I recently discovered that the British had another submachine gun other than the Sten. I have seen many pictures but I cant find any information on it. Why was it produced? Was it superior to the sten?
The British had more then just the Sten and Lanchester. It appears that 120 prototypes were made and a few were used by Airborne troops at Arnhem and afew elsewhere. It eventually became the "Sterling". "The Sterling Engineering Company made their start in firarms by manufacturing the Lanchester submachine gun for the British Navy in World War 2. They then produced prototype models of the Patchett submachine gun and eventually adopted the gun as their own, producing it as the Sterling. The company is now known as the Sterling Armaments Company. Manufactured by Sterling Engineering Company in the United Kingdom." Here is a Sterling or Patchett gun. It was developed by G.W. Patchett towards the end of WW2 at Sterling Engineering Company of Dagenham in Essex. 1951 it was adopted and delivered in 1953 as Submachine Gun L2A1. Sterling was adopted by New Zealand, Canada, India and several other countries in the Commonwealth beside from UK. There is a silenced version of this gun called L34A1. Submachine guns of UK - BSA Thompson 1926 - Thompson 1928A1 - Lanchester - Sten and Sterling
Lanchester Mk1 Sterling Engineering Company also made a copy of the German Bergmann MP28 II. The gun was designed by G.H. Lanchester. The selector is positioned differently compared to the Bergmann. Beside it is equipped with a bayonet. It is not very common that submachine guns are equipped with bayonets but the British wanted this equipment during the war. The Lanchester was introduced in 1941. Mk1 was a selective fire weapon but later model appeared in full auto only. It was a typical pre war submachine gun and expensive to produce. It is a very heavy and clumsy submachine gun. It was issued to the navy. Weight 4,6 kg, Calibre 9x19 mm, Cyclic rate: 575-600 r.p.m., Magazine 50 rd. box
From Wiki. Always take with a grain of salt of course. History In 1940, with the Dunkirk evacuation completed, the Royal Air Force decided to adopt some form of submachine gun for airfield defense. With no time to spare for the development of a new weapon it was decided to adopt a direct copy of the German MP28, captured examples of which were at hand for examination. The period was so desperate that the British Admiralty decided to join with the RAF in adopting the new weapon, and played a key role in its design. By a series of convoluted events, the Admiralty alone actually adopted the Lanchester into service. The British MP28 copy was given the general designation of Lanchester after George Lanchester who was charged with producing the weapon at the Sterling Armament Company, the same company that went on to produce the Sterling submachine gun that is presently the standard submachine gun of many nations. The Lanchester was envisioned as a weapon that could be used for guarding prisoners and accompanying naval landing and assault parties. It was a very solid, extremely heavy submachine gun, in many ways the complete opposite of its direct contemporary, the Sten. The Lanchester had a heavy wooden butt and stock, a machined steel action and breech block, and a magazine housing made from a favorite naval construction material, solid brass. A few details typical for the era were added, such as a mounting on the muzzle for use of a long bladed British bayonet. The rifling differed from the German original in details to accommodate various lots of 9 mm ammunition then being acquired for service use. The Lanchester also used furniture from the Lee-Enfield SMLE. Operation The magazine for the Lanchester was straight and carried a useful, if quite heavy capacity of fifty 9 mm cartridges. Stripping of cartridges into the magazine was aided by a catch on the top of the receiver. The very first model, the Lanchester Mk I, could fire either single shot or automatic. On the Lanchester Mk I* this was changed to full automatic fire only, and many Mk Is were converted to Mk I* standard at Royal Navy workshops. Service The Lanchester was a copy of a German design, but gave good service to the Royal Navy throughout the war and for some years after. The Lanchester was far heavier than the Sten and had a similar tendency to accidentally discharge if the gun was dropped or knocked on a hard object while cocked and loaded. The last examples left