9mm Sten Sub-Machine Gun

STEN is an acronym of - Major R.V. Shepherd, Mr. Harold Turpin & the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield. Shepherd & Turpin are the credited designers of the weapon and Enfield the manufacturers although Stens were produced in Canada and hand made by Partisans in some countries. The need for a cheap Sub-Machine Gun was made clear after America's entry in to the war in 1941 when Britain was buying up all the available Thompsons it could get it's hands on. This put a strain on Thompson production and so the Sten came along at just the right time. Easy to manufacture it was made of Stamped Metal Parts that were welded together to make the basic shape with other components added afterwards. In it's most basic version (Mk III) it only had 47 working parts. About 4 million Stens were produced seeing service in to the Korean war. Many Partisans even made their own copied versions with about 2500 of these seeing use in Poland during the Warsaw uprising. It became a standard British Army weapon from 1942 and equipped most Infantry Units.

 

It proved to be an incredibly rugged and durable weapon, far exceeding expectations as it was only intended as a stop gap. Simple to operate and maintain it was popular with the troops who used it and the prefered weapon of some units like Royal Marine Commandoes & Paratroops or OSS & SOE Operatives in Covert Operations.



Sten Marks -




Left to Right - Sten Mk I & II, Mk III & Mk V.

There was no Mk IV as all Mk IV's were experimental versions and never put in to production.

Calibre/Ammunition - 9mm/Luger Parabellum

Rate of Fire - Model Dependant/500 rpm

Efective Range - 32 - 50 Yards

 

Brian Guy

How about Brian Guy on these guns though:

With the picture of Normandy building up in the BG thread I'm thinking it's easy to guess how tragedy might occur with a gun that is not safe to keep loaded.
I'd really like to ask Brian what the possibilities were for getting hold of a Thompson on the black market at the time. And the cost, a month's wages maybe ?

 

I didn't see that thread. Most of the info comes from a Wikipedia article. I suspect that because of it's simple construction it may well have been prone to malfunctions in the earlier models.

 

Sten

Hate to pour cold water on your topic mate, since you have took the time to research and post it. But the Sten was a very un-reliable weapon. Prone to jams and mis-fires.

There were instances of the weapon being accidentally dropped and firing as a result! Just as Brian Guy has said.
It was mass-produced..felt and fired like mass-produced as well! It was not a popular weapon during my time with the British army.

It was later replaced by the Sterling sub machine gun. No doubt some-one will do the research on this weapon in the future? ... but suffice to say it was a far better weapon than the old Sten.

The Sterling had a folding stock, which made it ideal for drivers etc. Weighed 6 lbs and fired 9 mm ammunition. It was accurate at 100 yards.

 

A well-maintained Sten gun is a devastating close-range weapon. If a Sten does jam with the bolt forward, standard practice to clear it is as follows: tilt the Sten to the right to allow gravity to pull jammed rounds out through the cartridge ejection port, whilst recocking the weapon. Then the weapon is fired again as normal.