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The Sten gun was chambered for the 9x19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge. The Sten was used extensively by Jewish partisans during the Israeli War of Independence. The other Commonwealth nations made or adopted their own replacements. The Sten was slowly withdrawn from British service in the 1960s, and was replaced by the Sterling SMG. The Mark I was a more finely finished weapon with a wooden foregrip and handle some later versions were not quite as spartan. It was distinctive for its bare appearance (just a pipe with a metal loop for a stock), and its horizontal magazine. Some of the cheapest versions were made from only 47 different parts. Over the period of manufacture the Sten design was further simplified: the most basic model, the Mark III, could be produced from five man-hours work. Much of the production could be performed by small workshops and the firearms assembled at the Enfield site. The Sten required a minimum amount of machining and manufacturing effort by using simple pressed metal components and minor welding. Shepherd had been recalled to service after having retired and spending some time at BSA. Harold John Turpin, Senior Draughtsman of the Design Department of the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield. Shepherd, OBE, Inspector of Armaments in the Ministry of Supply Design Department at The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, (later Assistant Chief Superintendent at the Armaments Design Department) and Mr. In order to rapidly equip a sufficient fighting force to counter the Axis threat, the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, was commissioned to produce a significantly cheaper alternative. The American entry into the war at the end of 1941 placed an even bigger demand on the facilities making Thompsons. Prior to 1941 (and even later) the British were purchasing all the Thompson submachine guns they could from the United States of America, but this did not begin to meet demand.
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The army was forced to replace weapons lost during the evacuation from Dunkirk while expanding at the same time. The Sten emerged while Britain was engaged in the Battle of Britain, facing invasion by Germany. Even so the first model, the Mark I, was still considered to be far too complicated and was quickly replaced by the Mark II, the production of which would ultimately result in over two million guns being produced by the ending of hostilities in 1945. The finish was rough, with no wood being used in the stock or hand-grips and all other components kept to the basic minimum. The Sten, however, would utilize cheap steel pressings, low grade metal, and had no fancy refinements at all. The Sten introduced an entirely new concept into the manufacture of SMGs as previously all such guns had been manufactured using traditional gunsmith’s methods (often with the body and trigger housing being machined from the solid) an expensive and time-consuming operation. In January 1941 the design department of the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield, Middlesex, produced the prototype of what was to become the best-known Sub-Machine Gun of World War II.