Full Auto Firing Thompson vs. Sten
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- In the early, desperate years of World War II, the British army did not produce their own submachine gun. Instead, the British government purchased, "borrowed," and pleaded for American-made 1928 Thompsons. When the British-made Sten finally arrived on the scene, many British units lamented the loss of their Thompsons. And some commando units outright refused to switch. In this video the guys in the club head out to the range to compare the Thompson and the Sten in fully automatic live fire. It's a startling contrast in design and approach--one is a finely tuned work of art, and the other is a mass-produced tin can. But as one World War II leader famously said, sometimes "quantity has a quality all its own."
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Never hold the Sten by the magazine! That's why it jams!
I know nothing about guns, but that doesn't sound right.
If you hold the mag you run the risk of moving the mag and stopping the feed
oh
Actually, i have to hold my by the magwell, if i dont it doesnt run right in full auto
@@niklas7193 why? ... I have fired this gun many times, the magazine has nothing to do with full auto setting.
I only trained on and fired the Sterling - but holding the mag like that would get you a smack upside the head from your platoon sergeant. The Sten has its faults but you can't crap on the hold and sight picture if you are not using the weapon properly.
A fair comparison would be the Sten vs the grease gun.
Agreed on all points
Absolutely correct. My Dad was in one of the last groups to do his national service in the British Army (1958 to 1960). He fired the Sten and the Sterling. He told me (I believe after seeing someone do it wrong in a movie) that you did NOT hold the magazine because there was a tendency to pull out the magazine as you swung it around. What's funny is that the video even has a still of Churchill holding the weapon, and Churchill is holding it correctly!
You didn't expect a fair comparison did you?
My grand dad would have cried if he saw you firing a sten like that!
Was he gay?
@@dhss333 Don't be silly. Everyone knows Sten Guns are all female.
@@hendrikvanleeuwen9110 🤣
The Sten was not supposed to be fired by holding the magazine. Early (and some of the later) models had pistol grips for the left hand.
Well, his didn't. I'd rather have that Thompson though!
You're ment to hold the Sten by the barrel nut ahead of the ejection port (like a normal rifle). Holding it by the magazine housing risks damaging the mag.
My father was in the British army and fired the Sten. You are correct you couldn't hold it by the mag. You also have to be very careful holding the barrel because the cocking handle went back and forth quickly and violently, and would break the little finger on your left hand if you weren't holding it just right.
I knew an ex British marine commando a long time ago. I remember asking about the sten vs the Thomson. He preferred carrying the sten - the Thomson was too clunky and heavy, they used to carry "tons of bullets"..
He said the Thomson was the better and nicer gun but "the sten definitely got the job done.."
I've fired a Thompson and think it is fantastic. However the STEN was designed for the purpose of wining a war. You could buy 17 of them for the price of a Thompson. They used 9mm as they were extremely common on the continent so resistance fighters had access to ammo. The were light weight and could be disassembled and stored on your person. It's like the story of the spitfire and the hurricane.
@@jjb4531 u aint winning wars with 9mm. Sorry
@@tommysuhlami6241 Yea, you win the superior smg caliber. The heavyweight of the war, 7.62x25mm Tokarev! In all seriousness though, remember they didn't have any body armor in WW2 for the most part. Caliber wars are redundant when you're having 9mm in automatic fire flying into you.
@@tommysuhlami6241 pretty sure you're dead no matter if it's a 9mm round that hit you in the head or a 20mm cannon shell.
Spot on, how many tens of thousands found their way into the hands of the French Resistance.... then divide that number by cost of Thompsons!
I know you made your comment years ago but you most certainly win a war with a 9mm sten gun . That's what happened. @@tommysuhlami6241
The early mk 2 stens had a ton of issues mostly from quality control issues. You had pre war factory's making toys and fridges etc etc suddenly on the same tooling they were making parts for the sten, which was then centrally made at various factories. Once they sorted out the quality issues, with the later marks they were a great gun.
