@@jarink1 ...I thought "Not, NOW, this is the 20th century, we're past the need for plug bayonets!" And then I pictured a STEN with a Brown Bess style socket bayonet.
The push-through charging handle is such an elegant solution, as is the updated stock- someone had a few pints, ranted to his friends, then vanished into his shed to turn it into reality
@@borjesvensson8661 Nope, the MP40 used a second charging handle notch that was close enough to not fire the gun if jarred loose. The push through bolt safety came about after a number of British soldiers managed to shoot themselves with this beer-can bullet hose, including one who dropped it off the back of a truck in Italy and was killed when the bullet went through his abdomen.
@@cammobunker looked it up. The mp40 improved saftey was a push through handle but engaged in a noch above the charging handle slot. You did not lift up the handle into the slot but pushed it through. Implemented by 42
My grandmother was in SOE but prior to that before the war she lived in Northern France. When the Nazis swept through France, she escaped on a fishing boat. She was sent to work at ROF Fazakerley manufacturing & testing Sten MkII's until she was noticed by some people in the British govt. She got recruited by SOE & she was trained by them. They parachuted her back to Northern France in the Cotentin peninsula where she lived prior to the war to report on Nazi positions, units, numbers etc. She was transmitting information back to Britain from 1943 & right on D-Day. She met a small group of US Paratoopers on the night of the 5th of June & she was surprised that the maps she was shown had Nazi positions that she sent off to Britain. She was helping the US Paratroopers where they needed to go as the sign posts had been changed by the Nazis & told them where to avoid. She met up with US Forces from Utah Beach by mid morning on the 6th June. From my grandmother's accounts, she said the Sten wasn't pretty but it was very versatile for the work she was doing. It was the workhorse for SOE & the French Resistance. Ian, thank you for bringing us the Sten series. Those who hate them have never used one or been at the wrong end of one.
Demonstrating his ingeinuity and occasional boderline insanity my late brother attempted to make his own Sten gun in school metal working class. Thankfully, this was back in 1960s England so although he was told to stop and it was scrapped he wasn't even punished. The teacher was actually quite impressed and said the final thing would have been a working smooth bore smg albeit thankfully free of any chance of being tested due to lack of any ammunition. This in more than one way led to him being 'encouraged ' to join the army at 15 for training eventually as a gun fitter working with 105mm guns. The local police were not sorry to see him shipped off to Aldershot. Rest in peace Freddy, you were one of a kind.
Japan has craftsmen who spend a lifetime studying and practicing the same craft and become a master. Britain has three men in a shed that can make anything.
I want to shout out the designs and drafters here. This was WAY before CAD and quick prototyping. These guys had to think of the part, draw enough of the part to have it made, test the part, refine it, then draw it again for serial production. Given the time frame of design and prototyping here, my guess these guys were sustaining themselves with cigarettes, sherry, cucumber sandwiches, and adrenaline. They had to be wrecked by the time they get to the Mark 2.
@@patrickporter1864 Even then, thinking up and prototyping the takedown system, including drawings with measurements and tolerances, is a lot of work to pull off in a matter of days.
For shame! You didn't invoke the full qualified name of _the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history._
No, that only applies to Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history.
Thank you for this series. The MkII has a certain elegance of simplicity. A set of lockup garages behind where I lived once were set up to make MkII butts staffed by pensioners and housewives in alternating shifts to allow for child care. Sheet stamped out by manual fly presses and tubing cut to length. The length was set to correspond with standard steel tubing lengths. The women were used more for welding than cutting/stamping. All fitted into a simple jig. Then delivered by wheel barrow to a receiver sub contractor in a local commercial garage. A small brick above ground shelter was built at the end of the lane against air attack. Think of a thick wall public toilet, for which it doubtless doubled. No heating and poor lighting in the work lockups.
There is something very inspiring about the british homefront, the amount of effort those who could not fight put into making sure those who could where armed and fed and cared for is quite poetic.
I have to slightly disagree, elegance is not a word I would use for the STEN. Tin Toy is more appropriate. The trigger system is unnecessarily complicated and prone to malfunctions. I realised this some years ago when examining the trigger mechanism of an Aussie made Owen gun of WW2. Owen had three working parts involved to make it fire - Bolt, sear, and trigger, 4 parts if the safety catch is included. At the time I was involved in the manufacture of STEN Mk 2 with BFBs (dedicated blank firing barrel) for the movie industry.
@keithad6485 I doubt the tens of thousands of people shot by the Sten considered it a toy. Not elegant, but lethal. And what was needed in the circumstances.
@@jameshenderson4876 Like other 9mm submachine guns, very short range, In Aussie Army we were taught it was a waste of ammo to attempt to engage a target beyond 50 metres with a submachine gun, and this was the extreme range. I was using the term tin toy to make a point that the STEN could not be called elegant. In fact, I cannot think of any submachine gun which could be called elegant, no precision firing with them. If simplicity is elegance, then the firing mechanism of the Owen gun could be described as elegant. So few working parts.
Reminds me of the basically same push-through safety used on the Savage/Stevens/Springfield Model 87/187/387 series of semiauto .22LR rimfire rifles. 👍
I'm really enjoying this Sten gun series. Especially the "make it simpler" points. It would be funny to get some classic infomercial lines in there. "Further reductions" "But wait, there's less"
@@tisFrancesfault I heard that before but with grass clippings, don´t think there is reliable source for that. There is a police report that was found few years back that states "The second perpetrator attempted to fire an machine pistol at the occupants of the car, but the round jammed in the barrel." Without elaborating further, one thinks they would mention foreign object if it was there.
My mother in law was in SOE, although she was based in the UK she still had one of these over 50 years after the war ended, she never handed it in and they never asked for it. She said she was keeping it, just in case. I never asked in case of what exactly
Hi Ian, I've personally handled the Sten Winston Churchill was photographed with. It was presented to him as a gift. Some years later it ended up in the collection of a friend of mine who happened to be a section 5 gun smith and armourer.
@@michaelprobert4014 he is pro Austrian painter. That's what he is getting at. I don't like either and unlike him have listened to and know entire speeches by said painter.
Intresting fact, in the picture of Churchill firing the STEN. To his right looking on is his long standing bodyguard. A good chap and all round great egg.
Second interesting fact of the same photo, the man on the extreme left with his back to the camera? That's Harold Turpin. The man in uniform between Turpin and Churchill (and looking at Churchill) is Major Reginald Shepherd.
My grandfather told my dad that the Stens greatest failure was it’s inability to hold the necessary amount of lubrication, apparently after half a clip oil would seep its way south particularly through the trigger housing and the cocking mechanism which was also open to the elements.
TBF you can still go simpler and cruder than a Sten MK2. The MK3 for instance, without a dismountable barrel. Still even the MK3 had a fire selector, TMH cover, rifling, stock and rudimentary sights which could all be eliminated and it still be a moderately effective short-range lead hose. The real genius of the MK2 is that it was designed for distributed manufacture at the millions of small workshops full of hand tools and manually operated machines that were around the UK and the world at the time, and that the tolerances are designed to stack so that any part from any production run should work together without fettling.
