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The Mark 2 was first used in action during the Dieppe raid of August 1942, and though the raid was a fiasco there were no complaints about the part the Sten gun played in it. Over two million of this pattern were made, and at one stage they were being turned out at a rate of over 20,000 a week from one factory alone, and the price of manufacture was down to £2.87 per gun. This dispensed with the barrel jacket, retaining the barrel by a large perforated sleeve which doubled as a forward hand grip the magazine housing was modified so that it could be swung down through 90 degrees to close the feed and ejection openings against dirt and the safety slot was repositioned at the top rear of the cocking handle slot, since turning the handle up to lock was an easier movement than turning it down. But further simplification was possible, and a Sten gun Mark 2 version, probably the most common of all the Marks, soon entered service. The flash hider and fore-grip went, and the wooden fore-end replaced by a sheet metal cover over the trigger mechanism. Once production began it was appreciated that some of this refinement could be shorn off, thus both speeding production and lightening the gun. A safety slot at the rear of the cocking handle slot allowed the lever to be turned down and locked as a rudimentary safety measure. While it was a simple weapon, it still had a certain amount of refinement there was a wooden fore-end and a folding grip for the forward hand, a barrel jacket and protectors for the foresight, and a flash hider-cum-muzzle compensator. The result of all this effort was the Sten Mark 1. The report concluded by saying, ‘This carbine appears to be fundamentally sound and functions satisfactorily and accurately.’ Arrangements were then made to organize production and the first weapons began to come from the factories in June 1941. The various tests were passed satisfactorily, 5400 rounds being fired without breakages or malfunction. The N.O.T.40/1 was tested and a report submitted on 31 January.
STEN MARK 2 TRIAL
It was demonstrated at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock on 10 January 1941 and again on 21 January, whereupon instructions were given for an immediate trial and a rapid decision whether the manufacture of the Lanchester should proceed as planned or whether its production should be curtailed in favor of the new design.Īs the Ordnance Board pointed out the following day, ‘the most important consideration at the moment seems to be to get some form of machine carbine acceptable to all three services into production as quickly as possible.’
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Turpin of the Chief superintendent of Design’s department. A simplified weapon, designated the ‘N.O.T. Then, in the first few days of January 1941, the situation changed. An acceptance trial of the new weapon, known as the Lanchester, was carried out on 28 November 1940 and arrangements for production were put in hand. At the same time an order for 110 million rounds of 9 mm ammunition was placed in the USA, since the manufacturing capacity for this caliber in Britain was then negligible. In the summer of 1940 the British Government began to look seriously at the sub machine gun question, and in August a decision was taken to put into production a copy of the German MP28 from World War One, an order for 50,000 weapons being contemplated.