Sten - Service

Service

The Sten, especially the Mark II, tended to attract affection and loathing in equal measure. Its peculiar appearance when compared to other firearms of the era, combined with sometimes questionable reliability made it unpopular with some front-line troops. It gained nicknames such as "Plumber's Nightmare", "Plumber's Abortion", or "Stench Gun". The Sten's advantage was its ease of mass-production manufacture in a time of shortage during a major conflict.

Made by a variety of manufacturers, often with subcontracted parts, some early Sten guns were made poorly and/or not made to specification, and could malfunction in operation, sometimes in combat. The double-column, single-feed magazine copied from the German MP28 was never completely satisfactory, and hasty manufacturing processes often exacerbated misfeed problems inherent in the design. A common statement heard from British forces at the time was that the Sten was made "by Marks and Spencer out of Woolworth." British and Commonwealth forces in the early years of the war often extensively test-fired their weapons in training to weed out bad examples; a last-minute issue of newly-manufactured Stens prior to going into action was not always welcomed.

The MK II and MK III Stens were regarded by many soldiers as very temperamental, and could accidentally discharge if dropped or even laid on the ground whilst the gun was cocked. Others would fire full-automatic when placed on 'single', or fire single shots when placed on 'automatic'. This was particularly true of early Stens using bronze bolts, where the sear projection underneath the bolt could wear down more easily than ones made of case-hardened steel.

Stens could jam at inopportune moments. One of the more notable instances of this was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 27 May 1942, when a Slovak soldier - Warrant Officer Jozef Gabčík - fired his Sten point blank at Heydrich, only to have it misfire. The Czech soldier Jan Kubiš hastily tossed a grenade, which mortally wounded Heydrich. There are other accounts of the Sten's unreliability, some of them true, some exaggerated and some which are apocryphal. France manufactured (well-made) Sten copies postwar into the early 1950s, evidently believing in the basic reliability and durability of the design.

A well-maintained (and properly-functioning) Sten gun was a devastating close-range weapon for sections previously armed only with bolt-action rifles. In addition to regular British and Commonwealth military service, Stens were air-dropped in quantity to resistance fighters and partisans throughout occupied Europe. Due to their slim profile and ease of disassembly/reassembly, they were good for concealment and guerrilla warfare. Wrapping the barrel in wet rags would also cause the Sten to sound like a heavier weapon, with opposing troops believing they were faced with machine guns. Guerrilla fighters in Europe became adept at repairing, modifying and eventually scratch-building clones of the Sten (over 2,000 Stens and about 500 of the similar Błyskawica SMGs were manufactured in occupied Poland).

The Sten was used by Filipino guerrilla resistance fighters during the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines from 1942 to 1945.

Canadian infantry battalions in northwest Europe retained spare Sten guns for special missions and the Canadian Army reported a surplus of the weapons in 1944. The Sten was not used in Italy due to constraints on the shipping of ammunition; .45 ACP was already being used in that theatre by the US Army and a requirement for the 9 mm pistol round used by the Sten would have been in competition for limited shipping space.

The Sten saw use even after the economic crunch of World War II, replacing the Royal Navy's Lanchester submachine guns into the 1960s, and was used in the Korean War, including specialist versions for British Commandos. It was slowly withdrawn from British Army service in the 1960s and replaced by the Sterling SMG; Canada also phased out Sten, replacing it with the C1 SMG.

The Sten was one of the few weapons that the State of Israel could produce domestically during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Even before the declaration of the State of Israel, the Yishuv had been producing Stens for the Haganah; after the declaration, Israel continued making Stens for IDF use. The opposing side also used (mostly British-made) Stens, particularly the irregular and semi-regular Arab Liberation Army.

In the 1950s "L numbering" came into use in the British Army for weapons - Stens were then known as L50 (Mk II), L51 (Mk III) and L52 (Mk V).

One of the last times the Sten was used in combat during British service was with the RUC during the IRA border campaign of 1956 - 1962. In foreign service, the Sten was used in combat at least as recently as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

In 1971 various marks of Stens were used by guerilla fighters during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

A number of suppressed Stens were in limited use by the US Special Forces during the Vietnam war, including c. 1971, by the United States Army Rangers.

In 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards, one of whom emptied the entire magazine of his Sten into the Prime Minister at point-blank range.

In the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, both Nationalists and Communists used the Sten. Some Stens were converted by the Communists to 7.62x25mm by using the magazine housing from a PPS to accept curved PPS magazines. An example of such a conversion is on display at the Imperial War Museum, London

The Finnish Army acquired moderate amounts of Stens in the late 1950s, mainly Mk. III versions. Refurbishment at the Kuopio Arsenal included bluing of the arms. Stens in Finnish service saw limited usage by conscripts (notably combat swimmers) and were mostly stockpiled for use in a future mobilization.

During the Zapatista movement in 1994 some Zapatista soldiers were armed with Sten guns.