The PPS-43 is simpler for mass production than the Sten. But in the same time incomparably more effective, user friendly and don't look like a plumber fart.
Didn't know bits like the charging handle variations, and that it was the magazine folding latch that acted as a ratchet. Fun to learn all these little specifics!
Also made in Dunedin, New Zealand, by Hillside Railways workshops. A pallet load of bodies was found there in the scrap yard in the 1970s. The joke was the Sten had three moving parts and one was the bullet.
@@steveaustin62Hillside made a lot of stuff for the war effort. There was a scare there, also in the 70s, when a box of mortar bombs were found. It turned out it was just the casings, no charge in them.
One key - but fairly obscure - reason why the Sten MkII bayonet wasn't more widely issued. The standard No4Mk1 bayonet was intended to be used with the Mk II handle for the entrenching tool, in order to more easily probe for mines. (That's the difference between a late war WWII pattern entrenching tool pattern and the P08 model - the WWI era pattern didn't have a bayonet lug setup, but in 1943, they decided to add a ferrule that had a short section of steel rod with bayonet lugs that matched the dimension of the last few inches of the No4MkI rifle) That's why even Bren gunners were issued the No4Mk1 spike bayonet; even though it won't mount on a Bren, it *will* mount on the entrenching tool handle
Thanks Ian for another great video. In your commentary you mention the possibility of loosing a round when mounting or dismounting a vehicle. This actually happened to my father, then an NCO in the RAF, at a wartime airfield in Tunisia. He placed the Sten in a tall lorry and as he heaved himself up it fell over and fired a single round that ricocheted around the cab before grazing his elbow. His only scratch in six years of service.
Interesting Sten tidbits. The bronze bolt is a little side note worth discussion. Sten magazines were made via a half dozen or so different methods, which makes it a challenge to collect all the variations. Also the Indian single stack magazine modification is an interesting historical oddity.
I had a Canadian made Sten. It had the loop style stock. Primitive in many ways but very reliable. Mags are cheap and built much heavier than most sub gun mags. I think you could use one to drive a nail! The gun was not particular about ammo. I shot old war time corrosive ammo, lead reloads, and hot sub gun ammo from foreign countries. A testament to war time engineering.
The push-thru charging handle was on Long Branch MkIIs in '44. I worked at a range that we had a few with that feature.They all had the rolled steel stock
My father recounted how - a short while after cessation of hostilities - a man he knew, who was only a few yards away, jumped off a lorry and shot himself in the stomach. I don't recall if he said it was a Sten, but hearing you say about such accidents reminded me of it.
In George MacDonald Frasers book on his experience fighting in Burma he recounts an incident where a Sten was dropped on its butt in a packed lorry and fired by its self , luckily all the shots went upwards and no one was hurt .
That was truly very interesting. The blend of the historical details was captivating. Born in 1944, I have always had huge regard for this weapon, despite its shortcomings.
Just the expression on his face and the way he speaks tells me he really enjoys sharing his vast knowledge and passion for this sort of thing. I enjoy it too.
Testing a Sten MkII against the PPS and the "Grease" gun in a course would be most interesting. Anyone done a course with all three comparing them? There are other such guns I would like to see compared but most are so rare I doubt anyone would be willing to risk the possibly of tearing one up in doing so.
Ian, as you may remember, I’m an Australian, but have family in Arizona, knowing my penchant and living on 60 acres in the desert, along with their collection of various firearms (pistols, revolvers, shotguns, the odd Uzi, various “classics” of long arms and various hunting rifles) they acquired a Sten! We were playing one afternoon, when the penny dropped with my US family, why the Sten had a side magazine! So you could lay down in grass etc, not reveal yourself and could fire the weapon!
He knew what he was doing with guns and had done some journalism himself. Now modern politicians would probably would mow down the press, either by accident or design.
@@matthewkeith8605 Yeah, he sure did! During the Boer war he used his own Mauser C96 as a sidearm. There are also pictures of him shooting a Thompson. Not the kind of guy afraid of getting his hands dirty.
@@TheIndianalain yea Churchill was a massive gun nut. At the time of his death he owned something like 30 to 40 firearms, theres a documentary on youtube about it
A buddy of mine built one using a parts kit, semiauto only. It was an okay shooter, more accurate than we expected. Another range buddy had a semi-only MP-40, which was crap, the barrel flopped a bit. The STEN put it to shame. 😅
One thing they changed was the sear. On the Mk1, as could be seen on the last video, it was a milled piece of metal. On the Mk 2 it was stamped and bent from thick sheet metal. I own a deactivated one. Until the last gun law changes in Germany, I could still field strip and dry fire it, but recently I had to have it completely welded up to satify the new deactivation rules.
Note: In the early development of paratroopers it was not thought possible to jump with a rifle. Fallschirmjäger jumped with pistols and British paratroopers jumped with Stens; rifles and other weapons were dropped separately in containers. By the time British paratroopers were used at scale, methods of jumping with rifles and Brens and been worked out, so many fewer Stens were required.
The Germans also used an odd, spread-eagle parachuting stance that made it next to impossible to jump with anything more substantial than a pistol or grenades. It also caused a lot of injuries, because the troops landed on their hands and knees, which meant there was no way to dissipate the force of the impact, the way the landing roll does when jumping "standing". Their weapons other than pistols and grenades, had to be dropped in separate containers, carried on the external bomb racks of the Ju-52 transport aircraft. Which, in turn (and coupled with the nature of the static-line system the Germans adopted) meant that drops were made from low altitude, and at very low speed, in order to keep the weapons containers from drifting too far from the troops they were intended for. Which caused two big problems. One was that upon landing in (presumably enemy-held) territory, the paratroops had to locate *and get to* their weapons containers before doing anything else. And the second was that if they dropped close to the enemy, the aircraft were low enough and slow enough that ordinary riflemen could pick off paratroopers standing in the doors of the aircraft without too much trouble. Machine gunners... The Italians used a similar descent posture. But, iirc, the Italian paratroops used a special uniform with substantial knee pads built into it to reduce the number of injuries during jumps.
@@christopherreed4723The odd jump stance and landing position was a result of the German and Italian parachutes having only a single riser that connected to the harness at the middle of the back instead of the two shoulder risers in more conventional parachutes. The paratroopers basically hung horizontally with no way to steer the canopy. It also was limited to static line deployment and had reputedly a nasty opening jolt.
@@JuanCarlosCoreaBarrios they did use the standard Luftwaffe aircrew parachute as well, after so many casualties from the original harness, but the aircrew chute was obviously prioritised for aircrew.
Which is exactly what my father did at he end of the war (RAF, india), on board the troopship going back to the UK. He asked his Sgt what to do with his issued Sten (and 900 rounds of ammunition, all in a canvas bag. He told of the Sgt peering into the bag, taking it from my dad and lobbing it over the side of the ship.