In 1940' the british government underl lend lease bought the 1928 thompson, each gun cost roughly the same as small house in 1940. The sten gun could be produced in the thousands for next to nothing, and using 9mm rounds meant they could use captured german 9mm rounds as well. From a ww2 vet, if it jammed it made an excellent club, and could open beer bottle.
The Thompson is beautifully made. The machining is first class and it is so good. Although I have burned my hand in a moment of stupidity by picking it up by the barrel after I just fired it! Dumb as well you know. As to the Sten it was made in a big hurry in 1940 when we couldn't import enough. The Sten as has been pointed out should not be fired holding the magazine as it can lead to misfeeds due to the poor design. However, the sten unlike the German MP40 could be fired semi-auto. You can and still can, make them in a garage/workshop with a few basic tools. This meant the resistance could churn them out. The 9mm round was the same as the Germans used making captured ammo useful. It might have been know as the Woolworth Gun or plumbers abortion but it had a place and it did its job.
With finger control you can fire single shots with the MP40. It is not difficult to do but you are correct, it was full auto only.
Well from the nation that made a profitable exercise out of WW2 we could hardly expect the true reason for the British development of the Sten, we couldn't afford the Thompson at the price you were charging
Even the Americans went to the much cheaper M3.
Even as a Brit I have to acknowledge that the Tommy is a FAR superior gun to the Sten. The main reason for the switch was down to economics: WW2 ravaged the British economy and Tompsons cost £200 each (that's a 1940s' £200, not a current £200) and was just far too expensive. Also, a cheap option was needed, not only to kit out the British Army and all the colonial armies, but also to supply the French Resistance. The handling of the Sten was made even worse by the fact that the recommended way to hold it was not to grip the magazine itself- but the magazine well / socket, AND you were supposed to grip it upside down, i.e. 'palm up'. So, yeah- it was a cheap piece of ****. The Sten did have one advantage though, in Burma and the Far East the Tompson was prone to clog with mud and stopped working. The Sten didn't clog so easily, but that was more by accident than design.
This is bollocks, the correct hold as trained was by the barrel shroud with the magazine resting on top of the arm.
Fair does, I stand corrected.
The Thompson was a very expensive gun to produce and just too high build quality for a military firearm. The US also tried to replace it for economic reasons as well with the M3 grease gun but they sat at roughly 50/50 usage between the two until very early in Vietnam when the US was unloading Thompsons by the dozens as military aid to South Vietnam.
Bro you know the original Thompson was a british gun. The first ever 1921 Thompson was made by the British and then imported heavily over to American gangsters in the mafia. The 1928 version was american but the original Thompson is always british
@@olh5831 Wrong. The First ever made Thompson was Made in 1919 in Connecticut by Warner & Swasey , and first sold in small quantities in 1919, mainly to the NYPD (first prototype was in 1917, belt fed) The 1921 version was actually mainly made by colt, a major American Arms Manufacturer and by Savage Arms (another American Manufacturer) and R.P.B (also American) in addition to the Brit made variation (Birmingham Small Arms AKA B.S.A)You have to remember how it gets it's name in the first place: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Thompson Thompson worked for Remington that did made the Enfield for the Brits. He then started his own company called Auto-ordnance company. At no point was the Thompson a British invention except partly for one variant, the 1926 variant, a redesign by BSA who had a license from Auto Ordnance. www.auto-ordnance.com/history-of-an-icon/ Don't know where you got your misinformation, probably from the fact that BSA made a Tommy Gun Variant.
Having fired the 1970's version, the Sterling SMG, I know you don't hold it by the magazine.
I hear a sten would shoot anything you put in it, which is good, just cause its simple dont mean its junk
Literally everyone knows you don’t hold a stern by its magazine. That’s how it brakes. And your looking at the Mk 2 sten your forgetting about the later variants the variant of the sten your holding one of the variants that was made in panic, the later variants where very well made.
@Jim Man why not go for Mk. V as well? It has a pistol grip and wooden stock
Never hold the sten by its magazine.
