Sten MkIII: A Children's Toy Company Makes SMGs
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- Опубликовано: 4 июн 2024
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Lines Brothers was a company in the UK that made sheet metal childrens' toys prior to the war. When production of the Sten guns began, Lines Bros was a parts subcontractor. Their engineers analyzed the design alongside the machinery the company had available and redesigned a version of the Sten that they could make very quickly and cheaply in-house, by replacing the tube receiver with a rolled and spot-welded piece of sheet steel. Their first order came in January 1942, to a whopping 500,000 guns, which were designated the MkIII.
The Sten MkII and MkIII were produced simultaneously, and Lines Brothers was the only producer of the MkIII. Ultimately they got three contracts, although the second one was cancelled before it was completed and the third was never begun. A total of 876,794 MkIII Stens were made by September 1943. Once submachine gun production caught up with British needs, the MkII was found to be the superior of the two designs and only it remained in production.
Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film and disassemble these submachine guns! The NFC collection there - perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe - is available by appointment to researchers:
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All I can think of is the rumors of the Mattel M16's. The difference being that the Sten Mk III's were actually made by a toy company
870.000 Stens, in a bit short that two years, by a former toy´s factory, are really impressive numbers.
I read somewhere that when the engineers at Lines Brothers looked at the Sten design, they were a bit puzzled. Why was it so complicated? Is it okay if we simplify the design? Or is there some weapons design secret we don't understand? The British authorities were probably surprised. This was supposed to be the simplest possible submachine gun, and the toy people wondered why the design was so complicated! They could immediately see room for simplification, and how to add cheapness, and fastness of production! 😀
Lines bros sold their toys under Tri-ang, as a child in the UK in the 60's I had many tri-ang toys, interesting to think that maybe the machine used to make my toy had once made stens
500 guns a shift, if you assume a ten hour shift, is 50 guns an hour. That's a new gun every 72 seconds. That's bloody terrifying
There can't be such thing as Cadillac of Sten, it can only be Rolls Royce or Bentley ; -)
Earlier in the day, I was barred from commenting on this because it was "content created for kids!"
But I am left handed, British officer: No you are not, problem solved
i sure want this toy
I love it when smart, competent, caring engineers take someone else's design and modify it just enough like this.
My Dad was stationed in Berlin in the early 50s and they paired him with an absolutely gigantic, lunatic Scotsman armed with a Sten MkIII to go out as part of the policing force. My Dad told me the Scotsman was "easily excitable" so they made him carry an empty magazine in the Sten. They had pictures of this ferocious looking bear holding what was secretly a completely unloaded Sten.
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
A true wunderwaffe.
'You might be hard pressed', LOL, I can see what you did there, very British sense of humour!
"What if you're left handed?"
My father was a Time and Motion Engineer at Lines Bros at this time.
Some years ago I remember reading a price comparison of the various Sten flavours. As I recall, the simplified (war) Thompson was about $80 (£15 in money), the Lanchester 7 guineas (£7.35 in new money), Mk1 about 22 shillings (£1.10) and the last Mk3s 2 shilling 8d (about 13 pence).
"sir, I'm left handed!" "no, you're not."
Nice, the Wikipedia page on Lines Bros suddenly gained this video as a source for "In World War II, Lines Brothers was a major manufacturer of the Sten submachine gun". (Also, yeah, that is basically the only time the Sten is mentioned on the article. The other time is essentially "toys were deemed nonessential by the government. So they switched the Sten production. After the war they switched back to toys.")
The trigger assembly on my Underwood (typewriter) M-1 carbine was made by Milton Bradley (BEB), for the IBM contract M-1 carbines.