It sounds very credible. It happened at the end of the Falklands with worn out weapons, not issued to individuals, simply going over the side. This solved the problem of weapons that weren’t easily accounted for returning into the system - or simply disappearing once the ship reached the mainland…
@@ChalkyRN There's the story (and I can't recall what war it was, even) of a supply ship full of assorted weapons being sunk. After which every quartermaster with missing stock reported it as having been on that boat. Reputedly some accountant later took the time to tally up all the reports and concluded that no wonder it had sunk, since it was (allegedly) carrying four times its maximum cargo capacity...
Same, it has a kinda brutal focused elegance, most other SMGs from that period are way more 'look here, im finely engineered with nice comfortable wooden furniture for user ergonomics', compared to the Stens 'Dont care, im here to kill people on the cheap mate'!
Channel surfing the other night and came across Bridge on the River Kwai, and the mid movie scene were the three British soldiers are shooting their STEN’s at the (very long way away) enemy. Then, in the same shot, the one actor casually puts the bolt on safe!!! I assume he was a vet!
Ian mentioned that a lot of MK2s were dropped to resistance groups however it was so simple that some were manufactured locally by resistance groups themselves! These essentially home built STENs kept popping up around Europe throughout the 60s and into the 70s much to the alarm of the local police and/or security services who for a while were really worried that criminal gangs or even communist groups were manufacturing them in numbers!
Workshop made Stens pop up in busts of biker gangs from time to time. Long before CNC machining and 3D printing, if a gang had access to machinists that could make suppressors (and they do), then a Sten would be child's play
The British dropped sets of tooling and jigs to Resistance groups to let them make their own Stens from locally-sourced materials along with precision and proof parts like barrels and bolts. Ammo could be sourced from the Germans one way or another.
@@chanman819 That practice was somewhat common, and it also happened in various industry-related machine shops, and as 'after hours work' at regular machine shops. Doesn't take special equipment or any great skills to make Stens which was the intent, however equipment for stamping out mags isn't common so but those were usually purchased as surplus so you didn't need to make them. Mainsprings often also followed suit, but other springs were more easily substituted. Like the Afghan gunshops, if you want it badly enough you can figure out how to make it with hand-powered tools if you have to; it just takes a little longer.
@@robertsneddon731 dont the sten and the MP40 use the same bullet and mag? I recall that the brits went whit the MP40 mag because that means that the British paratroopers and who else that was ahead of the front line or behind enemy line could acquire ammunition from the enemy and keep there own guns. (in most cases soldier when on offensive and the ammo logistic is poor they would start to grab captured enemies guns and ammo). ammo no real problem guns... now you into friendly fire territory.
Really wish I'd known Ian was in Leeds when he was making this series would love to have taken him and Jonathan out for a few beers and just have a chat about firearms
Thank you for mentioning the not-a-thumb-hole on the grip! I've read more than once that the hole was intended for the shooter to put their thumb through, and it always seemed really impractical to me. I couldn't find any definitive source that denied this idea, though.
Very , very interesting. I love it when a real expert tells you about something. I wonder since you describe the terrific speed of the design of the sten if it was already in the designer's back pocket, as it were . Either way a terrific achievement..
I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and back then the RUC regularly carried Sterlings as their main weapon, and a 6 shot revolver as their side arm. My best friend accidentally killed himself with his RUC Uncle's personal protection weapon, a Walther PPK chambered in .22LR, (I think the British military designated it as the L66A1), as he thought it was a toy gun and shot himself in the head. In his defence, we were only 7 years old at the time. Nowadays, the PSNI (the replacement for the RUC) tend to carry Glocks as side arms and H&K MP5s. -When they were trying to come up with a new name for the Police in NI, so to be more inclusive and not piss off folk who objected to the word 'Royal' in the Police's name, they did consider the 'Northern Ireland Police Service', until someone pointed out that the abbreviation was 'NIPS.'
5:36 Is that grip as uncomfortable as it looks like it would be? Because it looks really terrible. 9:58 And this second style of Sten Mk II stock looks like it would be far more comfortable in the hand. Is it?
The Sten is actually an engineering marvel. Let's see just how dead simple and cheap we can make something that is supposed to contain explosions and you hold it in your hands. And it does a damn good job at doing that!
Ian would you consider making a video about how those endurance tests are carried out? I’ve always wondered about that, like is it literally just a guy mag dumping over and over? How long/often do they have to take a break so it doesn’t just catastrophically overheat? etc
Pretty much. And at least in some cases, going until it ran away and/or the barrel went all noodly was part of the test. I once read a firsthand account of testing of a belt-fed gun, IIRC the M60, where the writer described the glowing orange barrel noticeably warping and throwing off a shower of sparks along its length with every round.
"was the Long Branch arsenal, up in Canada" made me cheer. Live just outside Long Branch, and go over to the Small Arms Inspection Building, as it's now know, semi-regularly for antique and farmer's markets. Sadly the staff get a little weirded out if you mention the small arms side of its history.
During a detailed study of the STEN gun Mk II a few years ago, I was surprised to find out the main body (tube) of the gun is made from standard car exhaust tubes with one extra process, a mandrel was forced through the inside to flatten the welded seam found on the inside so as not to jamb the slam fire bolt. It was that simple. 1.5" steel tube with a 1/16" wall. Readily available at the time I guess.
Regardless of all the issues, I sure liked this gun! The only problem I had with mine is it would go full auto when it was in semi! Never quite figured that out! Mine was a beautiful piece when it finished! I could never load more than 5 rds at a time, I didn't have mag loader!
This video and the previous STEN MK1 video was really interesting and very informative, great work as always! Quick question though, and please anyone correct me if this utter nonsense, but I remember going to a Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich called Firepower when I was a young lad, sadly it shut down now I believe, and there was a display table with multiple British guns being shown to visitors, where you could hold them. One of the curators or possibly a retired Army Officer claimed that troops in WWII would use the STEN as a torture device upon captured enemies to loosen their lips for information by placing the enemy fingers into the bolt 'hole', cock the STEN and if the enemy wasn't chatty enough, the gun would be fired and the bolt would slam on the finger causing a lot of discomfort as you can imagine. I've always wondered whether this is true or not as it seemed a bit brutal of a thing even if they were the enemy but It's war I guess so it's plausible or was it just to scare the kids a bit. Sorry for the long tangent, just an old memory that popped into my head and sparked a bit of curiosity in me and if there was any reports or mention of this 'method' being done. Cheers again!
Not sure about the Sten bolt, but it's a well known bit of WWII lore over here in the States that the bolt of an M1 Garand rifle WILL snap shut on the shooter's thumb, crushing it, if the shooter does not know how to load the rifle properly. It seems plausible that a Sten gun's bolt could do the same.
@41tl Ah yes, the garand thumb and not the youtuber haha! It possibly may of been a similar thing as sten does not have a bolt cover and the apparent torture method could have just been a running joke amongst soldiers. As I said I think it was to scare kids at the museum to not hurt themselves. Cheers mate!
