The Sten Gun

That they were prone to going off without warning


what about jamming?
is there someone around who can give 1st-hand information??

 

Hang on moment. I am a Normandy Vet that used these abortions called the Sten. I wrote here about a man that I knew that faced with the enemy, his sten jammed.

I have also had the experience of laying my sten down, when it started firing. It actually parted my mate Harry's hair... Seriously..He was not best pleased...

Somewhere I have a picture of me holding a sten, at th lost village of Tyneham, accompanied by the Colonel that landed with the Ulster Rifles on D day.

We were down there to do a live broadcast for the BBC on the anniversary of D day.
Sapper

 

I'm not saying it didn't happen, there are medical reports to back up the fact that there were accidental discharges and personal accounts like yours. The main problem I find is that it is blown out of all proportion. In one instance, one medical officer reported 52 cases of wounding by accidental discharge in about March 1945. Out of those, only 10 were attributed to the sten gun. He makes special mention of this, but doesn't say what caused the others...

There are also cases of Stens firing full auto when set to repetition and vice-versa.

Given the number that were manufactured, the cases do seem to me to be relatively limited.

I think the problem now is that modern historians try to embellish the Sten horror stories. I had a reenactor tell a member of the public that stens usually fell apart when fired from the shoulder! This is what you have to cut through to get to the truth!

 

ND's in the British Army today are called - 'Slack Drills'

Workmen and their tools and all that

 

Hi Punchbag,

Question

"However, I was under the impression that you were only ever supposed to use any weapon in a right-handed manner - can any of the veterans on her confirm that?"


The Sten worked on a Blowback principle and if a live round was incorrectly fed it could fire and the cartridge case would rupture blowing burning propellent and shards of Brass out of the cartridge ejection port on the side Right of the weapon.

So if a "Leftie" fired a Sten and this happened he/she could get seriously injured.

The "Sterling" SMG suffered from the same problem, however I 'm not sure about the "Owen Gun".

The Sten/Sterling fired from the "Open Bolt" position and operated as follows.

1. The Breechblock and round are still moving foreward when the round is fired.

2. The Breechblock and Cartridge Case weigh more than the Bullet.

3. The Return Springs push against the Breechblock.

So,

The Breech, Breechblock and also the Feed Horns had to be clean and not pitted otherwise a Breech explosion could occur by a partially fed round


Regards, Mick D.

 

I think it was more a general question about there not being anything such as a leftie in the British WW2 Army.

 

I had a personal experience of a ruptured case in a Sterling in Cyprus in the '60's. I was standing next to the firer and came out of it unarmed, he had his right eyebrow opened up by the flying brass. This could happen with any weapon that operates on the blowback principle (strictly speaking I think this is known as advanced primer ignition). Somewhere in the anarchy of my files I have a report of the effectiveness of the Sten against the rifle and Bren, when/if I find them I'll put them on line.

At this time we also used to do range safety for the RAF who still used the MkIII Sten at that time. This was probably the worst looking of all the Sten's and always referred to as "a piece of shit" by the RAF guys. However, I can't recall a single stoppage or accidental discharge during a considerable amount of range time.

As for the problem of the little finger entering the ejection opening a long time ago I worked with an ex Y & L who'd came to grief in this manner on a night patrol during the Korean war.

 

The use of weapons from the non master eye shoulder. We trained soldiers in FIBUA - fighting in built up areas to use both shoulders to fire the SLR. If you are moving along a wall line or street with the wall against your left side, you can of course fire or put your rifle to your right master eye without exposing yourself to being fired at in full view around the wall. With a right master eye and the wall to your right to use your rifle you would have to expose yourself fully to get into a standing or kneeling position to fire around the wall here you would use your left shoulder .Firing from this position can of course have hot brass bouncing off the wall by your head as the cases are ejected. It was during my training that I realized that in the sitting position unsupported (not leaning against anything) that I could shoot better left handed. Whilst right handed for prone,kneeling and standing - golf and cricket!






http://www.britishpathe.com/video/sten-gun-production-1942

 

No-one seems to have mentioned so far what I have always understood as the prime cause of Sten unreliability, in terms of failing to fire when wanted.

That side magazine formed a tempting place to grip the gun with the left hand, but that could be a fatal error. Given the rather sloppy tolerances of wartime production, the magazine did not fit rigidly in the housing. So if a user gripped the magazine and pulled back on it, this altered the angle of the magazine in the housing, enough to pull the top of the magazine slightly out of alignment. The consequence of that was that when the trigger was pulled and the bolt came forward, it was unable to push the top round into the chamber and fire it.