I know from reading about the Arnhem campaign that the Germans would try to get ahold of sten's. They liked them because they could be prone while firing and not expose themselves to return fire and snipers (especially on the eastern front.)
US Seals in Vietnam in the 1960's were using the Silenced Sten. !!
Man that looked like fun out firing those weapons! Been almost 30 years since I went out for sight picture, breath control, trigger squeeze! I even miss cleaning time! 👍👍
What are you waiting for?
Great easiness of Sten production made it possible to be reproduced in underground factories through occupied Europe. In Poland AK even managed to create about 1000 copies of "Błyskawica" submachine gun that itinerated on Sten - it was using screws in place of wielding and more importantly - moved the mag feed from the side to the bottom of the gun (like in MP40). I don't really think it's because of us left-handed folk. ;)
Not much of a gun nut, but viedo is interesting anyway. Stay safe!
30 round mag is and was very common to the Thompson. More plentiful than the earlier 20 round mags. I have dozens of the 30 rd mags and only a few 20's. Still able to find new 30 round war time mags.
I fired them both and like the Thompson better as well. But as you stated the Sten was built to get weapons in the hands of the troops as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible. I think a better compare would be the Sten vs. the M3. That would be apples to apples in my opinion. Great Job as usual. Keep the content coming.
During the attempt to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich (which was ultimately successful), the operatives' Sten gun jammed at the critical moment. I do not think the operative succeeded in clearing the jam. They managed to mortally wound Heydrich with a grenade.
Those Czech patriots had some enormous testicular fortitude to deal with old " Eyes Way Too Close Together" Heydrich, quick thinking with that hand grenade. They and the Czech civilians paid a terrible price for destroying a half-smart, privileged, psychopathic bully.
I have read an account that by removing the stock to hide the sten under his coat the Czech soldier inadvertently opened the rear of the Sten . At that point I would have legged it sharpish .Heroes ,real heroes .
That's honestly horrible and enough to make me think the Sten is trash and the utter definition of a stopgap. Replace it ASAP when possible. Imagine failing when you needed it most.
Desperate times call for desperate measures hence the Sten. Even the Germans copied it in 1945, although they did move the magazine underneath and called it the MP 3008.
Great video👍
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_3008
On September 1941 the Australians under the guidance of the Minister of the Army put a Sten gun, a Thompson, and an Owen gun through a number of stress tests including a test where the guns were covered in mud. The Thompson jammed, the Owen gun functioned, and the Sten exploded hospitalizing an observer. Of course these tests were extreme but I thought I would add it to the discussion.
Awesome! I first shot the sten when I was 13, same with thompson. I knew and was familiar different guns(nothing FA though). I started to play Medal Of Honor on PC and really really got into the WW2 guns. So it was an awesome day for me as a youngster getting to shoot two guns that I absolutely love. Thompson was more stable/accurate/more power-cant really tell or just appreciate how much power because of a near perfect weight ratio.... Sten is wild and definitely alot more lift.
Also shot a De Lisle. That's fucking badass. I'd take that over a sten/thompson. Literally the quietest gun ever, besides it's little brother. Epic
Thanks for the demo guys. I believe the British soldiers were just happy to have any type of sub machine gun at the time.
why are you holding the sten by the bloody magazine? .. you must be all over the place doing that, also the commandos used the Sten, so did the paratroopers.
How can you judge then Sten when you couldn't even be bothered to learn how to shoot it?
Yeah, early M3 versus the Sten would have been a fairer comparison but a fun watch hope you guys stay safe and well.
Can't argue with any of your points. Especially about the Sten. (Well, apart from the fact you don't hold it by the magazine for firing)
Except maybe you're talking about the earliest, cheapest iteration of the sten. Some of the later marks were actually pretty decent wee SMGs, once they'd started improving the build quality and components
Yeah only the early stens were kinda crap. Anything after 42 is pretty decent
Sten mk2 any time!
The Thompson is heavy, clumsy, unergonomic, expensive, higher recoil and reloading sucks.
The major problem with the Sten is the magazine. It's an old design, copied from the mp28.
