So what can we say about the Sten? Well first of all & importantly for a country that was fighting for its life, it was cheap & easy to produce - you could produce approximately 15 Stens for the cost of one Lee Enfield No.4.

The Sten emerged while Britain was engaged in the Battle of Britain, facing invasion by the Nazis. The army was forced to replace weapons lost during the evacuation from Dunkirk while expanding at the same time. Prior to 1941 (and even later) the British were purchasing all the Thompson submachine guns they could from the United States of America, but this did not begin to meet demand. The American entry into the war at the end of 1941 placed an even bigger demand on the facilities making Thompsons. In order to rapidly equip a sufficient fighting force to counter the Axis threat, the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, was commissioned to produce a significantly cheaper alternative.

The credited designers were Major R. V. Shepherd, OBE, Inspector of Armaments in the Ministry of Supply Design Department at The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, (later Assistant Chief Superintendent at the Armaments Design Department) and Mr. Harold John Turpin, Senior Draughtsman of the Design Department of the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield. Shepherd had been recalled to service after having retired and spending some time at BSA.

However, that basic design & ease of manufacturing was also its Achilles heel

It was not very reliable. It was not very accurate and could carry on firing when you let go of the trigger and even go off when the trigger was not pulled (if dropped or it received some other form of shock or impact). It was often regarded as being just as dangerous to your own men as to the enemy.

Another source of problems was magazine spring, so magazines were routinely loaded with 28-30 rounds instead of "full capacity" 32 rounds to reduce strain on the magazine spring.

These are features that tend not to be considered as very good in your infantry’s weapons

Over the period of manufacture the Sten design was further simplified: the most basic model, the Mark III, could be produced from just five man-hours work.

Some of the cheapest versions were made from only 47 different parts. It was distinctive for its bare appearance (just a pipe with a metal loop for a stock), and its horizontal magazine.

From 1943, the Mark 2S were produced which incorporated an integral supressor. This would heat up rapidly when fired & a canvas cover was laced around for some protection. The suppressed models were produced at the request of the Special Operations Executive for use by their teams in occupied Europe.

These guns had shortened barrels enclosed into integral silencer. The silencer was rather effective so most audible sound when firing Mark 2S was the clattering of the bolt moving back and forth in the receiver. Contemporary manuals advised that the weapon was to be fired in semi-automatic mode; the full automatic fire was reserved for emergency situations, as it decreased the service life of silencer significantly.

So there you have it, a shorter history of one of our most numerous & iconic weapons which will never be held up as an example of either design excellence. It worked some of the time & sometimes when you didn't want it to. Call it what you will; the "Plumber's Nightmare", "Plumber's Abortion", "Stench Gun" or "Woolworth's Gun", it is now, for better or worse, embedded into our military history