The British Sten gun was a very cheap, mass produced submachine gun that served the their armed forces throughout Word War Two.  The gun got its name from its designers, Major Reginald Sheppard and Harold Turpin who worked at Enfield Armory, hence the name STEN.

BLITZ PRODUCTION

Germany had overrun most of Europe with their Blitzkrieg (lightning war) operation. They were equipped with top quality weapons and were utilizing the best cutting edge technology of the day. No expense was spared by Hitler on his mighty war machine and the Nazi forces were rapidly advancing and expanding their evil empire across Europe.

War had been declared on Germany by Britain and Britain had then to modernize their armed forces, they had outdated weaponry and were still operating with an old fashioned Victorian mindset, with retarded attributes and values. Britain's army never even had a submachine gun just the bolt action Lee Enfield rifle, Webley revolvers and Vickers .303 machine guns...all used in Word War One.

One of Britain's top priorities was to arm her forces with an adequate submachine gun and the tenders were rapidly put out. Britain was short of high grade materials and did not have the right amount of skilled workers to produce what was needed in such a short space of time.

Harold Turpin was the main designer who sat at his table at home on December 12th 1940, got his pencil out and designed the Sten gun for approval by the British Ministry of Defense.

The MKI Sten gun was the first design for the new submachine gun. The main housing of the gun was practically made from exhaust pipe ( tailpipe) tubing, the guns mainspring was made by Flexlow Ltd   who were a bed spring manufacturer. Nothing on the gun was forged or made with expensive machines, or  tools, all the parts were stamped out and fabricated from basic elements. Even the screws were standard BA sizes that were available in any hardware store.

Overall it was simple yet ingenious improvisation and Britain was now in a good position to be able to arm itself with a submachine gun.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

However, the MKI Sten was still not simple enough and needed to be simplified. The initially designed Sten gun used wood on the shoulder stock and grip, it was a full length gun that incorporated a flash hider and sophisticated barrel shroud...all this had to go. Harold Turpin was told by the British Ministry of Defense to simplify it. Turpin went away, got his pencil out again and indeed simplified it.

Turpin came up with the MKII Sten gun, it was easy to assemble and even easier to use. Each one cost just two pounds and seven shillings to make, the old military saying "Your gun is made by the cheapest bidder " could never have been more true with the Sten gun. Either cheap and cheerful or cheap and nasty mattered not, it did what it was designed to do and that was to fire 600 bullets down range every minute.

In many ways, the Sten gun had broken away from traditional British designs and was seen as a radical approach to warfare. Never before had Britain quickly got into the mass producing of a weapon and at such short notice...it was an introduction to modern warfare and it came as a shock.

The Sten gun was quickly issued to British troops and was also parachuted into Nazi occupied Europe to arm the French Resistance and all other partisans who were fighting against the Nazis. The Sten gun became the icon of allied resistance and its celebrity status grew.

Below is an image of a French resistance member holding a Sten gun.  This photo was probably taken some time during the liberation in 1945.

The Sten gun was adopted by the British Army soon after their retreat from Dunkirk in France, at that time the British did not have a submachine gun of their own.

ITS NOT A TOY!

The main factory that actually produced the Sten gun was actually a toy company owned by Lines Bros Ltd  and they made the Tri-Ang  range of toys.

Of course they were only ever used to making children's pedal cars, tricycles, bicycles, wooden trains and toy cars. Lines Bros Ltd  with their Tri-Ang  toys was probably the largest toy factory in the world at that time and indeed supplied toys all over the world...before the war came along.

Mr. Walter Lines, the factory owner immediately saw ways to improve the Sten gun. He modified it and made improvements to it, having never designed a gun in his life before he did quite well. He reduced the amount of parts needed from sixty-nine down to forty-eight, hence the gun was now even easier and cheaper to manufacture.

Below is an image of the Sten gun in its basic " take down " parts.  Comprising of the main receiver and trigger assembly, barrel assembly, mainspring, bolt, cocking lug, shoulder stock, fixing rings and of course the magazine.  Small, light and highly manoeuvrable, it was an instant hit with the paratroopers.

When the British Ministry of Defense saw his new design modifications, they ordered half a million Sten guns right then and there. Therefore in early 1941, Lines Bros Ltd  started manufacturing the Sten gun.

Indeed, with the Tri-Ang  refinements and the in-house skills of the toy making workforce, the Sten gun went into full production.  As the Americans would say, it was a case of " More bang for your buck! "

The Sten gun was cheap, tacky and was rushed into production, it was not a very refined gun but at that stage with Britain's back to the wall, refinements were not an option.

