British sten mk ii pistol grip serial#
British sten mk ii pistol grip full#
British sten mk ii pistol grip portable#

The arrival of the STEN forced the Lanchester design into the background and it only went on to serve with the British Royal Navy. The weapon would be known as the 'STEN' formed of the last name initials of Shepherd and Turpin ('S' and 'T') and the first two letters of the place of origin - Enfield Lock ('EN').

British sten mk ii pistol grip serial#

Trials of a prototype model ensued in January of 1941 and the weapon was formally accepted into service and subsequent serial production thereafter. This produced a crude, yet adequate, personal weapons system that could stock the British inventory in the hundreds of thousands. The design made use of a pressed steel metal frame with spot welding throughout.

Turpin and took to a design in the MP38 mold that was substantially cheaper to produce and would be just as rugged and reliable in-the-field. With that said, the British effort was led by Major Reginald V. However, the original MP38 was a complex beast which made it expensive to produce in the numbers required (which led to the simplified MP40).

British sten mk ii pistol grip portable#

The submachine gun proved highly effective and gave the Germans an early advantage in their portable automatic weapons. Hundreds of thousands of the type were ultimately produced and served as the standard German submachine gun of World War 2. The MP38 entered service with the Germans in 1939 and fired the effective 9x19mm Parabellum pistol round from a straight blowback, open bolt arrangement. There were slight variations added to the local attempt, principally in the barrel rifling and support for the Lee-Enfield field bayonet.Д®lsewhere, work had proceeded on an indigenous new British submachine gun design based on findings of the respected German MP38 submachine gun series. The local-production MP28 became known to the British as the 'Lanchester' after production director George H. Instead, the British infantryman relied largely on their tried-and-true yet cumbersome and outdated bolt-action service rifles. At this point in the war, the British military lacked any frontline submachine gun weapon system of which the Germans put to good use in their Blitzkrieg operations. Without delay, the British government authorized local production of the German MP28, a capable submachine gun with origins in the World War 1-era MP18.

British sten mk ii pistol grip full#

What became war-booty to the victorious Axis proved another logistical peril for the British as the loss of such valuable equipment, coupled with the fall of France, provided little defense for the British mainland, knowing full well that the Germans would not stop at the coast - intent to conquer the English by land and air. While the German Army failed to pulverize the survivors caught on shore, it managed to capture tons of Allied equipment - tanks, artillery, small arms and the like.

However, all of the initiative proved disastrous when Allied forces were cornered at the sea-side port of Dunkirk which forced a massive rescue operation from sources in England. The British military lent its support to the faltering fronts across Europe in the summer of 1940. The type even saw production by the Germans in the thousands during 1944 (a German offshoot also appeared in 1945). Despite its utilitarian appearance and basic function (as well as awkward layout and feed-jamming issues), the STEN became a popular submachine gun for British and Commonwealth forces throughout the war. The general design was nothing more than a tubular metal receiver housing the internal working components capped by a barrel at one end a rudimentary shoulder support at the other while being actuated through a primitive-looking trigger group - many forms lacking a conventional pistol grip. It proved a no-frills submachine gun designed exclusively for medium-to-close-combat ranges and spawned an entire family of firearms owning their design to the original initiative. The weapon was designed around the principles of cheap production and simplicity in both its operation and assembly. The STEN was a widely-produced personal weapon system (noted as a 'machine carbine' but generally categorized as a 'submachine gun') of British origin serving during World War 2. The British STEN submachine gun is one of those rare firearms in history that was born of desperation and turned into a war-winning endeavor.