Sten Mk3's were made in the Lines Bros factory in Morden, South London. The same production lines that made Triang model trains before and after the war
Lord in question - LTC Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat - an ex-Scots Guard who commanded No 4 Commando. Viewers of "The Longest Day" will remember him as a Scots officer who brought his own piper to Normandy (As a Colonel commanding 1st Special Service Brigade). BTW, Churchill blew a gasket when he found that the British Army was fielding four "SS" brigades and they were renamed Commando Brigades by yesterday. BTW - I think Jack Churchill might have something to do with the Sten bayonet.
I would love to see a real breakdown of a Sten and a Sterling, to see how much carried across and what advantages the sterling picked up / why it was necessary to replace the Sten
These Mk II Stens were in widespread Indian police use into the 1990s. If you were in a "Special" unit in some states you'd get a Mk V or if really lucky a Thompson M1 or a M3.
@@VhenRaTheRaptorno. They were 0.303 Enfields made by Ishapore or bought as surplus. The 2A/2A1 is very rare. I saw photos of one used by the Madhya Pradesh police in 2018 as a scoped rifle.
British Home Guard experiences, from George Orwell's wartime diary, 8 August 1942: "Last night for the first time took a Sten gun to pieces. There is almost nothing to learn in it. No spare parts. If the gun goes seriously wrong you simply chuck it away and get another. Weight of the gun without magazine is 5 1/2 lb - weight of the tommy gun would be 12-15 lb. Estimated price is not 50/ [shillings] as I had imagined, but 18/. I can see a million or two million of these things, each with 500 cartridges and a book of instructions, floating down all over Europe on little parachutes. If the Government had the guts to do that they would really have burned their boats." 9 August: "Fired the Sten gun for the first time today. No kick, no vibration, very little noise, and reasonable accuracy. Out of about 2500 rounds fired, 2 stoppages, in each case due to a dud cartridge - treatment, simply to work the bolt by hand." 22 September: "Most of the ammunition for our Sten guns is Italian, or rather made in Germany for Italy. I fancy this must be the first weapon the British army has had whose bore was measured in millimetres instead of inches. They were going to make a new cheap automatic weapon, and having the vast stocks of ammunition captured in Abyssinia handy, manufactured the guns to fit the cartridges instead of the other way about. The advantage is that the ammunition of almost any continental sub-machine-gun will fit it. It will be interesting to see whether the Germans or Japanese come out with a .303 weapon to fit captured British ammunition." Quoted from "Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell", vol. 2, "My Country Right or Left, 1940-43".
Fired semi auto off a rest they are amazingly quite accurate. A Mk II with a good barrel will hold 3 or 4 inches at 75 yards. You never mentioned what they cost to produce. I have heard one pound 18. and 6 Is that correct??
You know, when Ian said "sten gun bayonette" I was half expecting a fork and some tape.
I imagined a steak knife with a 9mm diameter round handle that fit in the muzzle.
Now I'm imagining a that with a big carving fork... And it might actually work...
To be honest, the bayonette looks a little more complex than the sten itself
you were close. instead it was a screwdriver with the pointy bit being extra sharp
@@jarink1 ...I thought "Not, NOW, this is the 20th century, we're past the need for plug bayonets!"
And then I pictured a STEN with a Brown Bess style socket bayonet.
The push-through charging handle is such an elegant solution, as is the updated stock- someone had a few pints, ranted to his friends, then vanished into his shed to turn it into reality
I think the push throgh charging handle was copied from the germans who had the same problem
@@borjesvensson8661 Nope, the MP40 used a second charging handle notch that was close enough to not fire the gun if jarred loose. The push through bolt safety came about after a number of British soldiers managed to shoot themselves with this beer-can bullet hose, including one who dropped it off the back of a truck in Italy and was killed when the bullet went through his abdomen.
@@cammobunker looked it up. The mp40 improved saftey was a push through handle but engaged in a noch above the charging handle slot. You did not lift up the handle into the slot but pushed it through. Implemented by 42
My grandmother was in SOE but prior to that before the war she lived in Northern France. When the Nazis swept through France, she escaped on a fishing boat. She was sent to work at ROF Fazakerley manufacturing & testing Sten MkII's until she was noticed by some people in the British govt. She got recruited by SOE & she was trained by them. They parachuted her back to Northern France in the Cotentin peninsula where she lived prior to the war to report on Nazi positions, units, numbers etc. She was transmitting information back to Britain from 1943 & right on D-Day.
She met a small group of US Paratoopers on the night of the 5th of June & she was surprised that the maps she was shown had Nazi positions that she sent off to Britain. She was helping the US Paratroopers where they needed to go as the sign posts had been changed by the Nazis & told them where to avoid. She met up with US Forces from Utah Beach by mid morning on the 6th June.
From my grandmother's accounts, she said the Sten wasn't pretty but it was very versatile for the work she was doing. It was the workhorse for SOE & the French Resistance.
Ian, thank you for bringing us the Sten series. Those who hate them have never used one or been at the wrong end of one.
Your grandmother is a legend.
Who _hates_ the Sten? (Besides the Germans, Japanese, and the Italians)
Thanks for sharing! What a great story of the positions she reported being on the maps.
@@IncognitoActivado Little kid, go back to playing COD where you think you're using real firearms.
My Sten was made from a Fazakerly Sten parts kit. It shoots great.
Demonstrating his ingeinuity and occasional boderline insanity my late brother attempted to make his own Sten gun in school metal working class. Thankfully, this was back in 1960s England so although he was told to stop and it was scrapped he wasn't even punished. The teacher was actually quite impressed and said the final thing would have been a working smooth bore smg albeit thankfully free of any chance of being tested due to lack of any ammunition. This in more than one way led to him being 'encouraged ' to join the army at 15 for training eventually as a gun fitter working with 105mm guns. The local police were not sorry to see him shipped off to Aldershot. Rest in peace Freddy, you were one of a kind.
Never underestimate an Englishman and his shed .
Or an Australian teenager!
Japan has craftsmen who spend a lifetime studying and practicing the same craft and become a master.
Britain has three men in a shed that can make anything.
As an Englishman without a shed, I feel at a bit of a loss. Oh well, time for tea and one or two tasty biscuits.
Probably a Scottish man.
Case in point: Philip A. Luty. 😁
I want to shout out the designs and drafters here. This was WAY before CAD and quick prototyping. These guys had to think of the part, draw enough of the part to have it made, test the part, refine it, then draw it again for serial production. Given the time frame of design and prototyping here, my guess these guys were sustaining themselves with cigarettes, sherry, cucumber sandwiches, and adrenaline. They had to be wrecked by the time they get to the Mark 2.
Tea. You forgot the tea.
The lubricating oil of the British Empire.@@rupertboleyn3885
Since it was a direct copy of the m28 submachine gun would that not make it a lot easier. They did not have to invent a new gun.
I am glad my people are being appreciated for how wacky we can throw things together.
@@patrickporter1864 Even then, thinking up and prototyping the takedown system, including drawings with measurements and tolerances, is a lot of work to pull off in a matter of days.
