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Chaps, I'm not sure if this is the correct location for this thread so mods please move if it isn't.
I'd like to know the extent of the Sten gun use in Italy in WW2. I know that it was used but don't know to what extent it was used in this theatre.
Cheers all.
Stens were widley issued in the Canadian Army. One vet told me the NCOs had Stens and the officers had Thompsons. I don't know if that's true or seemed to be a rule of thumb.
Your question got me intrigued so i went for a bit of a look about & saw this. You've probably seen it but others may find it interesting...i certainly did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMqSsvqjJ2E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugumD7y3knI
That white haired chap seems to know a bit about them !!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by tim98
(Bit of an odd-bod )
Agh, Peters missing STEN programme from earlier in the year. I missed it first time around. (Err, last year)
Thank you for the replies chaps. I do have one photograph to show that it was used I just have no idea as to what extent. Does anyone have access to scales of issue for a Brit division in Italy? Say 56th Div?
They were widely used in Italy and when I was researching the Sten book, a Wartime Armourer told me that because they were so readily available to all and sundry, they were a valuable form of 'currency' and every Armourer had a 'spare' in his tool box. In fact, his spare (a Mk3) was still in his tool box when he was demobbed in 1962)
I doubt whether Thompsons were issued to Officers and Stens issued to the OR's. Just imagine it, looking through your binos and the obvious target is the man carrying the Thompson - the Officer. No thanks, it's a death sentence. On ops, even today, most Infantry Officers didn't even wear rank slides
I know the bloke in the video. He's hoping to get into those video's for 'discerning gentlemen' soon!
And the supply officer would be having kittens having to supply .303, 9mm and .45 ammo to the same group!Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
Has anyone got photos of Brits with .30 brownings? I've just found a photo of a Brit team using them on the M2 tripod.
We were using the .30 Browning MK1919's in the UK L3A4 format together with the tripods until the last Centurions and Ferret AFV's left service in the mid to late 90's. And after that, in order to use up the last .30" ammunition stockpiles, as overhead fire guns at Warminster in approx 2000. Magnificent beasts. Ask Doug to reprint the story/saga of us losing one once and the farce that followed......................
Just wondering where you chaps get your information about Stens being widely used, I've had a number of conflicting anedotes and would welcome some clarity.
I got my info by asking people that were there. They came to Italy from the supply dumps in N Africa. I should imagine that they were widely used in the same way that Bedford trucks were widely used - because there were just sooooooooooo many of them! 4 million between December 1940 and August 1945. I remember that we were still using wartime Bedfords until the early 70's
Most of mine come from soldiers I knew personally. I've been asking these questions since I was very young. Even as a kid I knew which weapon was which so their stories meant something to me.
A colleague at work had a father who served as a medic with the Canadians in Italy. He tells a story of them running out of grenades during house to house fighting in Ortona. The solution was to throw a loaded and cocked sten in through the window. The impact with the floor would set it off spraying a full mag of ammo around the room
This is one of those "mythbusters" or "urban legands" stories. I can assure you that a WW2 era Sten would NOT spontaneously dump the mag by being tossed into a room unless the soldier first disassembled the trigger mechanism and completely removed the sear, meaning letting the cocking handle out of the safety notch and allowing hte bolt to fly forward would dump the mag. Even if you did that, the thrower would be as likely to get shot as anyone in a room during the 3.84 seconds it takes to dump a Sten mag.
The average Sten fires at 500 rounds per minute, hance 8.3 rounds per second, 32 round mag = 3.84 seconds. Just cocking and throwing the gun would take one or two seconds of that.
It seems Stens were not commonly available to Allied troops serving in Sicily/Italy until about mid-1944, although the reason is not completely clear. If you do a google search it seems that the internet has become infected with some story along the lines that "the Sten was not issued because of the difficulty of supplying 9mm ammo alongside existing.45ACP for the Thompsons". This seems to be a typically fallacious story, for a number of reasons:
1. Stens had already been used in North Africa by British airborne troops; hence the 1st & 8th Army supply systems would have already contained 9mm;
2. As there were already many small-arms ammo types being used by Allied forces, 9mm hardly created an extra problem; the British-equipped troops (including Polish, French, Italian, Greek and other non-Commonwealth contingents) were already using a .45ACP and .38 mix;
3. Small-arms ammo for pistols and SMGs is a tiny fraction of an army's logistic chain - the overwhelming part being artillery ammunition, bulk fuel and rations.
