14 Facts About Sten

The Sten served as the basis for the Sterling submachine gun, which replaced the Sten in British service until the 1990s, when it, and all other submachine guns, were replaced by the SA80.

Sten is a select fire, blowback-operated weapon which mounts its magazine on the left.

Sten is an acronym, from the names of the weapon's chief designers, Major Reginald V Shepherd and Harold J Turpin, and "En" for the Enfield factory.

Sten emerged while Britain was engaged in the Battle of Britain, facing invasion by Germany.

Sten shared design features, such as its side-mounted magazine configuration, with the Lanchester submachine gun being produced at the same time for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, which was a copy of the German MP28.

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Sten used simple stamped metal components and minor welding, which required minimal machining and manufacturing.

Sten underwent various design improvements over the course of the war.

Sten was replaced by the Sterling submachine gun from 1953 and was gradually withdrawn from British service in the 1960s.

Sten was a blowback-operated submachine gun firing from an open bolt with a fixed firing pin on the face of the bolt.

Sten guns were produced in several basic marks, of which nearly half of the total produced consisted of the Mark II variant.

The Sten's advantage was its ease of mass-production manufacture in a time of shortage during a major conflict.

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.

Sten was one of the few weapons that the State of Israel could produce domestically during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

In foreign service, the Sten was used in combat at least as recently as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.