The Dark Reason Germans Hated This Canadian “Jamming” Gun

The German soldiers during World War II were proud of their finely engineered, high-tolerance weapons such as the Kar98k and the MP 40. However, as the war went on, they came up against an Allied firearm which appeared to break all the rules of traditional craftsmanship—the Sten submachine gun. This gun was made from stamped metal tubing and welded parts and was ridiculed by the enemy and hated by the Allied troops, who called it the Plumbers' Nightmare. Despite the war's crude appearance, there was an industrial reality which changed it. After the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 the British Commonwealth suffered from a severe shortage of weapons. In Canada the new Crown corporation Small Arms Limited, which was based in Long Branch, Ontario, employed an industrial workforce made up mainly of women in order to produce large quantities of the Sten Mark II at a cost which was only a fraction of that of conventional submachine guns. Even though it had some notorious faults, dangerous open-bolt discharges, and a disastrous first combat experience at Dieppe in 1942, the Canadian-made Sten still turned out to be a highly effective weapon in close combat. Because it could easily be disassembled and fitted with the standard 9mm Parabellum cartridge, hundreds of thousands of Stens were handed over to resistance movements in occupied Europe and used through the hedgerows of Normandy. The most ironic development occurred in 1945, when the German war industry, which was collapsing, was compelled to reproduce the very weapon it had previously mocked, thus producing the MP 3008 as a last-resort measure. The video looks at the history of the Long Branch Sten, the engineering compromises involved in mass production, and the reason why this simple firearm became one of the most important infantry weapons of the Second World War. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - German Engineering vs The Plumbers Nightmare 01:03 - The 1940 Arms Crisis and Small Arms Ltd Long Branch 02:44 - The Disastrous Combat Debut at Dieppe (1942) 03:45 - Mechanical Flaws, Open Bolts, and Magazine Jams 04:55 - Arming Resistance Movements Across Occupied Europe 05:46 - Hedgerow Combat in Normandy (1944) 06:22 - The Prague Assassination and Operation Anthropoid 06:58 - The Ultimate Irony: German Copies and the MP 3008 07:54 - Service in Korea and the Legacy of Long Branch HISTORICAL SOURCES AND FURTHER READING Leroy Thompson (2012): The Sten Submachine Gun (Weapon Series 22), Osprey Publishing. 2. C.P. Stacey (Official Historical Accounts, Department of National Defence): Summary of the Canadian Army 1939–1945. Directorate of History and Heritage. 3. The historical records of the Small Arms Limited Archive and the Long Branch Inspection Building (Mississauga, Ontario). 4. Canadian War Museum (CWM) – Small Arms and Wartime Manufacturing (1939–1945): https://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/canadian-military-history-timeline/second-world-war/ 5. Imperial War Museum (IWM) – the production of Sten submachine guns and SOE operations: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30029517 ABOUT CANADIANS AT WAR The book Canadians at War is committed to recording and preserving the operational history, the industrial achievements, and the experiences of Canadian military personnel on the front lines. We ask that you subscribe in order to support the documentation of Canadian military history by independent sources. Take part in the discussion: did the mass production value of the Sten guns outweigh their technical and mechanical faults during battle? Please leave your opinion in the comments below. #CanadianMilitary #WWII #StenGun #LongBranch #SmallArms #CanadianArmy #MilitaryHistory #HistoryDocumentary