 meters, they meet 50 rounds of .32 ACP before they've gotten more than 3 meters. At 25 meters, 50 rounds of .32 ACP is plenty lethal enough!
@@genericpersonx333 *habsburger
It is interesting to see how during WW1 Villar Perosa was considered "devastating", each armase placed in its historical context has its own logic which then escapes over time, interesting video!
In close-in trench raiding it'd be horrific.
With a guy on either side loading you can fire short spurts at fleeting targets. A great close defence weapon, if expensive for what it does.
Tactically it might be sited on a reverse and not firing forward so it could sweep the front of nearby trenches.
Maybe it was a case of being on the business end and not having to contend with the problems of such a weapon.
i mean, it could be devastating on a modern battlefield. Having two subguns is a lot of firepower
@@jmjedi923 that's the point though. It wasn't "two SMGs", it was "two SMGs used on a mount either on position or as aircraft weapon". By the time of WWII we see rifle caliber MGs being deemed insufficient. But in WWI a quick firing _stationary_ gun with *pistol ammo* was called devastating. Meaning that for a soldier there wasn't really much difference what to be hit with ie reports were done by soldiers. Later on that angle was lost, concerns and fears of simple soldier didn't matter. It was all about that calculated design efficiency of overmatching capabilities of your opponent to quickly overwhelm them. Despite the fact that even nowadays soldiers DON'T want to get his even with pistol ammo;)
Guess that for people on the wrong side of the barrels, even a Villar Perosa could be perceived as "devastating".
It was a time of bolt rifles and big, clumsy, fixed machine guns - a 'portable' full automatic thing that followed troops was witchcraft.
It's a shame this thing is so rare. It would make one heck of a conversation piece to see one of these sitting on someone's coffee table.
"What is that? Some kind of scaled down model machine gun?"
"Nope, it's full size."
Very cool gun Ian. I love that you have good enough connections to track down something like this for us.
" Wait... is that two pistols?"
"yep"
"its upside down?"
"yeap"
This is how I imgaine the conversation will go lol
I didn't expect this gun to be that tiny, holy shit
I mean it makes sense
1:42 This gun has several advantages to the Villar Perosa:
1. The use of an actual tripod means much better accuracy, therefore greater effectiveness, as the shooter could aim effectively at a given target.
2. The use of existing pistols means that said pistols could be easily removed and used normally if required.
I wouldn't be so sure of the second. There is no traditional trigger and it is full auto only. It does skip the growing pains for designing a new gun and uses already existing tooling, though. Also it is easier to replace a pistol if one malfunctions than doing that to the whole gun assembly. So the idea has a lot of merit. It was probably a worse performing gun under trial conditions, tho.
Yes I concur with @willyvereb the second point is not applicable.
I always liked the Frommer Stop on account of how weirdly over-complicated it is for a .32 ACP pistol; my WWI example, I believe, is one of the stars of my small collection. However, I had no idea they could get even more weird that the standard pistol already is. Thank you for bringing this to us to see!
Had no idea the Austrians made “we have Villar Perosa at home” a real thing
I think this was made in hungary
Yes, this was made in Hungary
Villar Perosa f.i.a.t. made🇮🇹🥂👍
@@csgaming8101 It was called Austria-Hungary back then for a reason. ;-D
Ever since I was a kid the Villar Perosa has been my favorite firearm. It always straight up looked like it fell from the pages of a Steampunk comic. The vid of Ian firing one, was a childhood dream come true...
I love it. I was already a fan of the Frommer Stop for its complete weirdness (long recoil! in a .32 pocket pistol!), and this is like the ultimate application for it. It's a crew-served antiaircraft gun for 12" GI Joe dolls.
It took me way to long to recognize that it was literally two upside down pistols lol. Absolutely Amazing!
It's kind of misleading since you're naturally looking for the trigger and trigger guard. Without it they just look like 2 barrels with a magazine sticking upwards
Let's appreciate for a second that Ian really tries (and mostly succeeds) to pronounce names such as Steyr and Budapest correctly.
Kudos for that Ian! Also it took a while for me to realize what F.E.G is (which means Fegyver És Gépgyár - it can be translated something like Weapon And Machineryfactory)
Awesome, truly a forgotten weapon. Wish you had said what the maximum range of the ladder sight was.