Stens do appear with allied troops in Italy in the later stages of the campaign, and they were also dropped in large numbers to Italian partisans from early 1944 onwards. I expect that the relative scarcity early on was more to do with the fact that, during the 1943 re-equipping of Commonwealth armies in UK and North Africa (after the defeat of the Afrika Korps), it appears that Thompsons were replaced in UK by Stens, and that the surplus Thompsons were then concentrated in North Africa (1st and 8th Armies) and the Far East (14th Army). A similar thing seems to have happened with N04/No1 rifles, and other types of equipments - e.g. that there was just a process of arms rationalisation in preparation for the final phase of the war.
I regularly sell deactivated stens at some of the local gun shows, and get the sten/hand grenade story all the time. I usually stop the guys telling the story in the first sentence and give them the list of reasons why it would not work. Claven has mentioned the biggest reason, and that is that while a sten may go off once if it did happen to land on it's butt, but on firing it would cock itself fully and that would be the end of it. And even if it were mechanically possible for it to empty it's mag, where does the rotational force come from that is going to make a sten spin round and round?
The most likely scenario of such an attempt is that one of your party would now be unarmed, while an opposing soldier would now have a spare. Besides, one would expect that the basic military training a soldier would have received generally ingrained upon him the importance of protecting his weapon.
I have also heard the same story modernized to include the C1 (sterling) SMG.
I just think that people don't like the Sten and don't want to have a reputation as even a decent weapon. THe worst I heard was a re-enactor who told me that a sten would fall apart if fired from the shoulder! When I went through the reasons why it would not be mechanically possible he just laughed and told another in the party that 'theres someone who doesn't know how to fire his sten guns'.
Ridiculous.
My argument for the Sten being used was that if the US army was willing to transport spare parts, magazines etc for the Johnson rifle, 9mm ammo would be no problem to them.
I have heard that the New Zealand troops had their Stens taken off them when they set off for Sicily, having been given Thompsons as a substitute. How wide spread this practice was, I've no idea.
One of the problems is that there are less and less of us around who have actually used Stens and we often get shouted down by those whose only knowledge is received wisdom.
That would be in line with accounts I've read, and the evidence that the 1st and 8th armies were awash with Thompsons at this stage. I'm actively researching the huge re-equipment and reorganisation programme that occurred between the surrender of the Afrika Korps on 13th May 1943 and the invasion of Sicily on 9th July 1943. The key data I'd like to find out is the information about the first issue of No4 rifles to the 8th Army - these rifles must have been distributed in Tunis during this time frame, as they first appear in large numbers during the Sicily invasion. Unfortunately, information is thin, and personal anecdotes are not always reliable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Combover
Might I make a suggestion chaps............ For those who regularly encounter these buffoons (and sorry to say it, but the re-enactors seem to be the worst offenders.....) who STILL try to pass on this sheer bull manure about the Sten gun, then please feel free to copy the few pages from the Sten Gun book by that what's 'is name bloke. Just pages 303 to 310 should suffice.
As for falling apart, my son who was a little shortarsed skinny 9 year old at the time fired many thousands of rounds through a Mk2 Sten for a high speed video shoot (that we slowed down for students) and we're still using it today! We also spent an afternoon testing and broke about 13 Stens/butts, trying to get them to fire a round after being dropped from greater and greater heights with the cocking handle in the safety slot or in the forward SAFE (pushed through) position. We broke many but couldn't fire ONE.
Some clown even told me (a former paratrooper too.....) that the inertia of the static line snapping would cock and fire the gun that was tucked into the upright risers of the harness, just as you rolled backwards slightly to catch your breath.................. Have you ever heard such pure horse manure?
Ask the man who told you about the gun being used as a 'grenade/scattergun' to phone me up 55-recce and I'll give him a 4th year physics lesson as he must have been asleep in his class the first time around.
I hear what you're saying about the demographics of Sten users Beery, but MK5's were still in service in the early days of my service and STILL in service in 1968 (Yes, the RAF still had Mk2's in Malaya too) and the very LAST Sten guns didn't leave UK MoD service until 1972 (and the last Navy Lanchesters in 1978)
Well Mr.Laidler, I'm a re-enactor myself and try at every turn to dispell these myths as the utter nonesense that they are. I hear this gubbins from so many other re-enactors, that I feel i'm facing an uphill struggle.