 

Thanks Tony,

I have just been reading about Gurkha Rifles and their use of weaponry. They liked the Sten, but always complain that British fire-arms fired too slowly in their opinion.

 

I've found the info relating to the accuracy of the Sten. It's from a collection of such reports put together by a guy called John Salt that I found on the web about 12 years ago although it no longer appears to be available.

The performance of the Sten, a supposedly inaccurate weapon, is remarkable when compared to that of the Bren, a weapon often criticised for being too accurate.

I must confess to being confused by the criteria of a 90% zone ( I've come across 50% and 100% zones and understand the rationale behind these) and why it was calculated at 25 yds.

 

This was sometimes encountered with the Sterling although the greatest number of stoppages was caused by slapping the bottom of the magazine after loading which could displace the first round in the mag. causing a feed stoppage or in the worst case eject a round into the body of the receiver. Hollywood has a lot to answer for. Holding the magazine of a weapon will also result in a loss of accuracy since it upsets the balance and thus the angle of jump, or whatever it's called these days..

 

"The first combat use of the Sten occurred at Dieppe in Aug 1942. In the weeks prior to the raid, Canadian soldiers found that many parts had to be filed, adjusted, and tested in order for the Stens to work properly. A lot of time was spent getting their new weapons battle-worthy. When the raid was cancelled in Jul, the Sten Guns were withdrawn. A day before the remounting of the raid, brand new Sten Guns, crated and packed in grease, were issued out to some very disgusted soldiers."

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/weapons/smgs/sten.htm



I own a deactivated Sten (Mk2 manufactured at Long Branch 1942) and have no problem believing the malfunction stories. It is crude. The spring looks like it came from a child's toy!

 

In this book it is reported that one third of all weapon complaints from Canadian officers related to the Sten. "Unreliable" and "ineffective" are not surprising descriptions but just as many commented on the "lack of stopping power".


Canadians Under Fire: Infantry Effectiveness in the Second World War
By Robert Engen

 

http://archive.org/stream/firearms-sten-mk-ii-submachine-gun/stenmkiisubmachinegun#page/n0/mode/2up


MKII General Instructions

 

Cost of producing the Sten was $3.75. Cost of producing a Thompson sub-machine gun was $25.00. That should explain why our troops were furnished with an inferior weapon.

 

Some of the locations at which we were stationed in Northern Ireland had a Royal Ulster Constabulary unit in location. Sergeant H R would chat with us and told us of the time when officers carried the .45 Webley - 'bloody useless' as in all tales probably had some truth to it, 'hit someone in winter with a topcoat on and you might knock him over and give him a bruise to think about'. New training and new weapons followed, my last tour they were carrying a Rugger .44. The Sterling was carried too. At Ballykinler there was a 'captured weapons armoury' We put a flak jacket on a plank and fired the Thompson gun it opened up the outer material and that was it. The Sterling and 9mm Browning punched through. The forces are rife with 'facts' that started out who knows where and however much you tell soldiers there is very little documentary evidence including lack of boards or enquiry reports the stories grow and as the years go by the thing has a life of it's own. Wonder how many have used 'it went off on it's own sergeant' after mishandling and lack of drills. Running SMG (Sterling ranges) was not for those who could not keep fully switched on if any weapon was going to have you writing out a Negligent Discharge report It was the handler not the weapon at fault . When this occurred the drill was to keep the rounds left in a magazine and have the weapon checked over by the unit armourers (as per pamphlet 21)- which if defects were found could be used in defence of the soldier being charged. Wartime? My father has a note in his diary about writing a weapons mishandling report for a board during the Battle of Britain.

 

Vaguely remember that in my first 6 weeks of primary training (October 1942) we were shown the Sten Gun, along with various other pieces of small arms, but don'r remember ever getting to fire one.

When in December '45 I was re-trained by the RAC at Rieti in Central Italy the Sten Gun was definitely kicked into the background and probably regarded as being inaccurate. It was therefore was not offered to us as a potential weapon and instead we did much training on the .30 & .50 Browning, both of which were used on the Sherman tanks.

We also got to fire the Thomson Sub-Machine Gun ............... that was fun

Ron

 

A friend tells me he used a Sten in Korea and is less than enthusiastic.(later Mark)