Overall, the weapon weighed a manageable 8lb and featured a length of 35.5 inches. Performance specs included a rate-of-fire of 900 rounds-per-minute and a muzzle velocity of 990 feet per second. The magazine held 25 ready-to-fire rounds.
The OVP was available in some number during 1918, the war's final year, but did not see formal issuance until the early 1920s. Like other Great War weapons, it had an extended service life and saw action into the early campaigns of World War 2 (1939-1945). The Italians fielded the type duirng its "Abyssinian War" against Ethiopia (the "Second Italo-Ehtiopian War" of 1935-1936) and the weapon continued to pop up during the North African campaign. By this point, the series was more or less supplanted by better-performing submachine guns offered by Beretta and the OVP was encountered much less after 1941.
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