Right weapon at the right time

In 1940, facing the real possibility of Nazi invasion and holding the Luftwaffe at bay in the Battle of Britain, the British needed weapons fast. Two designers at the Enfield Royal Small Arms factory came up with a design that was cheap, efficient and easily built.

Sten is an acronym, derived from the names of the weapon's chief designers: Major Reginald V. Shepherd and Harold J. Turpin, and "En" for the Enfield factory where it was built. Britain had been struggling to important Thompsons submachine guns from the US and were finding them unaffordable as well. The Sten design was simple — as little as 47 components in some models. it could be made quickly, cheaply and efficiently by small factory teams — another consideration at the time.

It was distributed both to the British Army and later various European Resistance groups as soon as they could be made. While earlier models were known to be ineffective at times, they proved their worth throughout Europe up tot he end of WWII, then later in the Korean War and an assortment of other conflicts.