A question for Capt Laidler on the Sten

[Frederick303]

So my lovely wife bought me a copy of your book; "The Sten Machine Carbine" and while I enjoyed it a lot and am now thinking I need a L50A1 to go with my L59A1, a few questions arise that I have had for a quite some time:

Most significant is the production quantity. Something "seems" not right about the official figures of over 4,300,000 made. I know the official contact /serial number ranges indicate this, but the use history and photos do not as evidenced by the following:

1) There are supposed to be 300,000 MK I and MK I *. They are simply not shown anywhere in any pictures of troops from 1944 and 1945. MK I* pictures simply do not exist, except for museum shots, yet 100,000 were supposed to be made.

If they made so many starting in 1941, why was it not a standard item in the list of changes until 1943? if they made 300,000, and they had virtually no issue history, why would they have made them obsolete in 1947? Now compare that to the 79,000 known made Lancaster's (from "The Guns of Dagenham"), of which a lot of pictures exist and they have a service history to the 1970s.Seems to me the production quantity was very small of that variant.

2) The supposed 2.6 million (plus) MK II versions: how is they made that many were they short on these guns in November of 1952? It boggles the imagination.

The US made 1 million M3/M3A1 MP and there was no shortage of them even when they were put out to pasture in 1994, the standard unit armorers solution to any major issue was to torch the old one an get a new one (or so I have been told by a few folks in the us system from 1984 to 1994). Yet they were not only used in WWII (very late, but Korea, Vietnam and were the standard A army MP from 1946 to 1960. If the UK had 2.5 times the number they should have still had massive numbers of guns available at the end of the cold war.

3) the issue rate: So the UK had around 1.3 million SMLE MKIII rifles, and build/recovered around 235,000 in WWII, with around 2 million No 4 made and another 1.5 million coming in from North America that indicates a total first line quantity of 5 million SMLE rifles. Stens should have been issued on the order of 4 to 1 at most, so 4 million Stens would have been sufficed for around 17.2 million rifles, or said another way , they really only needed around 1~1.25 million submachine guns. Yet there is another 1.3 million MK III/MK V Stens made on top of the 2.6 million MK II and 300,000 MK I (which appear nowhere as previously stated)

lets look at german production ratios: 13 million rifles, 1.075 million MP38/40 made, 100,000 MP 28/EMP/MP34/MP38/42 plus 425,000 MP 44 or a ratio of 8.66 rifles to MP

The US: 14 million rifles made/in stores (4 million M1, 2.0 million M1903/03/, 1,900,000 M1917/6 million M1 carbine) around 2.9 million M1928/M1/M3 made (of which 200,000 ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic) or a ratio of 4.8

4) The post war disposition: So if the UK had had 4 million left over in 1945, one would expect the distribution of these to foreign armies, especially NATO in the 1949 to 1960 time frame to be more large spread, but there seems to be a distinct lack of same. Yes there was the 75,000 Interarms exchange with Finland in the late 1950s, yes a lot were sent to India I am sure, but the extent to which the Stens issue history ends in 1963 does not make sense if there were 4.3 million of them, compare that the M1, of which a total of 6 million were made and its wide NATO/CENTO/SEATO issue up until the 1970s. If there were so many made, where did they end up? India/Pakistan is the obvious answer, but the records do not seem to support several million being sent out to India

In particular the British sense of never throwing anything useful away. Of course there were the dumping at sea of obsolete ordnance in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but there is not discussion of this with Stens, unlike the P14 rifles.



In any case I am wondering your thoughts on this. It was one aspect of the Sten story I still wonder about. I was hoping I would read more about in your most excellent book. perhaps I read it in my first read, there was so much to read that I might have missed it. If they really were made, what happened to all of them?

Information

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[Flying10uk]

Large numbers of Stens which were supplied to the resistance organisations in continental Europe during WW2 probably never surfaced again after the war due to either being captured by the Germans or being retained as "souvenirs". A few thousand Stens must have been lost at the Battle of Arnhem with a significant number probably falling into German hands. Stens supplied to resistance organisations in the Far East were most likely either lost, captured by the Japanese or retained by the organisation and in some cases used against the British Post War. Stens were supplied by the U.K. to other countries such as Finland, Post War.

