The real scoop on the Sten?

Hi all,
I have never had first hand experience with the Sten smg. I have read many accounts from commonwealth soldiers about the unreliability of them. From those I have read, they had the following attributes:
Misfired when you needed it, fired when you didn't need it to, ill fitting parts, not very durable, poor accuracy(I understand you can't compare this with any sort of rifle), and generally of poor quality.
These guns were designed to be cheap and easy to produce. I wonder if the complaints I have read were from early production which tend to be of poor quality until the bugs get worked out. Or was it truely just a bad design that had faults?
Any first hand users? A lot of people can speculate, but if you haven't used one in combat then it is just speculation. I for years thought the .44 Magnum was a round that would tear your arm off until I shot it for myself. Now I think they are fun to shoot, although grips make a big difference in comfort. I guess what I am trying to say with out being rude, is if you have not used one then it is hear say. If you have used one I would really love to hear your opinion on this weapon.

 

Not exactly "on point" in the video, but too cute not to share. I posted this next quite a while ago, and it has a link (don't know if it is still 'live') with Jim Varney finding his Dad's stash of an old STEN.

The STEN Sub machine gun had a reputation for occasionally running away on the operator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFBuMVcA8KM

I thought that was too funny. You might have to cut and paste the address into your browser, it doesn’t seem to "change" automatically for some reason.

Just for fun, I also found this poem written during WW2 and published in The Maple Leaf Scrapbook, a souvenir book printed in Belgium at cost and given to forces overseas by No. 3 Cdn. P.R. Group, in 1945.

Ode to a STEN GUN
By Gunner. S.N. Teed

You wicked piece of vicious tin!
Call you a gun? Don't make me grin.
You're just a bloated piece of pipe.
You couldn't hit a hunk of tripe.
But when you're with me in the night,
I'll tell you pal, you're just alright!

Each day I wipe you free of dirt.
Your dratted corners tear my shirt.
I cuss at you and call you names,
You're much more trouble than my dames.
But boy, do I love to hear you yammer
When you 're spitting lead in a business manner.

You conceited pile of salvage junk.
I think this prowess talk is bunk.
Yet if I want a wall of lead
Thrown at some Jerry's head
It is to you I raise my hat;
You're a damn good pal...
You silly gat!

The cheap-o STEN, was undoubtedly one of the most crude, ugly, simple, but effective sub machine guns of WW2. Even if it did have that little "quirk" of running away in certain circumstances, in some models there were a huge number of them made, I think there were more than 4 million of different versions (Marks) made from 1941 until 1945.

I've never shot one, some of our posters have. I did read one person who used it in WW2 mention that the only identifiable parts on it which showed any hint at quality were the section of mattress spring, and a piece of plumber's pipe.

 

The sten's sole virtue was its cheapness. If you are the Prime Minister of
England in 1940, a gun that costs $10 to make sounds a lot better than one that costs twice that, especially since you know you will need 3 or 4 million of them. But when you happen to be a british tommy on the battlefield, facing a German assault, you might wish you had something a little better than a sten gun in your hands.

The gun was designed with absolutely no frills, not even a front pistol grip. This meant you had to hold the gun by the magazine since there was nowhere else to put your hand on a hot gun. But holding it by the mag made the gun jam.
The magazine was hard to load and the single feed design also caused alot of jamming. The weapon fired from an open bolt, which made it quite inacurate at any range, as its only use was as a bullet hose (and an unreliable one at that).

The similar German submachine gun design was the MP-40. A rework of the MP-38 to make it cheaper and simpler, the MP 40 was composed mainly of steel stampings, making it quick to produce and almost as cheap as the sten. The mp 40 was a bit more accurate and a bit more reliable then the sten, and had a decent folding stock. However towards the end of the war, when the Germans were desperate for every weapon they could get to arm the volksturm, they too produced their own sten, a virtual copy called the MP 3008.

If you were to look at the aforementioned two sub guns and morph them together, you'd probably get a gun just like the American M3 grease gun. It was produced much later than the other two, and so the American designers got to design in many of the best features of both. It was almost as cheap as a sten gun but a bit more reliable. It also fired the powerful 45 ACP cartridge, a big improvement on the 9m parabellum fired by the other two.

Note that practically as soon as the war was over, the British eliminated the Sten gun and designed the more sophisticated, more reliable, and more accurate L2a1 submachine gun.

 

Err, not true, there were a number of areas to grab, the area right infront of the trigger but behind the magazine, the area infront of the magazine but behind the barrel, or the magazine slot. Just dont grab the magazine.

The issue of reliability depends on where you read it. The Canadian reports on the weapon, some are scathing, some praise the weapon. Its really hard to know how effective the weapon really was.

The .45 is not actually that powerful, its a big low velocity round. Its very powerful vs Flesh but not much else. They often had trouble piercing the metal helmets of Germans or Japanese, and there are reports during the Battle of the Bulge of the .45 not piercing the heavy winter coats of the Germans at certain ranges.

Both rounds have their merits, hence why both calibers are still used today.

 

STEN's design was just fine. Some soldiers who shot it reported it a highly satisfactory weapon whereas some others called it the most nasty piece of **** they have ever used. Any problem with reliability might be the result of poor workmanship in some of the factories as well as subpar materials that might have been used.

Sterlin, a direct descendant of the STEN, was considered one of the best SMGs ever made.

 

It was probably slated more by soldiers who had previously tried or used a Thompson. It wasn't the best Sub-Machine Gun, but it was cheap and that's what we needed at the time. It did have the nickname of the "Woolworths" gun by British troops - says it all really.

 

I have never fired one but it seems to me that it would be just fine for the job it was designed for: Bullet Hose.

Cheap, easy to build Bullet Hose for throwing lots of lead downrange.

But then again, my life has not depended on it. I have always like the design though. Simple and to the point.