And as it has been pointed out: you hold a sten mk2 by the barrel shroud or by the trigger mechanism cover. It's possible to hold it by the magwell, but only if done right.
I loved the Tomy fornthw ergonomics.It fit me well and fires John Wayne like butter.
Just one thing to point out, in the 40s the Thompson cost $200 the sten $10
You only see a guy shooting a sten holding it by the magazine in b-grade movies.
If that puts us in the category of "B-grade movie" that sounds like a real upgrade for us!
Wargaming in America is quite different than the UK.
Hey guys. Combat vet here. I myself was made to carry a 9mm Beretta. But I also carried my grandads 45 modified from ww2. The 9mm would hurt. But the 45. Would put people down period! Got to shoot a Thomson and wished we had them or another 45 caliber because they drop targets.
Good to see you guys having a good time during these confusing times
The group photo at 6:17 is awesome. Look at their hats !! Some are balanced on their right ears to stop them from falling off !! That's how it was. Only a square wore his hat straight !! (Look at the officers) lol lol.
You could make 3 stens for the price of one Thompson and we needed them in a hurry. Those were the ONLY design requirements. Mag capacity never came into it. With all mag fed weapons it's wise to load one or tow rounds less than the max. Mag springs age?
I don’t think that’s an “urban legend” about the stem (not to load it to full). It’s a means of not putting so much pressure on the spring while still getting your money’s worth of ammo
The Thompson and the sten but use magazines or mags.
Clips are for the Lee Enfield or the Grand.
I would like to see you with a PPSH-41, and 43. Also MG-34, and 42, both with bipods and with a Lafette HMG mount.
Thank you for these videos. Good to see the Maxim in there also.
The main reason that the Brits and Americans changed from the Thompson was cost, ease of cleaning and stripping. The magazine on the Sten was on the side because it was mostly used by commandos and people laying down. The Thompson costs about 15 times the cost of a Sten gun.
The whole not loading a magazine all the way is a very very British army meme. Andy McNab wrote about it. A friend of mine who was a sergeant back in 70s/80s would only load 19 bullets in his SLR mag to "give it a little kick." I wonder how far back in goes. Certainly not with the SMLE. I bet it goes back to the Bren.
Hah, "give it a little kick," huh? That's a good one. Who knows where those myth and superstitions come from....
You’d struggle getting 29 rounds in an SLR magazine. 19 perhaps. I used SLRs for long enough. We used LMG mags (7.62 L4 Bren) and those you had to down load to 28. That was because the springs were designed for a top feed, not to fight gravity lifting 30 rounds. SLR mags were well made and lasted forever. The RG mags that came with the SA80 wouldn’t have been out of place on the Sten- cheap and nasty and prone to failure.
@@samb2052 Sam B you're right about SLR mags. My mistake on the numbers. From what you are saying about the mags, I bet we can pin it down to some squaddie who made the assumption that what held for one magazine fed weapon applied to another.
He must have been strong to get 29 rounds in a 20 round mag.
one good thing with sten, you can keep very low position when crawling because it has side mag
Nice vvideo, looks you had a lot of fun.
Love the sound of these
I've always liked the M/45 Swedish submachine gun myself. Used it in the army in the 90's before it was replaced with the AK5
0:10 me after landing a final shot in a game to kill a boss
And excuse us... as you say we needed something to fight a war with for the two years it took before you guys got involved 😊.
The Sten gun STerling ENfield was built in an emergency in 1940. It was designed for the Home Guard and cost 12/- each. Know as the plumbers delight because plumbers and small machine shops could churn them out quickly and to use captured German 9mm ammo a calibre we didn't use.
Did you get to test any lightsabers at the range from the Endor battle?
We are still waiting for the LWTV particle physics lab to get us a prototype to take down to the range. I'm told it could be a long wait, though....
Little Wars TV just keep it out of the hands of Darth Greg
@@LittleWarsTV We've got a working prototype but are tied up in IP legal proceedings with Disney. The dark side is strong with them.
