Out of interest chaps;
- when did the brits stop using the sten?
2)And was there an immediate change over to the sterling, and if there wasn’t what was used between the sten and the sterling?
Would be interested in the answers,
cheers student-scaley
The Brits only stopped using the STEN in the 1960s.
There was no intermediate design adopted.
In the case of the US, when the M3 submachinegun was adopted as standard, the Thompson was redesignated as “limited standard” or “substitute standard”. Worth a read: http://www.nfatoys.com/tsmg/web/obsolete.htm
Particularly:
Interestingly, even though the STEN was ultimately rejected by the Army, in a series of tests where the guns were rated on a scale of 100, the Thompson scored a 57, while the STEN scored an 88, highest of all guns tested.
hmmm…
on modern marvels: guns of wwii
wwii vets said the thompson was very much liked through out the war and was a prized weapon to have. they pretty much said it was like gold to soldiers.
though i guess that rating might have to do with how expensive the thompson was , and how complicated it was to create compared to the sten.
hmm, now i want to know what was in those test :shock:
And I would think they’d need weapons that they can readily capture, or strip dead Germans of, ammunition for (9x19mm)…
I once saw footage of Vichy French police (Gendarmes?) carrying Stens as they escorted Resistance prisoners. I was wondering if anybody knew if the Sten was produced by the Axis for the same reasons it was produced by the British? Done as a cheap, easy to produce weapon that gave occupation troops/collaborator security forces firepower… Or did these have to be captured models?
These will have been captured – the Gerät Potsdam (the exact German copy of the Mark two) was secret and destined for use by stay-behind units.
The MP 3008 is another STEN derivative, except that the magazine is mounted vertically:
This was mainly done due to logistics. Northern Africa and later Italy were at the end of the American chain of supply and therefore .45 cal ammo was freely available. The supply people didn´t want to introduce another calibre into the theatre. On the other hand Stens were airdropped to Italian partisans, who then could use captured German or Italian ammunition.
Jan
I remember seeing a sten veriant in Australia that was similar to the German knock off except the vertical mag was mounted on top I think it was called the Aus (oz) sten and was produced for jungle op’s, pics or links any one.
The Owen smg is the one you’re thinking of, the Austen had a side mounted mag & an MP40 style folding butt.
Thanks cuts your right it was in fact the Owen I was thinking of.
So? It’s Britishised MP28! What’s that got to do with the British affording it, which was your original contention?[/quote]
Stoatman,
If you compare a Sten and a Lanchester MP, you’ll notice that their design is quite different, especially the trigger mechanism. The only reason why the Sten could use Lanchester magazines was a specification, which demanded that existing Lanchester magazines had to be accepted by the gun. On the other hand a 50 round Lanchester magazine is quite a bit longer than a 30 round Sten magazine and makes the weapon really arkward to handle. Pratchett had the right idea with using his double row magazine in what eventually became the Sterling SMG, since it was much less sensitive to dirt and the feed lips ( a weak point of all Sten models) were much stronger and less likely to get bent through rough handling (the Sten requires a feed angle of exactly 8°, if the feed lips are bent the weapon will jam).
Jan
I don’t think I ever said that the STEN and the MP 28/Lanchester were very similar, only that:
a) the Lanchester is a Britishised MP 28
b) the STEN is a heavily modified MP28
To expand on point b, pretty much every European SMG design incorporating a cylindrical bolt with means to rotate the bolt to “safe” the weapon has MP 28 blood in it.
Which is why I’ve always though it odd that the RN adopted it.
If a boarding party was runnng through the companionways of a ship the huge magazine is ever likely to be in the way.
By the way, Pratchett is better at Discworld than smg designs. 
Thanks for the info Stoatman.
It seems the STEN is disdained here by most as cheap, but honestly I love the weapon…
Stoatman,
AFAIR, even the Villa Perosa SMG, the first gun using a heavy breech block just acting through it’s mass and the ancestor of all SMGs used a tubular receiver. It is simply the easiest way to design a receiver, just use a piece of pipe.
Jan
I had no idea that we were having an intimate discussion Ironfist, but just remember it definitely doesn’t mean we’ll be taking long showers together late into the night.
