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Old 04-16-2014, 03:44 PM
 
Location: The Triad
34,091 posts, read 82,438,418 times
Reputation: 43642

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Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
Most effective gun of WW2 - the Sten Gun?
The best hand machine gun of gun of WW2 must go to the British Sten gun.
Even if that were true...
it's still a far cry from "most effective gun of WW2"

The M1 rifle is probably tops...
but close behind is the OSS throw away "get a gun" guns like the FP-45

As regards machine guns...
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Old 04-16-2014, 03:57 PM
 
Location: SF Bay Area
13,520 posts, read 21,994,134 times
Reputation: 20234
The video itself (at 20:37) admitted: the make-do and mend approach came at a price. Soldiers hated the Sten because it's prone to misfire if dropped, jam at critical moments, and their aim reputedly less than true.

It sounds like it was a good value, but not the most effective.
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Old 04-16-2014, 04:06 PM
 
819 posts, read 1,394,183 times
Reputation: 961
Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
You could make a weapon that costed 10 times more to make,
Really?
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Old 04-16-2014, 04:10 PM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,020,438 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by canadian citizen View Post
Not effective beyond 100 feet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by canadian citizen View Post
I was not meant to be effective beyond that range. The Sten was more a machine-pistol. It was such a piece of junk the French and Germans copied it and the USA rated it above others in tests. The Sten did exactly what it was designed to do - and very cheaply. The ideal weapon to give an army that was expanding to millions of men. The ideal weapon to give resistance men.

Each sten gun cost as little as £2 ($10) to produce – roughly equal to about $130 or £80 today. By comparison, the American M1A1 Thompson went for a staggering $200 per unit in 1940! Twenty times as much.


The German copy of the Sten, the MP 3008

Last edited by John-UK; 04-16-2014 at 05:08 PM..
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Old 04-16-2014, 04:12 PM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,020,438 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jaypee View Post
It sounds like it was a good value, but not the most effective.
It was effective as it equipped whole armies cheaply and quickly. The later Stens were reliable and did not go off when dropped. The most effective tank in WW2 was T-34. Not the best but the most "effective".

The British army continued to use the Sten into the 1960s, as did a number of other militaries: Belgium, Israel, Jordan, India and Pakistan, Argentina, South Vietnam, South Africa and Indonesia all either used British-built stens or produced their own knock-offs for decades after WW2. During the 1991 break up of Yugoslavia, Croatian nationalists manufactured a domestic sten-inspired SMG known as the Pleter 91.

U.S. Special Forces carried suppressed Stens in Viet Nam. Not bad for a cheapo weapon that was not meant to last after WW2.

Last edited by John-UK; 04-16-2014 at 05:08 PM..
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Old 04-16-2014, 04:15 PM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,020,438 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrRational View Post
Even if that were true...
it's still a far cry from "most effective gun of WW2"
The Sten was the most effective. It was made very quickly and cheaply and equipped expanding armies instantly. Exactly what an army wants.

"Despite its issues, the Sten proved an effective weapon in the field as it dramatically increased the short-range firepower of any infantry unit. Its simplistic design also allowed it to fire without lubrication which reduced maintenance as well as made it ideal for campaigns in desert regions where oil could attract sand. Used extensively by British Commonwealth forces in Northern Africa and Northwest Europe, the Sten became one of the iconic British infantry weapons of the conflict."

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/...ar-Ii-Sten.htm

Last edited by John-UK; 04-16-2014 at 04:26 PM..
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Old 04-16-2014, 05:18 PM
 
Location: Oceania
8,610 posts, read 7,842,465 times
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Has anyone ever fired a MAC 10? It's a cheap piece of crap that slaps around but it spits 30 9mm bullets out in less than 30 sec. I am curious as to how easily they were hammered out in sheds by resistance fighters as we may need them here when the gubmint does it's gun grabbing. At that point we are as any other society where a tyrant has asserted himself. I don't want to sit by and watch.

Yeah, that is becoming more of a reality. Holder is telling states he will overstep his authority to do so.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMDkIm6X0Uc

A bunch of Stens would be great - how cheap can they really be if made today? Gotta get those old plans.

Something to think about.
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Old 04-16-2014, 07:56 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,894,826 times
Reputation: 15037
Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
I was not meant to be effective beyond that range. The Sten was more a machine-pistol. It was such a piece of junk the French and Germans copied it and the USA rated it above others in tests.
John you are one funny guy.
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Old 04-16-2014, 08:12 PM
 
947 posts, read 1,454,724 times
Reputation: 788
Quote:
Originally Posted by armory View Post
Has anyone ever fired a MAC 10? It's a cheap piece of crap that slaps around but it spits 30 9mm bullets out in less than 30 sec. I am curious as to how easily they were hammered out in sheds by resistance fighters as we may need them here when the gubmint does it's gun grabbing. At that point we are as any other society where a tyrant has asserted himself. I don't want to sit by and watch.

Yeah, that is becoming more of a reality. Holder is telling states he will overstep his authority to do so.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMDkIm6X0Uc

A bunch of Stens would be great - how cheap can they really be if made today? Gotta get those old plans.

Something to think about.
Your post has nothing to do with the topic at hand. There has never been a grab of guns unless it is grabbing them from criminal hands or those that would supply guns to criminals.
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Old 04-16-2014, 10:03 PM
 
18,754 posts, read 27,181,960 times
Reputation: 20095
Doubt. Best SMG of that period was PPS.

During design, emphasis was placed on simplifying production and eliminating most machining operations; most of the weapon's parts were sheet-steel stamped. These measures reduced the number of machined components to a bare minimum, cutting down machining time by more than half, to 2.7 hours of machining instead of 7.3 hours for the PPSh-41. There were also savings of over 50% in raw steel usage, down to 6.2 kg instead of 13.9 kg, and fewer workers were required to manufacture and assemble the parts. Thanks to the improvements in production efficiency, the Soviet planners estimated that the new gun would have allowed an increase in monthly submachine gun output from 135,000 units to 350,000 weapon
Due to the massive investment already made in machinery for PPSh-41 production, which was already being produced in more than a million pieces per year, it turned out it would have been uneconomical to completely abandon its production in favor of the PPS.[4] By end of the war some two million PPS-43 submachine guns were made. Due to the oversupply of the Soviet army with submachine guns after the war, production of the PPS in the Soviet Union ceased in 1946.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPS-43
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