@@BcFuTw9jt There is no way it would be the same. The barrels are different lengths from this to the carbine. They just put that one on because they had then sitting around when they were making it.
Unbelievable! This one gets my vote for the best forgotten weapon!
This is an absolutely fascinating piece of history. Great find Ian thank you for sharing.
Just when I thought Ian had showed us all the interesting guns he still manages to surprise us with something unique. Well done!
It is crazy. A lot of us that watch know guns and history, but not like Ian. He finds stuff all the time that makes you say. " What the heck is that, and where did he find it? " The channel has been around for a real long time too. Amazing.
"Just when I thought I was out, Ian pulled me back in"
One of those weapons that someone took the time to try out, so that later generations could say, "Well that is obviously not going to work." At the time it wasn't so obvious and I appreciate the people that experimented with things so that we can use our 20-20 hindsight to marvel at how "obvious" things are. Besides the fact that things back then had style to go along with the function.
I've always hoped for a video on this adorable, amazingly weird contraption. Such a perfect example of why I'm so happy this channel exists, thanks for this! :D
This would be interesting to see in operation on a range.
As the owner of a Frommer Stop, I find this absolutely fascinating. I'm very curious how the added mass of the extended barrel works out with the long-recoil action. Did they use different springs or anything? Based on my experience with modern .32 acp loads, I doubt that gun would cycle reliably. Many online sources say that Frommer had their own version of .32 acp with a hotter charge, which would have helped here. But I'm still suspicious.
That said, I really love my Stop. It is picky about ammo brands, but it's a joy to shoot when I find the right match for it. I'd love to try one of those 25-round mags. The standard 7-round mag is my biggest complaint about the gun.
The sights are tiny, but effective when you have time to aim. I can get pretty tight groups at 15 yards. I'm not sure if the extended barrel would help much unless the sights were completely redesigned, but I would still love to shoot a few mags with that barrel just to compare.
Lots to think about here. Thanks Ian!
I could be wrong but it looks like the barrel is now fixed and the bolt is just a straight blow back. There is no wear on the barrel where it would reciprocate into the frame.
@@finnagin_the_ninja Yeah, I noticed that too. When he cocks the gun on the tripod at 11:25 you can see that the barrel doesn't move back.
It seems some European .32 ACP is loaded considerably hotter (probably near the max pressure spec) than the stuff you see loaded in the US, compare velocities. I suspect the American loaders are afraid of blowing the slide off some pot metal Saturday night special and load accordingly.
@@Broken_Yugo That might be why my Ortgies and Mauser 1914 do not eject properly.
The Kuk also developed a copy of the Pillar Persoa probably in 9mm Steyr -was certainly trailed in October 1917 -(notated photos) and at least for the trials was mounted on a back pack frame which doubled as a small sled -so obviously for service in the Tyrol. The most obvious differneces between the Itlaian (which numbers were captured) and the KuK version were the KuK version had straight magazines and lack the circular twin mount at the front of the receiver -the KuK was basically a pair of barrel blocks joined by a cast in bar.
They also captured a lot of VP during the battle of Caporetto, maybe this project was scrapped because they had plenty and resources were better used for something else
@@paciughissimo There were a lot of ME TOO projects by the Austro-Hungarians and Italians --the Italians proposed manufacture of the Kuk 3.7 cm M15 , whether they produced it as a production run or just as trial samples I don't know only that samples of both the Italian 3.7 cm and the kuK VP still exist in collections. By the turn of 1918 the Austro-Hungarians couldnn't produce enough boots for their troops never mind embark on large scale production of anything.
Looks like an anti air gun for GI Joes. Cutest thing I ever saw.
They said "Frommer! Stop!" But Frommer didn't stop. Frommer never stopped.
This is cool as hell. I can imagine the caliber wasn't a huge concern when shooting almost straight down at guys trying to scale a mountain,any hit would make it hard to hang on or keep climbing.
I mean, those italian mountain troops were pretty goddamn terrifying,any firepower you can get is good.
.32 acp was perfectly fine against fabric uniforms at the time, even against rudimentary armor you could shower them in fragmented bullet spalling
Ian, calling that device "cool" is possibly the understatement of the year. It's simply the most amazing thing I've seen anywhere in a long, long time. Thank you as always!
