There was no means to invest in a new carbine so the STEN continued in service for several years. When WWII ended, Britain had a huge stock of STEN guns and a massive deficit. Some of these carbines received their baptism of fire at Arnhem in September 1944. The new carbine’s potential was immediately recognised by the army, which ordered 120 guns from Sterling for field trials. It could take both the standard STEN gun magazine as well as the propriety cyrved Sterling magazine. His design was developed into the Patchett Machine Carbine Mk I prototype, which was considerably superior to the STEN gun in accuracy and reliability. In 1944 he responded to the British High Command’s request for a new 9mm Para. Read on for another LSB journey in firearms history… George William Patchett was the chief designer at the Sterling Armaments Company of Dagenham.
Our second feature in the ‘Postwar SMG’ series covers BSA’s competitor, the Patchett machine carbine that was eventually selected for the contract. In yesterday’s post we discussed an EMC Mk III prototype machine carbine which BSA had submitted for the 1951 British Army trials.
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