Speaking as a Brit, Stens were built using often recycled steel. This meant they did, on occasion, explode when the poor sod used them.
They were however not designed with the luxury of time. After Dunkirk the British army realised they did in fact need SMG's, which before hand they had denied. Because of this short sighted approach they had to very quickly design something they could mass produce quickly and super cheap as we could not afford to equip our armies with the Thompson.
The Sten cost $11 the Thompson anywhere up to $200.
The Sten was available in huge numbers whereas once the US got involved in the war (December 7th 1941) the Thompson was in short supply held back for their own needs.
Needs must when the devil drives.
So if I recall my history. Back in the day British platoons were issued with SMLEs and 2x Brens. After Dunkirk, the British bought large numbers of Tommy Guns which were then issued to Sergeants. But the problem with the Tommy Gun was the very high rate of fire and they were eye wateringly expensive...
The Sten was the soluion to providing cheap, very cheap SMGs to the troops at a time when all the spare cash was needed for Spitfires and Convoy Escort vessels.
God bless America.
I see at least 15 different comments here about correctly holding the Sten...at least 5 or 6 of which could clearly see other posts offering the VERY same advice about the VERY same thing.
I have a question for you all and please reply(I'm serious,please reply) - What were your reasons for essentially reposting someone else's advice? Did you not bother to read anyone else's posts (which is likely,but leads to another question for those who could clearly see the 5 posts immediately below the "Enter Comment" line.)
This phenomena interests me,I see it lots of places and have always wondered why folks do it.So here, on a bonus video for a miniature gaming channel rather than a psychology channel or something much more appropriate,I have decided to ask.
The British Commando units were the equivalent of our modern Navy SEALS and Delta Force. As the best trained soldiers in the world, they are national assets. They aren't even men. They are weapons in their own right. When one of them is killed it's like losing tens of millions of dollars. You can't arm them with cheap garbage like the STEN gun, just to save a few bucks on the back end. That would be like spending billions on a state of the art super aircraft carrier, and loading it with prop planes instead new F-35 stealthy fighters, in order to save money. No way!! The SEALS and Delta Force soldiers can request any guns they want and the military will acquire them. This makes perfect sense. Give the best soldiers the best guns.
The Sten was , most definitely , not garbage . May I suggest you watch Hickok 45 on the Sten .
my dad was a sergeant, was ground crew in the RAF during WW2, he trained others to fire the sten> one guy his sten jammed on shooting!!! the guy panicked and stared to turn around !! my dad grabbed his shoulders to stop him>>> my dad was on D Day plus 3 setting up an airfield for typhoons>>> yes the Sten was cheap and nasty but Britain was under siege for 2 years being bombed and needed a cheap high production SMG quickly though it was nasty it was copied by the germans near the end of the war and used my resistance groups>>>>> as for the Bren a beautiful reliable LMG far better in many ways than the german LMG
At the price they were charging the Thomson should be a tad nicer than a Sten
The Thompson was designed in peace time when cost and complexity of construction were not such big issues, the Sten was a wartime expediency so ease and speed of manufacture was much more important.
It should also be noted that US arms manufacturers were never in any danger of having their main facilities bombed out of existence by the Luftwaffe so having a submachine gun that could be made by any half-decent metal shop (rather than requiring significant amounts of machining/milling) was also a major consideration. The Sten may look and feel crap - but its like that for a reason.
All British soldiers held it round the front holed housing with the mag rested on your arm this controls the aiming at close quarters . My mates dad used it through out Italy and emptied a occupied house of it's enemy , lived through it survived and had a family.. so it worked for him. If you looked after it..😎🙏💨
Love firing the Tommy Gun. Keep the range days coming.
loved it as I love all your videos but please I am begging you please game and film more more more !!!!!!
