One very prominent feature of the 20-mm (0.79-in)Breda gun was the long sight arm arrangement, which was meant to keep the gun sight in front of the aimer’s face at all angles of elevation. It worked very well, but was rather complex and heavy, and elsewhere much simpler design solutions were usually found.

One of the two standard Italian 20-mm (0.787-in) AA guns was the weapon known to the Italian army as the Cannone- Mitragliera da 20/65 modello 35 (Breda). It was first manufactured in 1934 by the Società Italiana Ernesto Breda of Brescia, a company that was no stranger to weapon production but whose staple activity was building locomotives and trucks. The Breda gun was designed as a dual-purpose weapon for use against ground and aircraft targets, and was taken into service by the Italian army in 1935.

The 20-mm Breda gun was a very effective weapon, and was much used by the Italian army. It had a rather complicated twin-wheeled carriage that could be towed into action behind a truck, but it was light enough to be manhandled over considerable distances and it could even be broken down into four pack loads for man carriage or mule transport. In action the gun required a team of three men: the aimer sat on the gun and used a complex telescopic sight incorporating a predictor function. Ammunition was fed into the gun on 12-round trays, and the feed mechanism contained the odd Italian feature of placing the spent cartridge case back into the tray once it had been fired. Exactly what function this feature was supposed to impart is uncertain, but it appeared on several Italian automatic weapons and at least had the advantage of keeping the gun position tidy. The Napoli Army Arsenal produced hundreds of kits to mount the Breda modello 35 20L.65 on SPA38 trucks

Against ground targets the gun fired armour-piercing rounds. Aircraft targets were engaged with a high explosive projectile that incorporated a very sensitive percussion fuse to operate against light aircraft structures. The projectile also had a self-destruct feature if it did not hit a target. The tripod platform of the gun provided a steady base for firing, and against aircraft the gun proved to be very successful. Against tanks it was less effective, but any weapons captured by the Allies during the North African campaigns were usually mounted on the light armoured cars of the day to provide them with more offensive capability than that provided by the usual machine-guns, The Germans also took over numbers of Breda guns for their own use in North Africa under the designation 2-cm Breda (i), and the Italian surrender of 1943 meant that all guns on the Italian mainland immediately changed to German use. Much farther afield, some Breda guns were also used by various of the warring Chinese military factions.

Apart from the modello 35 there was also a modello 39. This was a much more complex weapon: it used the same gun as before, but allied to a static pedestal-type mounting on which the gun itself was suspended below curved arms that carried the sighting system. This version was usually retained for the defence of the Italian mainland.

Specification

Breda modello 1935

Calibre: 20 mm (0.787 in)

Length of piece: 1.30 m (51.2 in)

Weight: in action 307.35 kg (678 lb)

Elevation:-10° to+80°

Traverse: 360°

Muzzle velocity: 830-850 m (2,723-2,789 ft) per second

Maximum effective ceiling: 2500 m (8,202ft)

Rate of fire: (cyclic) 200-220 rpm

Projectile weight: 0.135 kg (0.298 lb)

20 mm L.65 Breda AA/AT-Gun A.P. (armour piercing) round penetrated 36 mm [0 to 100 metres range and 0 degrees inclination of armour]