[Brit plumber]

There were at least 300,000 STEN Mk1 &1*, Sten mk1* serial N294024 was in the Howard stern collection. I have seen 2 in the N240,000 region and I have a Mk1 in the N079,000 range. Most appear to have had lives in the home guard and training environments but I know of one that has a confirmed SOE history and one that surfaced in France as an ex Resistence gun. Indeed the resistence must have had a large consignment as I believe it was they who through SOE requested a version that could be stripped down for concealment.

You may also note that lots of these Mk1 &1* guns ended up in film work both during the war and after. Famous films such as The Guns of Naverone used Mk1* guns which I believe were from Bapties.

[gsimmons]

[CINDERS]

Gather they are the home guard with .303 P-14's and answering #1's question on pics of early Stens

[Frederick303]

I am perfectly willing to be told I am wrong, as all of the documentations says I am. To be frank I am expecting I am wrong but the mystery of disposition of these guns still exists and one picture does not answer the question, as the home guard of ~1 million active men did not take up the entire supply of 300,156 guns.

Further as the guns started to roil out in March of 1941, and the Home guard was "stood down" on 3 December 1944, these guns did not get that much of a work out, they should have been in excellent condition at demob. Between 3 December 1944 and 31 December 1945 they would have been on the books of the Home guard. They would have still been at Home Guard armories, as the organization existed, they just were not in active service.

Yet these 300,156 guns were declared obsolete on 24 September 1947, and do not appear again (the No 1 MKIII was obsolete around the same time but brought back into active stores again in 1954), nor are there large surplus sales, nor a disposition records like with a lot of the P14 rifles used by the home guard (sold in the large surplus sales in late 1950s, possibly some sent to Pakistan in the 1948/49 time frame or dumped at sea 1954~ 1959).

There is still a mystery here.

[Peter Laidler]

If I was teaching at a school and the same were asked I'd suggest that he come back after the days lessons had ended and we'd discuss it and in the meantime, do a bit of homework that he could put before me in order to further the discussion somewhat. Then, later, one day next week....., again after the last lesson, the whole class could partake in the interesting and worthwhile discussion I suggest that you coud come to the UK for a week or so and go through the papers at the Public Records Office that relate to the most interesting Q's that have been raised. Then share them with us all because I simply haven't got the time - nor inclination if I was truly honest - to do it. My book was really about the actual Sten, a bit about its life and times and a bit about my dealings with it as opposed to the wartime and postwar distribution of the gun. That is what we call '......mission creep'

[Frederick303]

Very well, I will put what figures I have found together in various sources in a report and post it here.

I was by no means criticizing the book, it was well written, had copious facts, pictures and more detail that will make multiple reading worth while. All your books are excellent and I am up to 4 of them. But my question comes up as nowhere, anywhere in fact does the issue of the large production numbers which does not seem to match an expected issue history seem to be addressed. I was hoping you might have a quick answer, being to a lot of us the "holy Grail of UK MOD weapons knowledge".

Now I have to get the Bren book, but I fear doing so as then I will need a Bren an impulse I have avoided so far....

[Woodsy]

My Mk I STEN (serial # N 023315) was theoretically part of a large batch of 35,602 guns that were recalled and destroyed (page 301 of Peter's book). To add further confusion, my gun came from Switzerland, and presumably came across the border from France after the war. All of this just goes to show that 'official directives' often are at considerable variance with reality! Bureaucrats think they control the World when, in reality, most people just ignore them!

[Peter Laidler]

Please don't think I even thought that you were criticizing the little Sten book. Far from it. It's just that it's been written, published and what was written was what was available in the UK Military archives at the time.

As for Woodsies gun N-023315, it could possibly be that this gun had already been parachuted into France by the time the order was issued so it missed the clop - like, probably thousands of the folded and wrapped Mk2's The PROBLEM with an order to withdraw Sten guns between X and y serial number is that the serial number is stamped into the mag housing and it's not the mag housing that is faulty. So if in the intervening years the mag housing has been changed over to another, say, damaged or defective gun, then the now repaired gun gets the chop by default