James Holland's recent history of WW2 The War in the West vols 1&2 is very interesting. In it he posits the Anglo American industrial complex versus the German. The allies weapons and vehicles were on the whole items of economic war. Easy to make, easy to maintain, easy to service, multiple interchangeable parts. OK a Sherman might be called a 'Tommy Cooker' by the germans, but try changing the gearbof on a Panther and you very quickly realise the Sherman was part if a weapons system that included a highly efficient supply chain. Most Panters and Tigers broke down ... Shermans could be rescued and fixed on the hoof and put back jnto action after the previous occupants had been hosed out.
Same with destroyers, same with liberty ships.
That is not to say that the allies didnt make some superior weapons. In 194p the Spitfire was simply awesome, the genius of the Mosquito being another British example, the M1Garand and the aforementioned Sherman.
Holland argues that never mind US manufacturing efficiency, the British were out producing the Germans in just about every armament in 1940 especially in fighter planes and things like the Bren.
A good comparison is the magnificent MG34 versus the Bren gun as a squad fire support. They are two cery different philosophies. The MG34 cost about 12 times the cost of the Bren, though. The Bren used the same .303 ammo the Tommys carried in their pouches so if the gunners needed more ammo they could get it off their comrades. The Bren lacked the terrifying rate of fire of the MG34 but it was extremely accurate, the British Army's tradition in accurate musketry over volume of fire came from 200 years of fighting in remote parts ofvthe world with highly streched supply lines. Whilst the SMLE and No4 were not as accurate as the Mauser (arguably) the average Tommy spent a lot more time on the range than the average Landser. This was in part due to the professional pre WW1 Tommy versus the German conscript army.
Check out Holland's book, its a fascinating argument and sums up exactly the point of the Sten...
Only the allies could have invented the Sten, when the Germans got hold of them they were appalled at the shoddieness, the lack of craftmanship and their copues over engineered the gun which missed the entire point of the weapon.
The allies fought total war with war economies... the Germans only initiated a war economy half way through the war. Hitler was criminally irresponsible in this, it showed his utter incompetence and why democracies produce such strong war economies.
As you say, the Sten is a gun you win a war with..
If I remember rightly the issues with the Sten were prevalent in the early models, but were fixed towards the end (possibly to varying degrees. I’m working off the done here 😅)
I noticed that you were aiming the thompson but shooting the sten from the hip. Would have sooner seen some results from both guns at maybe 50 yards on a target.
All British and Canadian troops in Italy used the Thompson throughout the war. The British bought tens of thousands of them, do they had to be used up. Only those brits in France after d-day used the sten gun. If a commonwealth unit transferred from the Mediterranean to NW Europe, then they had to exchange them.
The sten reminds me of the L2A3 Sterling Submachine gun.
LMAO the classic, beep. ooppss missed the bad word, beep, ooppss missed the bad word again.
I own a C&R MkII, and I hold it around the barrel nut shroud with the mag resting on my forearm when I fire it. Holding around the mag as others have said will eventually cause malfunctions and feels awkward to fire in my opinion. However really enjoyed your video, comparing the two weapons. Would be fun for you guys to compare Sten VS MP40 for a future video. A theme could be Operation Market Garden regarding the comparison and effectiveness during engagements.
Only trouble with the Sten, it is holding it. If holding it by magazine, the Gun could jam. Also you got to be careful not to get you fingers clear where the spent cartridge comes out, (ouch) holding it by the muzzle you could get your hand scolded on the barrel, I think I prefer the Thompson ❤️
It’s more than OK to fire the sten with the sideways grip like that. Because you’re not gripping the actual magazine you’re gripping the magazine well which protrudes out the side of the gun for almost 3 inches. I own a legit sten and have fired thousands of rounds through it both gripping from the side and from the heat shield over the barrel , never had any issues either way.
That's it I'm moving next door you guys! Wargaming, drinking scotch, shooting range, and a love of history.
I have shot both the 1928a1 and the Sten gun.They both would ventilate a 55 gallon barrel at 100 yard for me.
I've read some stuff about the Sten that once they worked through the platoons allotment of Sten guns and dumped the bad ones that they weren't that unreliable.