That is just too cute, It's like someone made a support weapon for hobbits.
I've seen a lot of really unique, fascinating things on Forgotten Weapons, but this is one of the few that made me actually go, "What the hell?!" 😮
I love this channel so much.
Years ago in a german Arms Magazine i read an article about such a Villar Perosi copy. The author claimed , that he knew a very old Veteran of wwl, who seved in a Kaiserjäger unit. This Veteran told, that he in wwl had such a weapon, mounted at a kind of backpacklike device to carry it, the device could be used as ,lafette'. A second man had to carry a lot of magazins. May be this man was one of the testing soldiers.
Wish I had this as a kid, my GiJoe backyard battles would have been a whole lot more realistic.
This is one of the best channels on TH-cam! I look forward to seeing a video everyday. Very good job! Thank you
The Trail photo is a really nice touch for this presentation! Thank You!
Simple
Sturdy
Effective
And we all know if these were available, everyone would have one.
Because they're really neat!
Should definitely try and get those books translated and publish them under headstamp, could see them being very popular.
Having just watched Ian's Vilar Perosa range video, I can quite see why the Austrian troops wanted one! Just the sound of the thing firing on both barrels is terrifying.
I like your channel so much, a tour thru the museum of history of guns. Greetings from Barcelona Spain.
_"We have Villa Perosa at home"_
Clearly, one of the more interesting weapons you have shown us in the last while. I originally thought it was a gun mount for some other firearm.... Fascinating video!
Always cool to see a review of a gun made by my home country, also excellent pronounciation on Budapest there, i got chills 😁
FÉG on the other hand... well.
Budapeshtt?
@@tudorapo na ja... 😁
@@kettilkroh3987 yes, it's a hungarian word,
@@attilatoth7571 Hungarian is such a badass language.
OMG I wish since 2020 to see an actual review about this gun! This is a dream that becomes reality!
Thanks Ian!
What a cool and unusual weapon, thanks for sharing this!!
Looks like it might have been useful for interior security, like inside of bunkers and fortifications. And firing independantly would allow for a lot more sustained fire, being able to alternate between firing one while reloading the other
It's so cute with it's little ears and goofy snout! It's just so dang adorable!
imagine breeching the trench officer's room and getting surprised by this number on his desk
I've been fascinated with the Villar Perosa for years, i didn't realize the weapon system was ever copied
It was my first machine gun love.
It is hilarious and the most Austrian thing that their troops would request a full production model of the Villar-Perosa, an Italian kludge made out of aircraft SMGs press-ganged into ground combat. It's well made and unique for what it is though. Leave it to Ian to find things like this.
OMG that thing is so cool! And that tripod is just the best!
Excellent video!, I was completely unaware of it. It is the lightest of the heavy machine guns that I have seen in my life hahahaha..
This is the absolute essence of Forgotten Weapons. Wonderful
Very cool most informative! Happy Thanksgiving Ian!
what a beautiful piece of quality construction and engineering.
And like most Italian engineering...fckin useless...
I was sent here form the act mans channel from a long time ago and I can’t get enough of this excellent Contant.
Would be great to see this on the range
A crew-served tripod-mounted .32 ACP... 🍄🍄🍄
Never thought I would hear Ian call anything gun related "adorable" 👍 Cool gun
I’m not normally envious of a machine gun owner, but this and the American 180 are definitely high on my I want list.
Cheapest ammo you could find and awesome history behind it, who wouldn't love having them?
*Sees title* Why? Why would anyone in their right mind not named "Beretta" want to copy that contraption? Why would they base anything off of it?
Double gun go brrrrrrrrrrr
Because you need more Dakka
I mean I can kinda see the theory behind it. Machineguns were still trying to find a place in military doctrine so a very very light, handy mounted machine gun could be a thing.
As said in the video, it impresed the Austro Hungarians and since they were fighting in the worst place a war can be fought in, aka the top of mountians where everything is frozen solid, a small and yet deadly machinegun like this was thought to be a good idea
@@engineermerasmus2810 Squad automatic weapon... An adorable one.
Very cool. Thanks Ian. Always enjoy your videos.
