Its ease of concealment and lightweight made it popular with American special forces units in Vietnam, who used the suppressed variant. The Israeli military was very fond of the STEN Gun during their 1948 War of Independence and Suez Crisis and used it as the inspiration for their famous Uzi submachine gun.
The STEN still saw action in many conflicts across the globe following WWII. The STEN gun was phased out by the British in 1951 by the Sterling Submachine Gun. The British also outfitted many resistance groups with weapons and the STEN was a good choice to give them.įrench resistance at 2012 #frenchresistance #ww2 #hopfarm #vintage #stengun #frenchfighter #worldwar2 #40s #1940sĪ post shared by BM Photography on at 3:18am PDT Post-WWII Many resistance movements were concentrated in cities were the submachine gun reigns supreme. The STEN was very popular with resistance groups because it was easily concealable and effective at close range. Regardless of these drawbacks, it was a popular gun with soldiers because of its lightweight and fast rate of fire. If the magazine was in and the weapon was dropped, banged against something, or placed down too hard, it had a tendency to empty its magazine. However, not working was not its biggest flaw.Ī lack of a proper safety and a tendency to fire without warning were also serious issues with the SMG. Soldiers in WWII would routinely check if their STEN guns worked before bringing them into combat and then merely throwing away the ones that were not effective. The speed of production made the STEN not uniformly produced or distributed. Due to the magazines which required a more precise mag-well, they were prone to jamming. It was very easy to maintain and had little need for upkeep, if your STEN worked. The STEN was a very cheap and easy to produce submachine gun. This necessity bread the adaptable, cheap, and easy to manufacture STEN gun. British Commonwealth forces needed a submachine gun. The demand for submachine guns was not met by the purchase of Thompson submachine guns from the United States, especially after the US entered WWII at the end of 1941.
The STEN gun was born out of necessity, following the British evacuation at Dunkirk where a lot of equipment was abandoned, the British Army was in desperate need of war material. It was also used by countless resistance groups as a highly effective insurgency weapon. Over 4 million were produced in various versions starting in 1940. It was used by British Commonwealth forces during World War II and Korea, and by over 50 other nations in over 30 conflicts in a variety of different variants. Its side loading magazine was consistent with the British tradition at the time of having ease of reloading when in the prone position. The Sten was small and could easily concealable divided into several parts, and, therefore, was appreciated for operations of the partisans in Europe.The STEN gun was submachine gun helped to defeat the Nazi during the Second World War and spawned several variations on the submachine gun platform. The Sten submachine gun used cartridge pistol 9 x 19, which was a bonus if captured German ammunition, as they could use. Some four million Sten of several versions were produced during the 1940s. The name STEN is an acronym derived from the names of the leading designers of weapon: the Mayor Reginald Shepherd, Harold Turpin, and Enfield, the place where is located the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) of London.
Its most notable features were its simple design and low cost of production. It was used by the forces of the Commonwealth during World War II and the Korean War. Thus was born the Sten submachine gun, a weapon with a debatable design and reliability, but also one of the most easily recognizable of the Second World War would end up being used by both airborne troops and special operations forces as resistance to almost all the countries occupied by the Germans. The government was in urgent need to equip their soldiers with a weapon of own production. Sten Mark II, 9 mm caliber, United Kingdom 1940 (World War II).Īuthentic replica of this machine gun that was born in 1940 when England was alone and threatened by an imminent invasion by Germany.