The early stens had the problems because of poor , rushed build quality. Then they were reliable and devastating inside 100 yards . A very important gun highly rated in Europe not in Hollywood.
The Grease gun is the American Sten gun
You can compare the sten gun to the t 34 Russian tank not built for quality against German tanks but there was loads of them to counter it
The sten was made for national survival 🇬🇧 we were on the brink of invasion and we had next to nothing the British army had been wiped out at dunkirk we had no heavy weapons and no sub machine guns other than the lanchester which the Royal navy had. The sten was cheap and easy to mass produce quickly incase you know the germans managed to cross the 20 miles of sea between france and southern England.
A lot of the Thompson we brought also never arrived as the ships they were sent on were sunk by the Germans add to that they were extortionatly exensive and the sten wasn't so bad.
Also the grip for the sten is by the barrel nut or a underhand grip around wher the magazine inserted.
I dont know if any of you had the chance to shoot a M3 grease gun, but how does that compare to the sten in both feel and performance. I know the m3 wasnt intended for primary main line use like the sten but could it have performed better than the sten did? (I've done my research but I would like to hear the Little wars opinion)
If I was a commando and only had to carry my kit while on a raid yeah I’d want a Thompson, but if I’m a regular soldier marching around the majority of the time give me the Sten.
Mr Brightside Marching around as in anything but fighting. Of course I don’t mean they’re literally parade marching everywhere.
Thompson weighs so much more than the sten. much better made and far more expensive. Both did their jobs well. I know which one I would like to carry all day long.
One of the big problems with the Thompson was it was too complicated ref working parts and complicated to strip an clean. Sure its a beautiful classic but the Sten suffered from being the new kid in town syndrome. The Sten was a quick affordable solution initiated when Britain was facing a Nazi invasion, mass produced and quickly broken up into 4 easily hidden on the body (including Magazine) components that was ideal for Resistance fighters. For its time it was an effective SMG, that why the Sterling Patchett SMG was evolved from the STEN and not the Thompson.
What about the Aussie Owen gun brah ?
Never hold a Sterling by the mag. Left hand support barrel, right hand on pistol grip. Guaranteed jam if you hold the mag.
Loading any magazine to full capacity is usually a cause for jams.
UK Government... Thompson $200 each, Sten $12 each.. and I prefer the Sten, Thompson is too heavy.
I believe one reason the British made the sten the amo was interchangeable with German 9 mm . Not sure but remember hearing something about that . And like you said it was cheap to make.
The supporting hand needs to hold the Sten by holding one hand onto the from jacket, NOT from the horizontal magazine!
Apparently one of the issues with the Tommy gun was its high cyclic rate, it was spitting bullets out too quickly.
It’s worth watching Hickock45’s sten footage. That “piece of crap” gun is perfectly capable of hitting targets and is evidently NOT just for “spray and pray” use. And it’s why our Paras still found it useful.
The Thompson’s cyclic rate isn’t particularly high, and the weight and mass of the gun make the recoil manageable. Very easy to hold on target even during full auto fire. Provided you fire from the shoulder. Price was the issue during the war. Also it used different ammunition to everyone else. Generally the life costs of the weapon are the deciding factor. Ammunition, spares and training.
Didn't the Thompson have a 30 round magazine?
an important thing aswell the thompson was about 4000 usd and the sten was 130 usd
The commando comments regarding Sten kinda remind me of US soldier comments on M16 when they were forced to give up their trusty M14 rifles for the underpowered Mattel toy riddled with early problems!
"The Sten is a piece of shit gun"
Proceeds to hold the Sten incorrectly.
Why is Thompson discontinued? :(
So the Sten was junk but it was the Thompson that was replaced with the Sten like M3 Grease Gun during the War.
I encourage everyone to leave a comment about about the improper grip on the Sten as if there aren’t already enough.
Your not supposed to hold the sten by the mag??
The guy in the sock hat looks like a smurf.
For 15/- (15 shillings or 75 pence in modern money the Sten isn’t bad. At the time the British government could buy between 5 and 7 Stens for the price of a Tommygun