FUCILE MODELLO 1941
A note from the Author:
The Fucile Mod. 41 in 6.5 was called interchangeably "Fucile Mod. 41" and "Fucile mod. 91/41" during the short span of time when the Army was distributing it to various units.
DEVELOPMENT
To understand the adoption and production of the Fucile mod.91/41 we have to look back at what was going on in the late 30s in the Italian Army. As we saw in the Fucile corto mod.38 development, the Italian Army was looking to reform the Squad equipment and tactics around the 7.35 round, adopting a new bolt action rifle for the bulk of the squad (that will become the Fucile corto mod. 38) accompanying the Breda 30, and by adopting a brand new, top notch Semiautomatic rifle to equip the best (Allegedly 3) shooters of the squad.
​
This Semiautomatic rifle resulted to be the Armaguerra Mod. 1939, of whom 103,000 7.35x51 units were ordered in 1939.
The A.R.M.A.Guerra had just managed to gather the necessary funds and just completed the first lines of production of a proper factory in Cremona, when the whole mod.38/ 7.35 project was ditched completely.
This of course was a harsh economical issue both for Armaguerra (that invested a lot in the new Cremona plants) and for the Italian government, that basically broke a 12 million liras (about $10 million) contract overnight, with all the penalties that would cause.
The War Ministry also was in a conundrum on itself: they were issuing tons of brand new Fucile corto mod.91/38 in 6,5x52, but none of the "specialised" rifles for the best shooters of the squad, quite useful in the long ranges of mountain and desert terrains where the Italian Army was deployed to.
The mod.91/38 rifle barrel was designed to be exceptionally good with the 7.35x51 round, but wasn't ideal to completely exploit the old 6,5x52 round potential. That, plus the lack of adjustable sights, didn't help in a sharpshooting role as the chief of staff required.
This was partially covered by keeping the use of old Mod. 1891 rifles, but definetly wasn't the final solution they hoped for.
Terni started producing new Mod. 1891 parts ( we have plenty of 1941 mod.91 barrels around, mostly recycled after the war as trainers) both for a possible reprisal of Fucile mod.91 production but also to repair the old ones. Meanwhile, the war ministry was crunching numbers and making brain storming with the Terni R&D departments to get a hold of all these problems.
The solution they came up with was a compromise that would solve the Armaguerra financial conundrum while giving the infantry squad the rifle it needed: The Fucile mod. 91/40.
Fucile mod. 40
Developed by Terni technician Roberto Boragine, the Fucile mod. 40 (we'll talk about the Mod. 41 later) was the merging of the Armaguerra mod. 39 service concept with a Fucile mod.91.
It kept the Armaguerra mod.39 total length and sights distance ( 1175mm and 620mm of the m40 vs 1170mm and 600mm of the AG m39), its rear sights (rotary tangent sights, with a rotating dial sorta similar to Ag m/42 Ljungman ones) gradutated from 100 to 500meters, while using the Carcano Action, barrel profile (with the now standard constant twist rifling and rounded barrel shank) and mod.1891 stock, shortened to the new barrel length.
​This rifle, despite being formally adopted, remained at the prototype/pre-production stage, with just a handful produced.
Fucile Mod. 41
​The final solution was the mod. 41 which swapped the mod. 40 sight with a proprietary adjustable sights similar to the ones on the Moschettos, but slightly higher, shorter (to fit the mod. 40 sights height and length) and graduated from 300m to 1000m, with a combat sight of 200m ( as the previous Armaguerra mod. 39). Also, side sling swivels were added to ease the use of the rifle for all corps.
PRODUCTION AND USE
The rifle was produced by the Terni Arsenal and by S.A. Armaguerra - Cremona in about 925k units.
Terni started production in 1941 (serial prefixes: A-Z, AA-BH) and stopped for the Italian Armstice on September 8th 1943, with most of the Terni machineries consequently stolen from the germans.
Armaguerra produced it from 1942, managing to produce and delivery about 50,000 guns before September 8th 1943, with about 6,000 near completion (QA-QG). When the germans took over the factory, they managed to produce between 41,850 rifles between November 1943 and November 1944, when they took away the Armaguerra machineries to Vipiteno and Campione del Garda.
​
These rifles, like the carbines, no longer clearly show the manufacturer and year of production, starting from March-April 1943; this was probably as a preventive measure after the failure of the North African campaign and the possibility of a mainland invasion.
Examples of Terni Markings
Examples of Armaguerra Markings
Some authors claim that the Fucile mod.91/41 was allegedly issued at first to infantry units of the Alpini corp, hence the nickname "Alpine rifle" that some collectors use; if that was true, it would have been issued to the Monte Cervino Ski battalion (Elite unit of the alpini, also issued with top notch equipments of WW2, like Vibram rubber soled boots).
Through proper historical research, finding photographic or documental evidences of the rifle being issued widely before July 1943 is really difficult among all army units, Alpini included.
Some books claim to show pre-1943 pics of 91/41 but, as for now, they're actually showing mod.91 long rifles or showing pics taken after July 1943. mislabeled.
In fact, a March 1943 document from the Italian Army High command claims that "The Fucile mod. 91/41, cal. 6.5 [...] was realized to replace the Fucile mod.91 [...]. The Chief of Staff must yet determine to which units it will be distributed.".
The rifle appears blatantly for the first time in summer 1943, in the hands of rear line units, either in training or in crowd control activities: the most famous is a series of pics of an Infantry unit armed with mod.41 patrolling the streets of Milan on July 27, in order to control the civil unrest and wild partying after the fall of Mussolini on July 25th.
​After September 8th 1943, Army warehouses were opened wide, and thousands upon thousands of brand new rifles and SMGs were either captured by the germans and sent to the fatherland or distributed to the new Italian armies, both those that aligned with the Allied in the south and those that sided with the Axis forces in the north.
The fucile mod.91/41 is absolutely predominant in pictures of Italian partisans, Italian fascist militias and sometimes even in volkssturm units or regular german army units (Mostly in the hands of SS-Polizei regiments).
