#British sten mark 2 how to#

Harold John Turpin, a senior draftsman at the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield, produced a drawing for a simplified trigger mechanism that had only two moving parts. The solution came in December 1940, almost six months after Dunkirk. вЂњThe most important consideration at the moment,вЂќ a member of the ordnance board noted, вЂњseems to be to get some form of machine carbine acceptable to all three services into production as quickly as possible.вЂќ What Britain really needed was a homegrown submachine gun that could be produced rapidly and inexpensively and that would tick off all the core tactical and functional boxes. Neither weapon, unacceptably expensive for a wartime economy, solved the problem. When World War II broke out in 1939, the British government hastily acquired limited numbers of submachine guns by importing Thompson M1928s from the United States and by commissioning the Sterling Armament Company in East London to manufacture its own 9mm Lanchester for issuance to the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Through most of the 1930s, the Small Arms Committee of BritainвЂ™s Ordnance Board had dallied over acquiring submachine guns, testing several foreign-made types but opting for none. Besides increasing British firepower, submachine guns would also be also ideal weapons for the expanding ranks of auxiliary troops and tank crews who needed compact, easily accessible weapons they could store inside their vehicles. 4 rifles-had come off worse against German troops armed with 9mm MP 38 and MP 40 submachine guns, which delivered blistering fire at 500 rounds per minute over an effective range of 200 yards. During numerous close-range scraps in Norway and France, British soldiers-almost exclusively armed with. It would officially be known as the Sten gun, though some soldiers would come to call it the вЂњPlumberвЂ™s NightmareвЂќ or the вЂњStench Gun.вЂќ By any name, it would prove to be one of the most unusual and ubiquitous weapons of World War II.Д«RITAINвЂ™S DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNS OF 19 MADE AT LEAST ONE THING CLEAR: Its armed forces needed submachine guns. If the country was to survive, its fighting men had to be properly armed.ДЇortunately, an unlikely-and unlovely-solution was about to appear. The guards, embarrassingly short of weapons, were sometimes forced to drill with broomsticks, eliciting nervous laughter from the British public.

#British sten mark 2 how to#

A particularly pressing problem was how to arm BritainвЂ™s newly constituted Home Guard, which by July 1940 numbered 1.5 million men. Great Britain now faced an industrial as well as a military emergency, compounded by accelerating casualties from the German U-boat campaign, the ongoing neutrality of the United States (its Lend-Lease program would not begin for another year), the expansion of its armed forces through national conscription, and the looming specter of a German invasion. In the last-gasp scramble to escape enemy clutches, British forces had abandoned nearly 2,500 artillery pieces, 85,000 vehicles (including 445 tanks), 75,000 tons of ammunition, 416,000 tons of supplies, 11,000 machine guns, and tens of thousands of other small arms.

Yet the physical evidence of a massive British defeat lay all around.

Over 10 frenetic days, the British Royal Navy and a vast fleet of auxiliary civilian vessels had managed to evacuate more than 330,000 soldiers-all that was left for a fragile but continued resistance to the German juggernaut. German soldiers, having stormed across Western Europe in less than a month, now milled about the bomb-blackened sands. ON JUNE 5, 1940, THE SMOLDERING BEACHES AT DUNKIRK, ON THE WEST COAST OF FRANCE, were largely silent. In 1940 Britain desperately needed a submachine gun that could be made for about $10.