For shame! You didn't invoke the full qualified name of _the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history._
😂
No, that only applies to Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history.
Lol
I was waiting for Jonathan Ferguson to make an appearance.
This!!
It's so brutally simple that it is actually beautiful in some ways.
Thank you for this series. The MkII has a certain elegance of simplicity.
A set of lockup garages behind where I lived once were set up to make MkII butts staffed by pensioners and housewives in alternating shifts to allow for child care. Sheet stamped out by manual fly presses and tubing cut to length. The length was set to correspond with standard steel tubing lengths. The women were used more for welding than cutting/stamping. All fitted into a simple jig. Then delivered by wheel barrow to a receiver sub contractor in a local commercial garage.
A small brick above ground shelter was built at the end of the lane against air attack. Think of a thick wall public toilet, for which it doubtless doubled. No heating and poor lighting in the work lockups.
There is something very inspiring about the british homefront, the amount of effort those who could not fight put into making sure those who could where armed and fed and cared for is quite poetic.
I have to slightly disagree, elegance is not a word I would use for the STEN. Tin Toy is more appropriate. The trigger system is unnecessarily complicated and prone to malfunctions. I realised this some years ago when examining the trigger mechanism of an Aussie made Owen gun of WW2. Owen had three working parts involved to make it fire - Bolt, sear, and trigger, 4 parts if the safety catch is included. At the time I was involved in the manufacture of STEN Mk 2 with BFBs (dedicated blank firing barrel) for the movie industry.
@keithad6485 I doubt the tens of thousands of people shot by the Sten considered it a toy. Not elegant, but lethal. And what was needed in the circumstances.
@@jameshenderson4876 Like other 9mm submachine guns, very short range, In Aussie Army we were taught it was a waste of ammo to attempt to engage a target beyond 50 metres with a submachine gun, and this was the extreme range. I was using the term tin toy to make a point that the STEN could not be called elegant. In fact, I cannot think of any submachine gun which could be called elegant, no precision firing with them. If simplicity is elegance, then the firing mechanism of the Owen gun could be described as elegant. So few working parts.
Impressive and fascinating
A knurled cocking handle??
Pure extravagance!
LUXURY!
knurled for her pleasure
DECADENCE!
The taper turned one is totally ott
Somehow the push-through charging handle safety makes me oddly happy. Such a simple and effective solution.
Reminds me of the basically same push-through safety used on the Savage/Stevens/Springfield Model 87/187/387 series of semiauto .22LR rimfire rifles. 👍
That design also made it to the Hovea swedish/danish submachinegun. my service weapon in 1961.
I'm really enjoying this Sten gun series. Especially the "make it simpler" points. It would be funny to get some classic infomercial lines in there.
"Further reductions" "But wait, there's less"
It just works. Can't get anymore specific than that.
The Bethesda-made Sten Mk. 76
It infamously didn´t work during assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
The Sten may have malfunctioned, but Mr. Haydrch still died.
@@tarnvedra9952 Tbf iirc it was due to it being filled with seeds for feeding the birds.
@@tisFrancesfault I heard that before but with grass clippings, don´t think there is reliable source for that. There is a police report that was found few years back that states "The second perpetrator attempted to fire an machine pistol at the occupants of the car, but the round jammed in the barrel." Without elaborating further, one thinks they would mention foreign object if it was there.
My mother in law was in SOE, although she was based in the UK she still had one of these over 50 years after the war ended, she never handed it in and they never asked for it. She said she was keeping it, just in case. I never asked in case of what exactly
In case of you mistreating their child, probably.
This is a good example of what the late Leo Marks called "SOE-mindedness". :)
You never know if Germany is one day going to try for a hat trick.
Dang, your mom is an OG.
😁
The push through bolt stop is delightfully simple solution for the open bolt problem.
Iused the Sten Mk11 in South Africa for a while and absolutely loved firing it.The one I had was totally reliable as I never had a misfire or a jam.
For how long was the STEN in use for by SA?
I've used the later Sterling L2A3, a superb smg.
Hi Ian, I've personally handled the Sten Winston Churchill was photographed with. It was presented to him as a gift. Some years later it ended up in the collection of a friend of mine who happened to be a section 5 gun smith and armourer.
Dude that's awesome!
@@IncognitoActivado No, not at all.
@@IncognitoActivado Quite right, thanks.
@@IncognitoActivado Haha, no" Quite right " that whatever I say is true ( hence the "thanks ")
@@michaelprobert4014 he is pro Austrian painter. That's what he is getting at. I don't like either and unlike him have listened to and know entire speeches by said painter.
The amount of knowledge Ian retains and can dole out in a video always impresses me.
STENs are by far my favourite ww2 weapon. Very few things compete with it. Quite fantastic.
Intresting fact, in the picture of Churchill firing the STEN. To his right looking on is his long standing bodyguard. A good chap and all round great egg.
Walter Thompson. He wrote a great book.
Nice. Never noticed that before 😂
Second interesting fact of the same photo, the man on the extreme left with his back to the camera? That's Harold Turpin. The man in uniform between Turpin and Churchill (and looking at Churchill) is Major Reginald Shepherd.
The documentary series of his book is well worth watching.
@@blacklisted4885 Thanks for the info. I just ordered a copy of that book.
My grandfather told my dad that the Stens greatest failure was it’s inability to hold the necessary amount of lubrication, apparently after half a clip oil would seep its way south particularly through the trigger housing and the cocking mechanism which was also open to the elements.
Sten and Beretta 34 are really ingenious guns with very few parts. But nothing more crude, simple and effective as the Sten.
TBF you can still go simpler and cruder than a Sten MK2. The MK3 for instance, without a dismountable barrel. Still even the MK3 had a fire selector, TMH cover, rifling, stock and rudimentary sights which could all be eliminated and it still be a moderately effective short-range lead hose.
The real genius of the MK2 is that it was designed for distributed manufacture at the millions of small workshops full of hand tools and manually operated machines that were around the UK and the world at the time, and that the tolerances are designed to stack so that any part from any production run should work together without fettling.
The M3A1 might win the award for being simple
@@donwyoming1936The STEN had 47 parts, the M3 had 73 so not sure about that.
The PPS-43 is simpler for mass production than the Sten. But in the same time incomparably more effective, user friendly and don't look like a plumber fart.
Crude, simple, no doubt... Effective, ummm. We should define effective.
Didn't know bits like the charging handle variations, and that it was the magazine folding latch that acted as a ratchet.
Fun to learn all these little specifics!
Also made in Dunedin, New Zealand, by Hillside Railways workshops. A pallet load of bodies was found there in the scrap yard in the 1970s.
The joke was the Sten had three moving parts and one was the bullet.
Was that Len Southward in Wellington, do you happen to know, it rang some bells? Didn't know Hillside did them.
I heard the Watties factory in Hastings made sub machine guns but were they stens?
@@steveaustin62Hillside made a lot of stuff for the war effort. There was a scare there, also in the 70s, when a box of mortar bombs were found. It turned out it was just the casings, no charge in them.
