As the title suggests - early in WW2 - some STEN gun drawings sank on their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Then the two sample STENS were burned in a train wreck. The courier delivers them to Long Branch Arsenal but his nerves are so badly rattled that he stays drunk for the rest of the month.
The only tools to survive the voyage are for magazines, barrels and bolt faces.
A boxcar load of 9 x 19mm pistol ammo arrives the same day.
LBA engineers struggle make sense of the twisted samples and singed drawings. Baffled by the lack of drawings for a safety, telegraph questions to Enfield, but answers are so baffling that they are forced to reverse engineer the sub machine gun.
Sub contractors include a local auto body factory plus the usual mom-and-pop metal-working shops.
Every day, Ottawa calls demanding progress. Generals, politicians and captains of industry visit so often that they become a nuisance.
Generals want short range SMGs for house-clearing, motorcyclists and tankers.
Politicians want SMGs NOW!
Captains of industry demand simplifying production to depress prices.
Can Canadians manufacture them for less than $8.00 (Mark III)?
Do they get a full-length barrel-jacket like the MK III?
Do they add a side-folding butt stock?
Do they test fire a bull pup STEN?
Do they try inserting the magazine into the pistol grip (ala. UZI)?
How many of Rosciszewskis’ ideas are tested?
Does it get a bayonet lug?
When the first Canadian-made STEN returns from the test-range with fingerprints burned onto the barrel-jacket and a chunk of the soldier’s check frozen to the stock, LBA start adding wood and leather bits. How much leather? ... how much wood? ..... where?
The only tools to survive the voyage are for magazines, barrels and bolt faces.
A boxcar load of 9 x 19mm pistol ammo arrives the same day.
LBA engineers struggle make sense of the twisted samples and singed drawings. Baffled by the lack of drawings for a safety, telegraph questions to Enfield, but answers are so baffling that they are forced to reverse engineer the sub machine gun.
Sub contractors include a local auto body factory plus the usual mom-and-pop metal-working shops.
Every day, Ottawa calls demanding progress. Generals, politicians and captains of industry visit so often that they become a nuisance.
Generals want short range SMGs for house-clearing, motorcyclists and tankers.
Politicians want SMGs NOW!
Captains of industry demand simplifying production to depress prices.
Can Canadians manufacture them for less than $8.00 (Mark III)?
Do they get a full-length barrel-jacket like the MK III?
Do they add a side-folding butt stock?
Do they test fire a bull pup STEN?
Do they try inserting the magazine into the pistol grip (ala. UZI)?
How many of Rosciszewskis’ ideas are tested?
Does it get a bayonet lug?
When the first Canadian-made STEN returns from the test-range with fingerprints burned onto the barrel-jacket and a chunk of the soldier’s check frozen to the stock, LBA start adding wood and leather bits. How much leather? ... how much wood? ..... where?
