Sten MKIII

Description

The STEN (an acronym of designers Shepherd, Turpin & Enfield) is a British made Submachine Gun first used in World War II by all commonwealth forces and remained in service with the British Army until the Suez Crisis in 1956. It is chambered for 9mm ammunition and is fed by means of a 32 round stick magazine that is fitted to the left hand side.

Earlier models were introduced in 1941 after the British Army needed to rapidly replace the tens of thousands of weapons lost on the beaches of Dunkirk. It was cheap and more importantly with an impending German invasion, incredibly quick to manufacture. Their compact design also allowed them to be dropped in their thousands to resistance forces all over occupied Europe, who also learnt to manufacture their own.

The Mk III was introduced in 1941 after designers at Lines Brothers Ltd, devised a way to reduce the production time and ultimately the cost of manufacturing the Mk II. To do this they simplified the overall design by adopting a one piece barrel shroud and receiver. This resulted in a reduction of 21 components, however it now meant that the barrel, full length shroud or magazine housing could no longer simply be replaced if worn/damaged, meaning the entire weapon would be scrapped. In all almost 900,000 Mk III’s were produced before production ceased in 1943. However production of the more expensive, yet reliable Mk II continued throughout the war.

Having been produced in such high numbers and having seen service in so many theaters of operations during WW2, post war, amongst the chaos of the repatriations and clean-ups, weapons such as this readily found themselves in the hands of the criminal underworld and paramilitaries. Their presence in these organizations would last for decades and even today the odd example still appears in an obscure civil war or police seizure.