@@DefunctYompelvert No idea, but probably. Parts were contracted out to a lot of places, then sent to where they would be assembled.
KISS principal to its logical endpoint
One key - but fairly obscure - reason why the Sten MkII bayonet wasn't more widely issued.
The standard No4Mk1 bayonet was intended to be used with the Mk II handle for the entrenching tool, in order to more easily probe for mines. (That's the difference between a late war WWII pattern entrenching tool pattern and the P08 model - the WWI era pattern didn't have a bayonet lug setup, but in 1943, they decided to add a ferrule that had a short section of steel rod with bayonet lugs that matched the dimension of the last few inches of the No4MkI rifle)
That's why even Bren gunners were issued the No4Mk1 spike bayonet; even though it won't mount on a Bren, it *will* mount on the entrenching tool handle
Thanks Ian for another great video. In your commentary you mention the possibility of loosing a round when mounting or dismounting a vehicle. This actually happened to my father, then an NCO in the RAF, at a wartime airfield in Tunisia. He placed the Sten in a tall lorry and as he heaved himself up it fell over and fired a single round that ricocheted around the cab before grazing his elbow. His only scratch in six years of service.
Current airsoft STENs are nicer made than the real ones.
Airsoft player are not under imminent invasion pressure.
@@sukositbnot yet, no
Same for the G36.
@@edm240b9 the G36 is fine irl
They're more complicated too.
Certainly the most used model of STEN in older war movies! I made a replica out of cardboard in my pre-teens.
The "Hey guys!" at the start of every video gives me a much-needed shot of serotonin
Interesting Sten tidbits. The bronze bolt is a little side note worth discussion.
Sten magazines were made via a half dozen or so different methods, which makes it a challenge to collect all the variations. Also the Indian single stack magazine modification is an interesting historical oddity.
The MkII started to bring in my favorite Sten features.
Such a cool and awesome small arm with a great ingenuity.
I had a Canadian made Sten. It had the loop style stock. Primitive in many ways but very reliable. Mags are cheap and built much heavier than most sub gun mags. I think you could use one to drive a nail! The gun was not particular about ammo. I shot old war time corrosive ammo, lead reloads, and hot sub gun ammo from foreign countries. A testament to war time engineering.
I think these multipart series videos are really cool. Seeing the changes over time back to back is super interesting.
The push-thru charging handle was on Long Branch MkIIs in '44. I worked at a range that we had a few with that feature.They all had the rolled steel stock
Fantastic episode, so much history in one small armament.
My father recounted how - a short while after cessation of hostilities - a man he knew, who was only a few yards away, jumped off a lorry and shot himself in the stomach. I don't recall if he said it was a Sten, but hearing you say about such accidents reminded me of it.
In George MacDonald Frasers book on his experience fighting in Burma he recounts an incident where a Sten was dropped on its butt in a packed lorry and fired by its self , luckily all the shots went upwards and no one was hurt .
@@iroscoe That's a great book.
@@richardjames1812 Absolutely , It's been a few years probably time for a re-read .
@@iroscoe Agreed, may pull it down from the shelf this weekend.
Did he survive? 😮
That was truly very interesting. The blend of the historical details was captivating.
Born in 1944, I have always had huge regard for this weapon, despite its shortcomings.
Just the expression on his face and the way he speaks tells me he really enjoys sharing his vast knowledge and passion for this sort of thing. I enjoy it too.
Testing a Sten MkII against the PPS and the "Grease" gun in a course would be most interesting. Anyone done a course with all three comparing them? There are other such guns I would like to see compared but most are so rare I doubt anyone would be willing to risk the possibly of tearing one up in doing so.
I have always loved the STEN. I am excited to see the MK. III episode. I built one of those from a kit, and I love it.
Ian, as you may remember, I’m an Australian, but have family in Arizona, knowing my penchant and living on 60 acres in the desert, along with their collection of various firearms (pistols, revolvers, shotguns, the odd Uzi, various “classics” of long arms and various hunting rifles) they acquired a Sten! We were playing one afternoon, when the penny dropped with my US family, why the Sten had a side magazine! So you could lay down in grass etc, not reveal yourself and could fire the weapon!
the fortitude it took to hand Churchill a prototype to play with surrounded by the press is impressive.... cheers
He knew what he was doing with guns and had done some journalism himself. Now modern politicians would probably would mow down the press, either by accident or design.
@@matthewkeith8605 Yeah, he sure did! During the Boer war he used his own Mauser C96 as a sidearm. There are also pictures of him shooting a Thompson.
Not the kind of guy afraid of getting his hands dirty.
@@TheIndianalain yea Churchill was a massive gun nut. At the time of his death he owned something like 30 to 40 firearms, theres a documentary on youtube about it
I once used this piece of history at the range. It was very authentic!
Thanks for great content Ian!
A buddy of mine built one using a parts kit, semiauto only. It was an okay shooter, more accurate than we expected. Another range buddy had a semi-only MP-40, which was crap, the barrel flopped a bit. The STEN put it to shame. 😅
Crude yet elegant in its simplicity.
Since the implication of the rotating magwell, I still understand why there wasn't a vertical magazine feed option for improved ergonomics.
Yes but then the facility for shooting totally prone would be gone. The side orientation of the magazine is unique and useful.
One thing they changed was the sear. On the Mk1, as could be seen on the last video, it was a milled piece of metal. On the Mk 2 it was stamped and bent from thick sheet metal. I own a deactivated one. Until the last gun law changes in Germany, I could still field strip and dry fire it, but recently I had to have it completely welded up to satify the new deactivation rules.
Simplicity at its simplest. And most simple. I mean it is REALLY simple!
Note: In the early development of paratroopers it was not thought possible to jump with a rifle. Fallschirmjäger jumped with pistols and British paratroopers jumped with Stens; rifles and other weapons were dropped separately in containers.
By the time British paratroopers were used at scale, methods of jumping with rifles and Brens and been worked out, so many fewer Stens were required.
The Germans also used an odd, spread-eagle parachuting stance that made it next to impossible to jump with anything more substantial than a pistol or grenades. It also caused a lot of injuries, because the troops landed on their hands and knees, which meant there was no way to dissipate the force of the impact, the way the landing roll does when jumping "standing".
Their weapons other than pistols and grenades, had to be dropped in separate containers, carried on the external bomb racks of the Ju-52 transport aircraft.
Which, in turn (and coupled with the nature of the static-line system the Germans adopted) meant that drops were made from low altitude, and at very low speed, in order to keep the weapons containers from drifting too far from the troops they were intended for.
Which caused two big problems. One was that upon landing in (presumably enemy-held) territory, the paratroops had to locate *and get to* their weapons containers before doing anything else. And the second was that if they dropped close to the enemy, the aircraft were low enough and slow enough that ordinary riflemen could pick off paratroopers standing in the doors of the aircraft without too much trouble. Machine gunners...
The Italians used a similar descent posture. But, iirc, the Italian paratroops used a special uniform with substantial knee pads built into it to reduce the number of injuries during jumps.
