While tens of thousands of Stens were airdropped into Nazi-occupied Europe by the Allies, underground movements actually set up secret workshops to manufacture their own copies of the weapon. A French guerrilla uses a Sten during the 1944 battle for Paris. A suppressed version was also manufactured as well as a super compact pistol-sized variant known as the Mk. Vs could also be fitted with a socket-style bayonet and featured a small angled mirror on the muzzle that enabled the user to peek around corners. V with an all-wooden stock and fore and aft pistol grips. II, an Australian edition known as the AuSten gun, as well as the more rugged and reliable Mk. These include a Canadian version of the Mk. II Sten”, there were at least six different variants of the weapon produced during the war. Many VersionsĪlthough originally rushed into production under the designation “Mk. The guns would discharge on impact and rattle away in every direction until empty. A squad of infantrymen could clear a room by simply tossing one or two loaded and cocked Stens through a door or window. Surprisingly, Commonwealth troops eventually used this shortcoming to their advantage in combat. The guns had an unfortunate tendency to blaze through an entire clip when dropped, jostled or even just set down carelessly. In addition to being hard on the eyes, Stens were prone to jams, misfires and stoppages. The shop floor of a British sten gun factory. Tommies on the other hand were less than enthusiastic about the weapon. Despite this, the British public adored its homegrown submachine gun. Even Germany’s entirely utilitarian looking MP-40 was considerably more handsome than the ungainly Sten. sort of)Īwkward and unsightly, the Sten’s all metal construction, from the tip of its stubby barrel to end of its skeleton butt stock, was a clear departure from the more elegant looking American Thompson SMG or the Royal Navy’s Lanchester (which itself was a direct copy of Germany’s First World War era MP-18 ‘machine pistol’). (Image source: WikiCommons) Ugly, But it Works (umm…. A British para charges forward with a Sten. What’s more, Stens required almost no oiling, making them a snap to maintain in the field. Early variants of the gun were built with fewer than 50 parts. Made from cheap, stamped-metal parts and requiring only a bit of welding, a single Sten could be produced at a workbench by a semi-skilled labourer in few hours - a fully outfitted factory could produce hundreds of the weapons in a shift. (Image source: WikiCommons) The Simplest SMG A factory worker shows off a new Sten gun. “Sten” is actually an acronym for its inventors: Reginald Shepherd and Harold Turpin of the Royal Small Arms Factory of Enfield (Shepherd, Turpin and Enfield = “Sten”). The Sten gun was Britain’s principal sub-machine gun of World War Two. Here are some other facts about the venerable Sten. The weapon would serve in every theatre and go on to become the most recognizable British small arm of the war. In fact, nearly five million Stens were manufactured before the end of 1945. By comparison, the American M1A1 Thompson went for a staggering $200 per unit in 1940! Īnd while by October of 1940, Hitler had postponed his plans for a cross-channel invasion, Allied factories continued to crank out Stens by the thousands and would do so for the next five years. Cleverly chambered for German 9 mm pistol ammunition, the Sten was effective to about 100 meters (300 feet).Īt the time, each Sten gun cost as little as £2 ($10) to produce – roughly equal to about $130 or £80 today. The three-kilogram, all-metal weapon fired eight rounds per second from a horizontally-loaded, 32-round magazine. But to do so, the nation would need weapons… and lots of them - weapons like the Sten gun.įirst dreamed up in the opening months of the war and rushed into production during the Battle of Britain, the Sten was a bargain-basement sub-machine gun that could be produced quickly and in great numbers. WITH A NAZI invasion of the United Kingdom all but certain in the summer of 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously vowed that Britons would fight the Axis on the beaches, landing grounds, fields, streets and hills of England. “Nearly 5 million Stens were manufactured before the end of 1945.” Britain produced nearly 5 million Sten guns during World War Two.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |