What If?......

In what context does the Sten warrant being a great gun ?- Because they were used by partisans in number, or their firepower, and whadda ya mean by versatile ????- Sounds like a 'fashion statement' !

I simply said the Belgians were useless as an army.

The French didn't help at Dunkirk, wait, yes they did the last day they decided to give those 26,000 back up.

The French resistance was good, and it did save many people that's why I got pretty sick of people abusing the French although their army was useless.

The Maginot Line was good, if it had stretched further north to border Belgium as well. The German paratroopers captured bridges which would have been pointless had the Panzers not been able to break through to support the paras.
The line only got beaten when the very clever Germans crushed it from two sides, which you can see if you look at my previous post about the German invasion.

The Sten was a good gun for the resistance it was easily concealed, 9mm and very effective weapon.

hmmmmm, i still think useless is to strong a word, perhaps a poor army, but not useless

Yep, the sten is a great gun, it can be dismantled into only a few parts and it was highly versatile

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while that is true, they were produced so quickly the weilding was very poor, some times they would fall apart if you dropped them, not good.............

Dropping any gun isn't advised, so it's not that big of a problem in the hands of someone with a slight idea.

acidents happen................

The Sten, was just that, cheep, and simple to use. The could be made onsite, as said before and even brocken down to be smuggled anywhere.

Yeah, in other words it was great because it was cheap, manufactured easily, VERY basic blow-back mechanism, plenty of 9mm ammo around and most useful in that it was easily concealable, and ONLY useful in close-quarter combat - most redeeming was the mags were easy to load, 30 plus odd rounds.

You say that as if it has nothing when you listed many great elements to a gun. 'ONLY close quarters' perfect for jungle and resistance fighting. In a jungle you wouldn't want a huge Enfield Mk. 4 single shot rifle with excellent range because in a jungle you don't see your enemy until you are right on top of him. Although the British decided to send Enfields out to Burma, proof of how smart they were...

Several Facts about the German Invaision of France and the Low Countries .

When the BEF first landed in France the troops were ordered to dig defensive trenches, along the boarder between France and Belgium, but at the same time discussions were ongoing with the Belgium Government, about reconoitering the land to see if there were any good defensive positions in Belgium, because the Britsh and French Plans had their Armies moving into Belgium to counter the German Invasion, but the Belgium Government said no, because they did not want to upset the Germans, over issues of their neutrality.

When the German Invaision happened the Belgium Government, asked the British and French Governments to send their troops into Belgium,

Allied troops then advanced towards a highly trained and Mechanised German Army, with vast Air Support compared to the BEF and French Armies, without the use of a previously prepared defensive system, at which point troops and transport were caught out in the open, beacuse the Belgium Boarder defences had already been broken through.

The Allied Armies held on for a day or two , but then the Germans broke through on the left had side of the BEF (The Belgium Army) , and they subsequently broke through on the Right hand side of the BEF(The French Armies) causing what is now known as the Race to the Channel Ports.

British Senior Officers were sceptical about the advance into Belgium any way as the thought it might be a trap, the thinking at the time was that they should stay where the trenches were , so that they could hopefully hold up the German advance long enough for the front to stabilise , and end up being like the First World War , where you had long periods of stalemate in trench warfare.

Montgomery who was GIC of one of the British Divisions , was very sceptical about the advance into Belgium , and he had his soldiers practicing a withdrawal under fire. Which his Division ended up having to do, while under attack by 3 German Divisions , and this withdrawal was completed succesfully.

After several days of hard fighting the Belgium Government ordered a ceasfire of all their troops , and surrenderd to the German Forces, the Gonvernment having already been evacuated to Britain.

This caused a major problem to General Allenbrooke as he had to fill the hole made by the surrender of the Belgium Forces, so consequently the length of the front covered by the BEF shrunk. and of course after the collapse of the French Forces, you ended up with BEF and some French Forces fighting side by side conducting a slow withdrawal to Dunkirk.

The British Forces did after the Germans had broken through on the right hand side of the BEF, stage a counter attack, but due to there not being enough troops available , they could not hold onto the positions they had taken and retreated back to the BEF Lines, this counter attack worried the German High Comand, and it was responsible for Hitler giving the order for all the German Tanks to stop where they were, when the BEF could have been cut off from Dunkirk and rescue, it was also responsible for the German High Comand to broadcat this message to all Troops "Beware The British they have Teeth".

And as you all know the BEF weere rescued succesfully at Dunkirk, and a few otherplaces along the Channel Coast .

Lord Gort was in comand of the BEF and I think Lord Allenbrooke was 2nd in Command.

back to the sten, has anyone seen the way commadoes were trained to fire them , it's to hard to explain but very funny to whatch................

I served 4 years in our Regular Force Army, and my Instructors were ex-Vietnam SAS. I'm not a fan of Enfield's particuarly, but they were fine rifles nonetheless, but heavy - Stens are only accurate for about 20-25 yards and OK for urban scraps, but in the jungle I'd much prefer something with range and firepower, like a Bren [- it's also my lady's name, short for Brenda], and their rate of fire is about 550 rpm.- However, the Sterling-Patchett would be a good choice, although they came later in the War. The Mk.5 is a silenced version, 600-700 rpm cyclic rate, an effective range of 75-150m. They were WELL made, unlike the Sten, inter-changeable mags although the Sterling's was better, having a twin-roller feed that took 34 rounds- We used to line up the bullets on a flat [clean] surface and just stab the magazine along the bullets to load up...real quick. Their fire-selector was close to the thumb on the grip which made their use much superior. I always prefer silenced firearms, it makes you harder to detect, particuarly in the bush, but the breechblock in both weapons were heavy, like the recoil, the Sterling 5 was a bit lighter,about 14oz, but that's about all you can hear with the Sterling, the block clunking away when you fire- 9mm's make quite a mess, not quite the meat-chopper .45 Thompson's, but not far off....

Technically, you are supposed to put the stock into your stomach/hip and cup the barrel below the magazine, and if your right-handed, grip the handgrip, your right thumb can flick the fire selector [ presuming you've already cocked-it] and pull the trigger. It's recomended to fire in short bursts only, because holding it in this fashion eliminates it's tendancy to pull-up and away- They have a hunky recoil, the Movie pose of spraying lead holding the banana mag is in fact hard dangerous to do, and not as accurate...

hehehe bannana mag.... that sounds ridiculously funny, and btw were you ever involved in any fighting gemhorse?

My Grandfather was in Burma, and on countless occasions he complained about having the Enfield, as did many of the people out there. He became part of the Chindits and was one of the people in his group to have a Bren, which he loved, and always fired from the hip to rip the jungle apart.
Keeping silent didn't matter once the fighting started. A Sten gun would have been more ideal in Burma than the Enfield, it's accurate, powerful and has great range but range doesn't matter in the jungle, and it's huge and heavy.

The Sten was never designed to be used in open battle ground but it was good for Jungle, Resistance and Urban warfare, a great room clearer, apparently.

If you want the best gun of the war it was the STG.44 without a doubt but the Allies closest to an assualt rifle was the M1 Carbine.

by gun do you mean infantry rifle?, 'cos if mean any gun, it's gotta be the 88mm...................

It depends on how you define the word gun, I was refering to a personal firearm, saying 'infantry rifle' would be wrong since not all were rifles and the STG. 44 was an assualt rifle, the worlds first assault rifle.

Secondly, there were three 88mm cannons in the Germans arsenal, which '88' are you refering to? I'm just trying to be awkward here, it was a great gun. Although it was matched by the British 17 pdr which was used on the Sherman Firefly, certain variants of Churchill, Archer SPG and a few other British tanks.

The British Flak 3.7 inch also matched the Flak '88' but was unable to be used in the AT role since it lacked the simple manual aim sights since it was believed they would be useless on a Flak gun, and only fitted them with automatic sights.

No , I wasn't in combat , my service was 1972-76, post Vietnam , which our chaps got caught up in, but some of my NCO's were SAS Maori guys and they knew their stuff- My favourite rifle was the Belgian FN SLR, and the Heavy-barrelled machine-gun version, the then type Bren. While I agree Stens were handy in the context you describe, the way we were trained was to initiate ambushes, not be caught in them, and SLR's were excellent reliable .308's that gave you good range and hitting power. Some of our guys did prefer M16's, but they're not all that hardy in the bush by comparison. The shock-power to the body of a .308 will break bones just passing by through the flesh, let alone the bigger exit wound. M16 .223 travels faster and goes right through, unless it hits the vitals, but wounds can be more survivable. Our instructors weren't that fussed with Stens, but they did prefer to operate as soundlessly as possible- Some of the Maori guys took a penchant to the Gurkha Kukris knives if they could get them...

the 76mm in the sherman was pretty effective.................

Well the M3A4 (76W) matched the T-34/76s and T-34/85s they met in the Korean War.

Gemhorse, I can't argue with that, the SLR is one of the best rifles ever. My father was in the RAF (Aicraft Technician) from 1970 to 1994 and was in Northern Ireland during the big times of the IRA, in Falklands and the Gulf, also was one of the last to use the SLRs. He always said, and always will say his love for the SLR, powerful hitting 7.62mm. Effective range is recorded at 1500m when on the M-16 it is 400m but this is a simple outline you can achieve different results.