I even had one German re-enactor tell me off for daring to dispell his Sten bashing myths in front of a member of public. He couldn't back up what he said with any scientific theory or hard evidence. Funny that.
Might I make a suggestion chaps............ For those who regularly encounter these buffoons (and sorry to say it, but the re-enactors seem to be the worst offenders.....) who STILL try to pass on this sheer bull manure about the Sten gun, then please feel free to copy the few pages from the Sten Gun book by that what's 'is name bloke. Just pages 303 to 310 should suffice.
To be fair it will be the reenactors who are, in the main, the worst offenders as they're usually the ones who talk to the public at shows and take on board the old soldier's tales about the Sten's cheapness/nastiness, danger to squad members etc. Who here would like to contradict a 70 year old in full flow in front of his audience ? In seemingly good faith (and failing memories) they pass this stuff on to us and, let's be honest, names such as the "Woolworth's gun" "Plumbers abortion" etc., by implication, do nothing to dispel that image.
It seems, speaking to many over the years who either loved or hated the Sten (or who confuse it with the Sterling!), that many old soldiers are just repeating tales they've "heard" that were probably as much BS when they heard them in the mess in the 1960's as they are now. Unfortunately these tales 'have' to considered perceived wisdom as they come from "time served men" - the little para as a case in point above - I wonder how many people have ever told him he's talking rubbish ? :)
However, plaudits to all sides on here for trying to educate or ascertain to the truth - an excellent pair of topics forming up here and thanks to Peter for the tale of a skinny 9 year old armed with a Sten ... as a junior school teacher, that's made my day :) :)
Take care all
Paul
So true! Heck, I'm probably the ONLY person I know under 40 who has fired one, and only then because I used to manufacture reproduction Stens. They are actually VERY reliable guns. So simple that there is not much to go wrong with them. They look tinny and cheap, which is where most of the prejudice is likely comming form. The MP40 was also cheaply stamped from metal, I guess a bakelite hand grip makes it more respectable??? The operating mechanism in an MP40 is also VERY similar to that of Sten except without the semi-auto feature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beerhunter
Hey, hold on chaps! I'm just saying it as I see and hear it. But believe me, I hear it from those who tell me with monotonous regularity! And guess what, - I tell 'em in no uncertain terms, to their face, in front of the group, using the politest Officer language that I can muster.
In fact I show them, with blank that it WILL NOT fire twice. I throw one onto the floor..... it CANNOT fire twice and it won't even fire ONCE if you have done your drill correctly. I pull them up in their tracks when they berate the new/modified SA80 (No, it wasn't H&K that solved the problems, it was US that identified the problems. H&K put all the answers into one neat modification package) and still they tell me the usual guff that the Bren was too accurate. No it wasn't, it wasn't even as accurate at the most mediocre rifle of the time.
But back to the skinny little 9 year old, Colonel........... I let him fire the Boys and the Barratt too. The Boys didn't take his shoulder off. It gave him a bit of a whack but nothing that an 18 year old soldier couldn't take for his breakfast.
I'll make you an offer............ Come and see us, bring a group and we'll spent a bit of classroom time together - with lunch thrown in too. Can't say fairer than that can I? Well, what are you waiting for.......
I have EXACTLY the same prejudice against modern Domestic Broadband Routers from people who's Networking background is talking to "The Man the Pub".Quote:
Originally Posted by Claven2
They say that because something looks cheap and nasty in their opinion (because it has plastic case), it can't be any good at ADSL/WiFi/Anything.
I guess that thing that gets me so ANNOYED is being told my business/profession/calling by people whose only training and experience is reading Internet Forums. DOUBLE GRRRRR!
It would make good reading to produce a book or add a section on the forum about gun myths or other military myths. There seems to be quite at lot of stories floating about.
I had that very discussion with a good friend last night. He told me they used to take out the trigger mech of the sub machine gun C1 and throw it through a window for house clearing...I told him "Yes, I've heard that one"...he's a good friend, just a bit mis aligned. No need to call him down. He was just wrong. Too many reasons to list here.Quote:
Originally Posted by stencollector
I've been lucky enough to fire plenty of Mk.2's and own a Mk.5. My Sten Mk.5 and Thompson M1A1 will stay with me for a long, long time as they are the only transferable MG's I own that aren't for sale. They are both outstanding weapons and plenty accurate for their intended purpose.