Royal Naval service in the 1970s and are now collector's items. Lanchester submachine gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Lanchester Mk.1 submachine gun, or Lanchester Mk.1 machine carbine in contemporary British nomenclature, was a very close copy of German Schmeisser MP-28 submachine gun. It was developed by George H. Lanchester and manufactured by Sterling Engineering Co between 1941 and 1945. This weapon was made in two versions, Mk.1 and Mk.1* (Mark 1, star). The latter was a simplified version of the original Mark 1, with omitted fire mode selector, and thus firing in full automatic mode only. Most Lanchester submachine guns went for British Navy. The Lanchester Mk.1 submachine gun is blowback operated, selective-fire weapon that fired from open bolt. Tubular receiver was attached to the front of the wooden stock, and could be pivoted barrel down for maintenance and disassembly. Magazines are inserted from the left side, ejection is to the right. Magazine housing was made from brass. Manual safety is made in the form of locking cut, made in the receiver, which engages the bolt handle to lock bolt in open (cocked) position. Fire mode selector was located in front of the trigger, and was not present on Mk.1* weapons. Standard sights consisted of blade front and tangent rear sight, marked from 100 and up to 600 yards (approx 550 meters). Some Mk.1* guns had simplified, flip-up rear sights marked for 100 and 200 yards. The wooden stock was patterned after that of Lee-Enfield rifle, and gun accepted 1907-pattern knife-bayonet, originally developed for the above mentioned rifle. Modern Firearms - Lanchester Mk.1 submachine gun
Built by Sterling Engineering Company. Designed by some-one called G.H. Lanchester. The Lanchester was a Navy weapon for bording and guarding prisoners etc. It is a close copy of an MP28 11 which is a modernised version of the MP18 Bergmann It was chambered for 9mm Parabelum. Two models 1941 Mk1 selective fire 1943 Mk1* auto fire only. Note its introduction was the same time as the Sten It has features very much of its time rear site like an smle and a 1907 bladed bayonet lug. Steve
The Lanchester was an expensive, heavy, and high quality SMG like the German MP28/MP41. Naturally, it had better firing characteristics than the Sten. They were also too expensive to be mass-produced in huge quantities like the Sten or the MP40.
The MP-40 was mass produced. And it wans't so hard to produce thanks to the extensive use of steel stampings. If you want over engineered SMGs, look for the Italian Beretta or even better, the Czech SMG/LMG yes, a sub machine gun that had a bipod and a ROF selector. It could fire 900rpm as an SMG or 600rpm as a LMG. The Germans loved it as it never jammed or gave any kind of trouble. The shortcomings are that it was chambered for 9mm so it wasn't very accurate at long ranges (tough very accurate for a SMG) and didn't pack much wallop in it's round over long distances. Still, The Germans managed to get their hands on a couple of thousand and used them gladly! Cheers...
the Koucky ZB383 is not disimilar to the Lanchester. In some ways it is similar in its use to the Finnish M31 which also had a quick change barrel- the reason for this is they didn't have the factility to Chrome the barrel which the Russians did with their PPSh41. changing a barrel between fire fights reduced the chances of a misfire/jam. It was not a LMG as the Czechs were the masters of LMG. In repetative fire mode with the bipod I would imagine that hits out to 300m would not be impossible and would probably more handelable by an average soldier than for example the standard czech marksman rifle the Vz24. The Rate of fire device is nothing more than removing a 250gram slug from the bolt, not the type of thing that's going to be done in battle. It was probably adjustable from a slow and 500cyclic is very slow for an SMG to 700cyclic for special circumstances such as guard duties and close quarter combat in built up areas. with regard to the MP38-40 The Germans admitted the MP38 was over engineered and expensive and tried to get the cost down in the MP40 it still was over engineered, the fluting, the telescopic main spring sleeve, the trigger group considering it doesn't have a selector. Compare it to the Russian PPSh41 or PPS43 or a Finnish M31, which was expensive but prewar examples of this SMGs were still in service in 1990 when the Assault rifle took over.