The equivalent of the Sten gun was the German MP40, that was made from pressed steel and cutting edge technology.  The Sten on the other hand could literally be manufactured in somebody's garden shed from tailpipe tubes and bed springs.

The Sten gun was a very basic submachine gun, it was incredibly cheap and incredibly fast to manufacture.  It was designed to fire the same ammunition as the Germans used in their small arms, the 9mm Parabellum round.  So ammunition foraging would have been easier in occupied territory.

ALL JAMMED UP!

However, the gun was a temperamental weapon and was prone to jam and could also fire a chambered round if it was dropped.  Reliability was not one of the Sten guns better features, the gun had to be maintained and oiled on a regular basis. 

The ammunition had to be kept clean and magazines inserted correctly, also it was best not to hold the magazine when the gun was fired but to hold the shroud instead. Firing the Sten gun by grasping the magazine tended to wear the magazine catch, altering the angle of feed and causing a chambering failure.

A carbon build up on the breech or debris in the bolt raceway could also cause the gun to jam or misfire.  Dirt and dust in the chamber could cause a failure to feed a round into the chamber from the magazine.

The Sten gun however earned respect as well as disgruntlement by the armed forces that used it.  The cheapness of the design made it easy to disassemble, easy to repair, easy to clean and easy to operate.  The Sten gun was basically an effective weapon and saw service in all the battles that the British fought during WWII.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

The Sten gun was an ideal weapon to be used behind enemy lines, especially with the fully suppressed version that was literally as quiet as a mouse when it was fired.  It is reported that the only sound that could be heard when the suppressed Sten gun is fired is the clicking of the firing pin as it strikes the cartridges in the chamber.  Below is an image of a suppressed/silenced Sten gun, called the MKIIS.

The barrel shroud had to be covered with canvas as the suppressor heated up rapidly when the gun was fired.  Because the Germans used the same 9mm ammunition, they also put these weapons to use when they captured them. The Germans then designated the Sten gun as the MP751.

Below is shown the four basic components of the Sten Gun...the barrel, the receiver, the magazine and the shoulder stock. In this state, the gun could be stashed away quite easily into an every day holdall or briefcase.

Nearly all British Special Forces were crying out for these silenced Sten guns as it was a great advantage to shoot and kill your enemy and not to give your position away. Before the advent of the Sten gun, nothing was really available like this to British Special Forces..

The British had a pistol called the single shot Welrod  pistol, shown below, that was a dedicated suppressed weapon for covert commando use.

However, the Welrod was a specialist gun and was not readily available, the Sten gun however, was in plentiful supply and was easy for the manufacturer to convert into silenced gun.  These suppressed Sten guns were used on a multitude of different Commando operations during World War Two.

The suppressor was not fitted on by the operative, instead it was an integral part of the gun, manufactured to be a dedicated silenced gun. For best effects it fired subsonic ammunition that travelled below the speed of sound so that there was no sonic boom.

The Sten gun was made in a wide amount of variations as the war progressed with shorter or longer barrels and slight improvements and modifications along the way.  The Sten gun actually advanced to a MK IV version before the wars end.

Overall it was a useful and prolific weapon that served its country well.  It also served other peoples countries well, as many Sten guns were used by those who found them.  Ammunition was not too hard to come by and the Sten gun was hence put to good use.

Below is shown the Sten gun in the hands of a partisan who diligently takes aim whilst holding the gun correctly.

Sometimes captured guns were use against the very people who were issued with them, such is the diversity of war.

SUPPLEMENTARY

It may be interesting to note that the British Armies Sterling L2A3 MK IV 9mm submachine gun was heavily influenced by the Sten Gun, this becomes quite apparent from the images below.

The Sterling L2A3 MK IV served the British army from 1956 until 1994.  It was not a very accurate weapon as it fired from an open bolt in that when the trigger was pulled the bolt had to travel forward, collect a round from the magazine, position it in the breech where the firing pin then fired off the round.

A modern German Heckler and Koch MP5 for example, fires from a closed bolt in that the round is already situated in the breech with the internal hammer cocked, pulling the trigger merely allows the hammer to hit the primer to fire off the round. Below is the Sterling L2A3 MK IV with its bulky shoulder stock extended, the L2A3 was also quite heavy at six pounds.

In all probability, the British army adopted this weapon as it was just as cheap to make as the Sten.  All four hundred thousand of them served the British Army for thirty eight long arduous years until it was finally replaced by the equally cheap and cheerful Enfield L85A1 (SA80) in 1994.  For more information on the Sten Gun visit Wikipedia.