Annanuvverfing............... All that sheer horse shi.........., manure that it swings high and right - or left, depending on who you're talking to and what day of the week it is. If it just sits in a wooden frame and jumps around a bit, magazine after magazine after magazine......... hundreds and hundreds of rounds and a little 9 year old boy can hold it, then that's another myth that must be put to bed as soon as they spout it.
Get youirself a decent gun and 10 decent magazines that function well with that gun and it's as good as you need, just providing that you ain't hoping to win any marksmanship prizes
And, if Stens were such utter c**p, what were the Germans doing, making a clone; the " Geraet Potsdam".
Was it purely for "counter-clandestine" purposes? I doubt it.
They even "refined" it to become the MP-3008
There's a part of one for sale here: Gerät Potsdam Magazine Housing - BRP CORP Store
Well now Peter...remember we had the submachine gun as part of the rifle team shoots. Accuracy, speed and time over points for a trophy. Granted, that's not MOA at some range or another...but...Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I have often shot my sten and sterling out to the 100 yd mark. It is no problem knocking out 12" plates at that distance. But go beyond 200 and you can forget it.
And if anyone ever tells me again that the bullets will bounce off a wet greatcoat.....................
No Peter that's bullets from a Pistol, Revolver No.2 (Enfield).Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I must have an odd one though because if I ever hit a wooden target frame at Bisley, the bullets smash great lumps out of it. Perhaps the NRA would be better making the frames out of wet greatcoats?
Actually bullets from my Webley M&P Mk.IV also knock the frames about if hit. Having said that of course, even though they used exactly the same ammunition as the No.2, the Webleys apparently do not have the "wet greatcoat" problem. Odd that.
Can we call the new section "Myth Busters" and sell the TV rights to the Discovery Channel? I'll volunteer to be the dummy that gets in the way of everything.
Oh, we can add the match stick Auto L1A1 to the page too.
Is that a myth on an L1A1? It sort of worked here. Our guns had the safety sear built in to them mind you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brit plumber
As a young soldier, I used some tinfoil from the ration pack to get the height right, and I was only using blanks, but it worked fine for me. My buddy did run into a problem with his when the bolt hopelessly jammed to the rear and he had to turn in the rifle that way. Luckily it was during a summer milcon, and there was no way of tracing the weapons back to the user when the weapons techs got around to it a week or so later, with the incriminating piece still laying under the sear.
Sten Collector, I go into this myth in some detail in a much previous thread. You CAN do it but believe me, it's a tad more complicated that a bit of matchstick. All explained in that thread if someone with a bit more computer savvy than me can resurrect it
Not a myth. I too have seen it done, with blank and a BFA.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brit plumber
---------- Post added at 02:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:24 PM ----------
Is this what you mean Peter?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
There was a method, using a matchstick between the rear bent of the SEAR and the rear step of the trigger, but that meant taking the trigger assembly OUT........., and you can't do that without taking the LEVER, change out..... and that's retained by that bloody akward split pin. AND, if you did manage this, on the range without being noticed, you would have a rifle that only fired automatic.
Just an irrelevant point, but in answer to the wrong statement made on the Sten video by the American chap earlier in the thread, the Sten cost exactly 10 shillings to make or 50 pence in todays money.
This is fact and came from a guy who made them to a tight budget, and safety wasn't one consideration in September 1940, it was sheer volume needed.
Sad but nevertheless true.
Ours didn't have that piece. But the addition of tinfoil or matchsticks was inherently unreliable and like you say, stuck out like a sore dick...er...thumb...Quote:
Originally Posted by Beerhunter
Sorry Gil............ Another myth that's just gotta be busted. The CHEAPEST price ever recorded for a Sten was the Mk2, by BSA during one particular week when they produced 47,000 from late on a Monday to the following week. The cost per gun was £2-7s 6d or £2.35p in todays money
Re the rifle on auto with the matchstick............. We all seem to forget that you have to shorten or remove the PLUNGER, trigger because even though the change lever is in the R position, the trigger can't be rotated back far enough. That is the reason why the L2 not only had a different change lever with a second flat but also had a different plunger. Look at the parts list..........
ike I say, you COULD do it, and I did, a few times but.............
Well he's 92 and adamant on the price and still as sharp as a razor. He says they sold for 2 quid odd to the War Department.
Only passing on what one of our veterans says, " Big hammer, and screwdriver that's all I had, anyone could put them together"
Thats probably where the myth started then Peter, the workforce! as it was a lot of money in the forties!!