This hapens to be a publicly accessible website and as such I believe you are the one who will have to get used to the fact that other people will stick their oar in from time to time.
If you didn’t write utter kak I wouldn’t disagree with it now would I ?
You started posting inaccuracies and didn’t, wouldn’t, or as is most likely, couldn’t back them up.
This is entirely consistent with trolling actvity.
As for telling me to not to argue…? Get in your box !
‘Stick to the facts’ ? That’s a bit rich considering your unsupported claims,
however I don’t believe I mentioned anything to do with your membership of this site did I ?
However once again the season of goodwill to all has settled on me and I shall ‘stick to the facts’:
a. You yourself set a baseline here:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1153
Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 5:39 pm
(My bold)
b. A week later you seem to have made little or no headway with active research:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1153
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:30 pm
c. Your next three weeks must have been sleepless to have conducted so many interviews:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1153&start=15
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:23 pm
d. You followed this with a bit of a dropped bollock concerning the production figures for the weapons, but perhaps you have access to information that other people haven’t seen, if so would you care to share it with us ?
http://www.ww2incolor.com/phpBB2/posting.php?mode=quote&p=33417
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 5:16 pm
To summarise:
- So far you’ve not supplied any gen on your claims that would appear to clash with many authoritative works published by established firearms authors.
- In response to polite requests for sources you challenge those asking for the gen to supply theirs.
- You continue to post while ‘conveniently’ fogetting to post the sources previously repeatedly requested.
- You instruct other people what to do and how to behave, though Fonda-esquely not adhering to the guidelines yourself.
As noted above, all classic trolling behaviour.
Do you have any relatives in the US that are ‘fans of the M1 carbine’ ?
Finally, would you care to share with us some of the creditable sources from which you have gleaned your bounteous information ?[/quote]
I know it’s a bit infra dig to quote oneself, but I thought I’d give Ironman, I’m sorry, IronFist sufficient time to collect his thoughts and sources.
That he has not posted since can only it imagine it being due to his his deep and incisive research into the subject.
Someone did mention that the was a possibility of his being ‘related’ to earlier posters that have subsequently been give the Site Honourable (?) Indication of Tediousness.
The other suggestion was that IronFist might have rejoined under another username.
If you are you there IronFist please let us know, I’d hate to be exchanging views with someone who does not carry the courage of their convictions and are too jack to stand by their opinions.
IRONFIST hasnt posted here since Dec 30th and as far as I can tell is no-one else.
According to many long conversations that I had with my late father the sten had many attributes that are much under reported.
Certainly the sten was a simple weapon that was built in many variants.
There were variants with wooden fittings, folding fittings, sileners and even a sten bayonet.
There were also versions that were built to be cheap and light so that the maximum number would fit into a parachute container for dropping into Europe by air.
Amongst the great things about the sten were the following.
It was an allied weapon designed to use ammunition captured from the enemy; a major advantage in many situations.
It was designed to be able to be mass produced by anyone with a lathe and half an ounce of common sense. Plans were dropped into Europe so that weapons could be built ocally.
It was a very successful close quarter weapon; it was never designed to be an open field weapon depsite the later expectations.
It would work when it had been dropped in mud, sand or water. More advanced weapons wil not do this.
So, whilst a lot of soldiers preferred the captured German smg of the Thompson my father, who was a marksman and weapons instructor, always said that the sten was his favoutite weapon because whilst it had a slight tendency to jam or misfire it always performed in the same way regardless of how filthy it was. In short, clean or dirty, ill loaded magazine or even foreign ammunition you always new what to expect.
Finally, anothe rpoint my father raised was that in close quarter fighting you held the sten against your belt buckle and charged in firing, where ever you wet it went and fired. This was not the case with the higher charge laoded Thompson of the SME/Bren weapons which were open field weapons.
My father loved his Sten even though his main weapon was the SMLE.
A nice video of this ugly but effective weapon.
http://www.zippyvideos.com/4791606274573236/sten_in_action./
The only words spoken in the vid:- “Pretty good, huh ?”
I’d have been more impressed if he’d have use reactive tgts or shown the results of the shooting.
At least it wasn’t some gangster rap slang, although I’d been expecting something along these lines as the only wrong way to hold the weapon that he didn’t try was on it’s side one handed.