I couldn't quite tell from the video, do both tripod mounted pistols eject the same direction, or was the right side made to eject the opposite from normal? If the latter, it seems like that one would be kicking brass into the space between the two guns?
Had that tripod weapon shown up in Hawaii I would have thought it would have been something that the Mehune would have come up with. However the last time the Mahoney were actually known to have existed in Hawaii was in 1827 when 127 of them between the height of two and a half to 3 ft tall were known to be living there. They died off soon after. But they were rumored to have lived in Hawaii for hundreds if not several thousand years.
*Menehune?
An open bolt machine pistol, that sounds terrifying…ly fun.
If I had a nickel for every time I've seen a double barrel pistol caliber heavy machinegun I'd have TWO nickels!
Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice, right?
That tripod would be an awesome centre piece on the right dinning room table.
That is strange, cool, imaginative and is one weapon that should not be forgotten.
Normal Pepole: There's nothing crazier than the flying beehive of a Villa Perosa.
Austria-Hungary: Hold my pálinka.
Thank you for the correct pronunciation of Budapest!
Fascinante, solo en este canal encuentro este tipo de info sería buenísimo ver esa rareza en acción! Amen.
Son: “Mom, can we have the Villar Perosa?”
Mom: “We have Villar Perosa at home.”
The Villar Perosa at home:
Very cool! Now you need to beg this guy to let you take it to the range :D (hell, a backup-gun-match would be cool, I bet you'd draw a lot of attention there!)...sadly propably not going to happen, they are probably too pristine and rare to fire :(
Yes, i wish this was a friday drop!
Austrian soldier: Can we get a Villar Perosa?
Franz Joseph: We have a Villar Perosa at home.
Villar Perosa at home:
Imagine examining the pistol if you didn't have the rest of the setup.
"So as soon as you pick up this gun it just fires continuously until you put it down or it runs out of ammo???"
The mount is like if Mattel or Fisher Price made Baby's First MG Mount.
A coffee table machine gun!! Ian finds yet another Unicorn.
When this video started I thought this was a scale model of a larger real gun. Possibly an engineering sample or something that would be used during sales presentations. Stunning that this was the ACTUAL firearm. Tremendously interesting stuff.
This thing is like....a machine derringer? Ultra small back pack carry version of a heavy MG. Genius!
Awww, smol tripod. When it grows up, it wants to be a ZSU 23-2!
LOOK at this thing!
Just LOOK at it!
It's... I am seriously at a loss of words.
As a slovenian I love seeing Austro-Hungarian weaponry.
First thought: KAWAII!!!
Second thought: "What is this, a machine gun for ants?"
My inner Ork thinks, why only 2 guns when you could have 4 or 6......
More Dakka please!!!
That looks like the cutest and coolest range toy *ever*. Gonna have to share this video with the the 3d2A crowd!
That was extremely cool. What a way out there idea. Thanks for that.
Looks as if they also could control the firerate by tighten the thumbscrew. 😄
10:50 in the video. "Honestly this tiny little adorable tripod, is it's really cool" 😂
Also by middle 1917 they were probably aware of the development of the mp18 and perhaps hoped to aquire a number of those in the future from Germany
4:53 That is brilliant. Why design a new mechanism, when you can simply adapt something that the gun already has? After all, a grip safety already has a connection to the trigger mechanism.
This is what happens when you add alcohol to a bored engineer.
Yes, and I never imagined the word "adorable" would fit a tripod mounted machine gun, but here it certainly does.
Another firearm I didn't know even existed. Learn something new everytime I come over here! Too bad you couldn't shoot it!
I can just picture Ian mag dumping this contraption. The giggle factor would be off the charts.
13:30 Not sure if they did run into problems caused by the extended single-stack mag because they are upside down.
I can perfectly understand why such magazines would be troublesome if they were arranged traditionally and had to feed ammo working against gravity as this would require a ludicrously strong spring making reloading a pain in the neck, incur feeding problems or both.
You pronounced ''Budapest'' like a real Hungarian, very cool video Ian.
Can’t wait to see this at the BUG match!
We really need to get Mae or Othais from C&Rsenal to shoot this.
9:50 Those "traverse stops" look way to easy to lose. I'm surprised this one still has them!
Probably missing a retainer chain.
They are also easy to replace though. And being non essential nobody cares.