BSA did it as a timed and costed production exercise at a time when they were producing every part and were able to time/cost every part of the product. They say this in the documents (now archived at Aston Uni) but I don't think that they actually produced springs. But in the great scheme of things, it'd be peanuts.....
I summised afterwards that the actual period they (BSA) did this was when there was talk of the Mk3 totally replacing the Mk2. So it was probably a production and financial argument that they could put forwards to counteract a similar notion/argument from Lines Brothers and Glover and Main - who were also going to produce the Mk3.
But £2.7/6d was never beaten!
What I would give to be where Peter was in that armoury, a very good insight into adaptability that has to be a part of any Countries weapons manufacturers liked it heaps well done Peter.:thup:
I seem to remember we wedged up the carbureter governor on champs with our matchsticks -!!
I can understand people being surprised that a Mk.2 from BSA could beat the price of a Mk.3 from Lines Bros. Do you know how much Lines could do a Mk.3 for?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I'm surprised considering every part of MkIII except the barrel and block were stamped or pressed. The Mk2 had the head and both parts of the barrel nut to be machined and the extra fabrication of the magazine housing. I'm glad they did keep the price down or Mk2s would be as rare as Mk1s are now.
Regarding the Mk111 did these ever come with a wooden butt/stock ? reading an obituary last week it had a photo of a group with what looked like Mk111 Sten's but with wooden butt/stock ?
If I remember correctly from Peters excellent STEN book, there was a one off experimental 'butt a la Lanchester' type made, then there's a well made version which looks based on a Enfield rifle stock but must have been purpose made for the STEN. And then there's a version which is a rifle butt adapted on to the retainer plate of the STEN, these I think may be of Canadian origin.
Did it look like a Mk5 stock as they will fit all models of course.
So no, no official wood stock except the butt for the mk5.
There were several post war variations to make the Sten into something that it really wasn't. Including the 'viper'. But all fell by the wayside. Like the Sten bayonet......... I mean........ If you need a bayonet on a sub machine gun, then you really do need a bayonet!
I,ll try and take a pic of a pic, may ask the Telegraph if they can point me in the direction, don't want to give anyone the wrong impression but I don't normally read the Telegraph, more of a Times man myself.
Additional info Pics below, they are suppose to be one of the Auxillary units in training in Hampshire
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...1142a95c-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...33673a46-1.jpg
They're odd butts, they don't look like Enfield butts and they look really chunky around the wrist. But there is a least 2 similar shown so who knows.
Definately Mk3's and I'd say that the top and bottom profiles differ a bit. Quite how they'd get their hands around the wrist is beyond me! The Sten is one of those weapons that lends itself to the saying that given a hacksaw and a hammer, anything is possible! But 'official' and 'approved', they ain't!
Being the type of unit they were is it not possible that they just adapted their own stuff?
Possibly but I don't see how there improvements are 'Improvements', the original stocks are more than adequate for the job.
How true. I'm a big believer in the old adage that whether you have a £50 beautifully blued and walnut stocked Thompson or a £2:7/- Sten gun, you can only kill a man so dead no matter what you do to it!
Those two butts might not even be wood, they could well be normal steel butts that have been wrapped or padded with things like hessian and sniper tape.
In fact the two butts appear to be different, and one might be a No2 Mk2 (one the right), the other a No3 Mk1 (on the left).
They looked to me more like Mk.I* guns.
Bob Millard - obituary - Telegraph
The gun on the right looks like a Thompson.
Great OB thing I have noticed over the years is that long time married partners when one passes to the great beyond the other is soon to follow and usually in the 6 month time slot as Bobs wife passed in Sept '13 and he followed in March '14 sorta like a Greek tragedy, anyway that is my usual curve ball.......
Looks like they were very proud to show off their new butts for some reason with the barrels pointing at the guys loaded. could be wooden MG ones but not MG42 butts something similar as they look identical!!
They probably found one that had similar connections to be able to be used and presumably a sling swivel too?
It almost gives the impression of a setup photo the way they are showing them off , as if to say look what we have, "different guns to you lot so there"
What is it gives you that impression? The mag on or the action forward...on a blowback weapon?Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil Boyd
Jim,
Because they appear to be holding them by the magazines, regardless of working parts forward or back.
Trust when barrels are pointed at you is a big thing