@@christopherreed4723The odd jump stance and landing position was a result of the German and Italian parachutes having only a single riser that connected to the harness at the middle of the back instead of the two shoulder risers in more conventional parachutes. The paratroopers basically hung horizontally with no way to steer the canopy. It also was limited to static line deployment and had reputedly a nasty opening jolt.
@@JuanCarlosCoreaBarrios they did use the standard Luftwaffe aircrew parachute as well, after so many casualties from the original harness, but the aircrew chute was obviously prioritised for aircrew.
I always liked the Sterling. It was like refined simplicity.
Worked as intended and so cheap to build that you could basically just throw it away when parts wore out.
Which is exactly what my father did at he end of the war (RAF, india), on board the troopship going back to the UK. He asked his Sgt what to do with his issued Sten (and 900 rounds of ammunition, all in a canvas bag. He told of the Sgt peering into the bag, taking it from my dad and lobbing it over the side of the ship.
It sounds very credible. It happened at the end of the Falklands with worn out weapons, not issued to individuals, simply going over the side. This solved the problem of weapons that weren’t easily accounted for returning into the system - or simply disappearing once the ship reached the mainland…
@@tomhenry897 There's film of vehicles being rolled over the side, so it depends.
The American business model. Except you inflate the price and make it even worse.
@@ChalkyRN There's the story (and I can't recall what war it was, even) of a supply ship full of assorted weapons being sunk. After which every quartermaster with missing stock reported it as having been on that boat. Reputedly some accountant later took the time to tally up all the reports and concluded that no wonder it had sunk, since it was (allegedly) carrying four times its maximum cargo capacity...
one of my favourite WW2 SMGs, sure its crude and cheaply made, but it just looks so slick
Same, it has a kinda brutal focused elegance, most other SMGs from that period are way more 'look here, im finely engineered with nice comfortable wooden furniture for user ergonomics', compared to the Stens 'Dont care, im here to kill people on the cheap mate'!
Channel surfing the other night and came across Bridge on the River Kwai, and the mid movie scene were the three British soldiers are shooting their STEN’s at the (very long way away) enemy. Then, in the same shot, the one actor casually puts the bolt on safe!!! I assume he was a vet!
I’ve always loved the simplicity of the MKII Sten
Ian mentioned that a lot of MK2s were dropped to resistance groups however it was so simple that some were manufactured locally by resistance groups themselves!
These essentially home built STENs kept popping up around Europe throughout the 60s and into the 70s much to the alarm of the local police and/or security services who for a while were really worried that criminal gangs or even communist groups were manufacturing them in numbers!
Workshop made Stens pop up in busts of biker gangs from time to time. Long before CNC machining and 3D printing, if a gang had access to machinists that could make suppressors (and they do), then a Sten would be child's play
The Germans also manufactured Stens during WW2, see the Forgotten Weapons video 'German Sten Copy: MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumünster'.
The British dropped sets of tooling and jigs to Resistance groups to let them make their own Stens from locally-sourced materials along with precision and proof parts like barrels and bolts. Ammo could be sourced from the Germans one way or another.
@@chanman819 That practice was somewhat common, and it also happened in various industry-related machine shops, and as 'after hours work' at regular machine shops. Doesn't take special equipment or any great skills to make Stens which was the intent, however equipment for stamping out mags isn't common so but those were usually purchased as surplus so you didn't need to make them. Mainsprings often also followed suit, but other springs were more easily substituted. Like the Afghan gunshops, if you want it badly enough you can figure out how to make it with hand-powered tools if you have to; it just takes a little longer.
@@robertsneddon731 dont the sten and the MP40 use the same bullet and mag?
I recall that the brits went whit the MP40 mag because that means that the British paratroopers and who else that was ahead of the front line or behind enemy line could acquire ammunition from the enemy and keep there own guns.
(in most cases soldier when on offensive and the ammo logistic is poor they would start to grab captured enemies guns and ammo).
ammo no real problem guns... now you into friendly fire territory.
Really wish I'd known Ian was in Leeds when he was making this series would love to have taken him and Jonathan out for a few beers and just have a chat about firearms
Love it when you upload first upon my first sip of coffee!!
Enjoying this series - Thanks Ian.
That push-through charging handle is a good idea.
Thank you for mentioning the not-a-thumb-hole on the grip!
I've read more than once that the hole was intended for the shooter to put their thumb through, and it always seemed really impractical to me. I couldn't find any definitive source that denied this idea, though.
Another great piece of history, expertly presented. Nice work.
Churchill shooting a Sten Gun. Yet another photo taken on my birthday. I really ought to look into this more.
Finishing the redesign in a week, Turpin really wasn't dicking around.
the Luftwaffe was dropping bombs on his country; I would not have been dicking around either.
A gold coin for your pun, good sir!
Very , very interesting. I love it when a real expert tells you about something. I wonder since you describe the terrific speed of the design of the sten if it was already in the designer's back pocket, as it were . Either way a terrific achievement..
I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and back then the RUC regularly carried Sterlings as their main weapon, and a 6 shot revolver as their side arm.
My best friend accidentally killed himself with his RUC Uncle's personal protection weapon, a Walther PPK chambered in .22LR, (I think the British military designated it as the L66A1), as he thought it was a toy gun and shot himself in the head. In his defence, we were only 7 years old at the time.
Nowadays, the PSNI (the replacement for the RUC) tend to carry Glocks as side arms and H&K MP5s.
-When they were trying to come up with a new name for the Police in NI, so to be more inclusive and not piss off folk who objected to the word 'Royal' in the Police's name, they did consider the 'Northern Ireland Police Service', until someone pointed out that the abbreviation was 'NIPS.'
That's a sad story about your friend.
The RUC B Special Reserve had Sten Guns and Webleys up until 1971.
The prison service ended up with the NIPS moniker, people are less likely to laugh at that when they're already being locked up.
Nice! Thank you Ian and keep up the good work.
5:36 Is that grip as uncomfortable as it looks like it would be? Because it looks really terrible.
9:58 And this second style of Sten Mk II stock looks like it would be far more comfortable in the hand. Is it?
The Sten is actually an engineering marvel. Let's see just how dead simple and cheap we can make something that is supposed to contain explosions and you hold it in your hands. And it does a damn good job at doing that!
Ian would you consider making a video about how those endurance tests are carried out? I’ve always wondered about that, like is it literally just a guy mag dumping over and over? How long/often do they have to take a break so it doesn’t just catastrophically overheat? etc
Pretty much. And at least in some cases, going until it ran away and/or the barrel went all noodly was part of the test. I once read a firsthand account of testing of a belt-fed gun, IIRC the M60, where the writer described the glowing orange barrel noticeably warping and throwing off a shower of sparks along its length with every round.
Great series on such an iconic gun!
I am patiently waiting for the GetEnteredToWin sten gun.
"was the Long Branch arsenal, up in Canada" made me cheer. Live just outside Long Branch, and go over to the Small Arms Inspection Building, as it's now know, semi-regularly for antique and farmer's markets. Sadly the staff get a little weirded out if you mention the small arms side of its history.
