"Sten" Topic

"In 1940 Britain was in grave danger of invasion and every type of weapon was scarce. The only submachine- guns available were US Thompsons, and though, a hurried design effort had produced the Lanchester from the German MP 28 this was too expensive in factory effort to make in quantity. There was a desperate need for something simple and effective, and in January 1941 the Design Dep­artment of the Royal Small Arms Factory announced that they had found an, answer and had made prototypes. This was a much simplified Lanchester, coupled with some ideas from a captured MP 40; in particular the manufacturing processes of the MP 40 were accepted to the new weapon and stampings and components that could be subcontracted in their entirety were used to the full.

The gun was attractively light and compact and a limited endurance trial of 5000 rounds seemed to prove the soundness of the design. It was named the Sten, the letters being taken from the surnames of the two designers (Major R V Shepherd and Mr H J Turpin, who did most of the detailed work) and the location of the Enfield factory. The overriding requirement for the Sten was simplicity of manufacture and the use of easily available materials. The resulting gun must have horrified the traditional gun makers since it was crude in the extreme; but it worked, though the Mark I had a number of elaborations which soon proved to be of little or no use. There was a folding forehand grip, ­l conical flash-hider and some wooden furniture.

The basic mechanism set the pattern for the 3 million or so which followed. The blowback system of operation used a heavy bolt and a fairly strong return spring, a combination which gave a rate of fire of about 550 rds/min and ensured that the working parts were tolerant of dirt, dust, snow, mud and general neglect. The barrel was short clod was held in a tubular metal sleeve, and the body was another similar metal tube. The only machined p­arts were the bolt ­and barrel; everything else was stamped or pressed and all joins were by pinning or welding. It was quickly found that manufacture of most of the components could be contracted out to little machine shops and even to large garages around the country. These parts were all gathered in one of the main factories for fitting together, and to be mated with the barrels which held to be made on special machines. The first production models were turned out from BSA in the l­ate summer of 1941 and from then on by both BSA in Birmingham and Enfield in quantity…"

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Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

a very cool smg.

Wooden furniture?

Perhaps they needed a spot to sit while firing?

I don't remember anything made of wood on a Sten,time to go look.

A quick look at Wikipedia states the mark 1 had a wooden foregrip, so that is probably what was meant.

Sten mk5 ….. Wooden Stock rear grip and fore grip …..

Used by airborne troops amongst others….front grip was prone to breaking so was eventually discontinued…….entered service 1944
Chris

Found the Wooden Furniture line verbatim in Wikipedia. Not sure if that counts a plagiarism or not and don't care enough to find out.

The Mk 5 'Airborne' version with wooden furniture was a very popular trade item and was deeply coveted by German troops, apparently.