While at the Royal Armories please take a detailed look at the "AKMSU"! Especially at whatever the booster thing that was used is.
I trained on the sten while in the reserves and the stirling while in the CAF.
Very informative . I have always wondered why there was no fold down front grip . It seems to be an obvious exclusion .
Thanks Ian.
During a detailed study of the STEN gun Mk II a few years ago, I was surprised to find out the main body (tube) of the gun is made from standard car exhaust tubes with one extra process, a mandrel was forced through the inside to flatten the welded seam found on the inside so as not to jamb the slam fire bolt. It was that simple. 1.5" steel tube with a 1/16" wall. Readily available at the time I guess.
5:14 is that a Casio F91W? Classic. I have 2. Green & Blue. They just won’t die.
Didnt know they were made in NZ. Thanks Ian.
Regardless of all the issues, I sure liked this gun! The only problem I had with mine is it would go full auto when it was in semi! Never quite figured that out! Mine was a beautiful piece when it finished! I could never load more than 5 rds at a time, I didn't have mag loader!
This video and the previous STEN MK1 video was really interesting and very informative, great work as always!
Quick question though, and please anyone correct me if this utter nonsense, but I remember going to a Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich called Firepower when I was a young lad, sadly it shut down now I believe, and there was a display table with multiple British guns being shown to visitors, where you could hold them. One of the curators or possibly a retired Army Officer claimed that troops in WWII would use the STEN as a torture device upon captured enemies to loosen their lips for information by placing the enemy fingers into the bolt 'hole', cock the STEN and if the enemy wasn't chatty enough, the gun would be fired and the bolt would slam on the finger causing a lot of discomfort as you can imagine. I've always wondered whether this is true or not as it seemed a bit brutal of a thing even if they were the enemy but It's war I guess so it's plausible or was it just to scare the kids a bit. Sorry for the long tangent, just an old memory that popped into my head and sparked a bit of curiosity in me and if there was any reports or mention of this 'method' being done. Cheers again!
Not sure about the Sten bolt, but it's a well known bit of WWII lore over here in the States that the bolt of an M1 Garand rifle WILL snap shut on the shooter's thumb, crushing it, if the shooter does not know how to load the rifle properly. It seems plausible that a Sten gun's bolt could do the same.
@41tl Ah yes, the garand thumb and not the youtuber haha! It possibly may of been a similar thing as sten does not have a bolt cover and the apparent torture method could have just been a running joke amongst soldiers. As I said I think it was to scare kids at the museum to not hurt themselves. Cheers mate!
That short lance sure doubles as a handy SMG!
Since they always got cut up for parts, a rare variation is where they were made from flat steel and the trigger housing and tube were one piece.
Sten Mk3's were made in the Lines Bros factory in Morden, South London. The same production lines that made Triang model trains before and after the war
I kept thinking my screen was dirty, then found out it was the white wall background behind Ian 😂
I think they put him there in front of a ratty wall to do videos on the "ratty" STEN. Seems fitting anyway.
Lord in question - LTC Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat - an ex-Scots Guard who commanded No 4 Commando. Viewers of "The Longest Day" will remember him as a Scots officer who brought his own piper to Normandy (As a Colonel commanding 1st Special Service Brigade). BTW, Churchill blew a gasket when he found that the British Army was fielding four "SS" brigades and they were renamed Commando Brigades by yesterday. BTW - I think Jack Churchill might have something to do with the Sten bayonet.
"It's not a proper weapon without a bayonet!" "Jack, you think something isn't a proper weapon unless you have to fletch you own ammunition."
Love the STEN Bayaente looks like a masonry nail. I bet the prototype WAS a masonry nail.
a great very interesting video and smgs Mr.GJ.have a good one Mr.
I would love to see a real breakdown of a Sten and a Sterling, to see how much carried across and what advantages the sterling picked up / why it was necessary to replace the Sten
These Mk II Stens were in widespread Indian police use into the 1990s. If you were in a "Special" unit in some states you'd get a Mk V or if really lucky a Thompson M1 or a M3.
During the Mumbai / Bombay terrorist attack this century, there were photos of lots of police armed with Enfields, I recall.
@richardjames1812 More likely Ishapore 2A1 Rifles.
Which are basically SMLEs built in 7.62 NATO from get go.
@@VhenRaTheRaptor Yes, good point. I own three Ishapore "refurbs" in .303 (No 1, No 4 and No 5).
@@VhenRaTheRaptorno. They were 0.303 Enfields made by Ishapore or bought as surplus. The 2A/2A1 is very rare. I saw photos of one used by the Madhya Pradesh police in 2018 as a scoped rifle.
@richardjames1812 until 2020 the 0.303 Enfield was widely issued. The Delhi police is decommissioning its last 7000 this year.
I'd like to see a side-by-side comparison of the Sten and Sterling SMG's.
perfect pacing
The second stock type is usually associated with Canadian Long Branch manufacture. Did any of the other manufacturers make that type of stock as well?
British Home Guard experiences, from George Orwell's wartime diary, 8 August 1942: "Last night for the first time took a Sten gun to pieces. There is almost nothing to learn in it. No spare parts. If the gun goes seriously wrong you simply chuck it away and get another. Weight of the gun without magazine is 5 1/2 lb - weight of the tommy gun would be 12-15 lb. Estimated price is not 50/ [shillings] as I had imagined, but 18/. I can see a million or two million of these things, each with 500 cartridges and a book of instructions, floating down all over Europe on little parachutes. If the Government had the guts to do that they would really have burned their boats." 9 August: "Fired the Sten gun for the first time today. No kick, no vibration, very little noise, and reasonable accuracy. Out of about 2500 rounds fired, 2 stoppages, in each case due to a dud cartridge - treatment, simply to work the bolt by hand." 22 September: "Most of the ammunition for our Sten guns is Italian, or rather made in Germany for Italy. I fancy this must be the first weapon the British army has had whose bore was measured in millimetres instead of inches. They were going to make a new cheap automatic weapon, and having the vast stocks of ammunition captured in Abyssinia handy, manufactured the guns to fit the cartridges instead of the other way about. The advantage is that the ammunition of almost any continental sub-machine-gun will fit it. It will be interesting to see whether the Germans or Japanese come out with a .303 weapon to fit captured British ammunition." Quoted from "Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell", vol. 2, "My Country Right or Left, 1940-43".
I never knew the wire stock was cheaper to make then the T stock. Mine has the wire Stock with a cleaning rod held inside the stock with clips.
Fired semi auto off a rest they are amazingly quite accurate. A Mk II with a good barrel will hold 3 or 4 inches at 75 yards. You never mentioned what they cost to produce. I have heard one pound 18. and 6 Is that correct??
A Sten isn't exactly a "forgotten weapon," but I'm glad the abstract concept was ignored in favor of a fascinating video.
I’ve shot a Sten and when they work they are fine, when they work. It’s considered the bottom of the class three transferable market at $10K !!
The comments in the newest video are turned off again.