WW2 Brit army AHC/WI: carbine and/or semi-auto and/or full auto

STEN was 2 Pounds, or $9, vs $45 for the M1 carbine or over $200 for the Tommy Gun.

M1 Carbine was accurate to 100M, while the STEN could hose 9mm to that distance, but not accurately. When it didn't jam.

Germans liked the M1 carbine, one of the few battlefield pickups besides the PPSh. STEN? Better than being unarmed.

That's a pretty low bar
 
The Farqhar-Hill is a bit big and heavy for Infantry, it was closer to the BAR than an Infantry rifle. I can see it supplementing the Lee-Enfield maybe replacing the Lewis Gun.
It was around 6.5kg compared to 4kg for the SMLE. That a kilo lighter than even the Monitor BAR.
 
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Then there’s this bad boy by Joseph Dieudonné Could’ve produced this a bit earlier. Though as FN were also making the Colt monitors, would be a class act with Bren mag and .303. Then use the VGO as a Gimpy
 
STEN was 2 Pounds, or $9, vs $45 for the M1 carbine or over $200 for the Tommy Gun.

M1 Carbine was accurate to 100M, while the STEN could hose 9mm to that distance, but not accurately. When it didn't jam.

Germans liked the M1 carbine, one of the few battlefield pickups besides the PPSh. STEN? Better than being unarmed.

That's a pretty low bar

Sten was select fire - no need to hose to 100m - you can plink to 100m

The best German soldier loved the Sten ;)

And of course the Germans built it at the very end of the war

And not all Stens are created equally the early ones were spammed out by toy companies the later ones were of better quality and built by arms companies that used to be toy companies

The point of the Sten was that by 42 the British were able to dump 300 plus Sten guns on every battalion

What battalions would do is to test all the guns and send those that did not work well back to the factory and for those that were really bad (Friday afternoon made ones) - the unit armorer would destroy them by crushing them - they were cheap as chips to make and it gave Commonwealth units lots of Automatic weapons (up from 3 Thompsons per battalion in May 1940) very quickly.

One of the problems with Sten guns was that the British went from virtually no SMGs with little 'tribal' experience of using them to having fucking millions of the bastard things in a very short period of time - boys will be boys and accidents will happen - and of course every squaddie knew someone who had seen some one drop one and it dump the mag! The British were also used to making quality kit and of course would make obvious comparisons between the Thompson with its superb finish and the 'utilitarian' Sten - forgetting that you could arm 20 guys with Sten guns for the cost of 1 Thompson.

The jamming was a legacy of the single feed Magazine which was a direct copy of the German magazine for the MP38/40 - the Sterling magazine was by comparison one of the best ever made.

The enemy of perfection is the good enough and the Sten was good enough
 

SwampTiger

Banned
The Sterling was what the British could have built if they did not have the invasion scare after Dunkirk.

The Sten was the basic MP28 design simplified to its most extreme. Cheap, easy and fast to build.

I like the suggestion for a 7 x 33 based on the 9 x 25. Use the 6.5 Carcano bullet instead. Stuff this into a delayed blowback SMG/Automatic Carbine for additional squad fire power or use with support troops.

Try the 39M/SIG action or maybe the Reising after development. Could get it to 5.5 lbs/2.5 kgs or less.
 
The biggest problem with British and Commonwealth infantry was the pathetic allotment of mortars. Germans had 6 8cm mortars at battalion. Americans had 4 81mm mortars at battalion plus 9 60mm divided among the 3 rifle companies. Soviets had 9 82mm mortars at battalion, plus 120mm at regiment level. The British had 2 3-inch mortars at battalion, that’s it. The 3-inch also had the worst range of all WWII medium mortars.

Alas, not true by 1944. The British army started the war with 2 3" mortars at the battalion and their range was less than stellar.

By 1944, an infantry battalion had a platoon of 6 3" mortars in the support company, and the range was comparable to everyone else's.

Each infantry platoon had a 2" mortar so that's 12 - but they were more grenade launchers than proper mortars.

There were also 16 4.2" mortars at divisional level, in the machine gun regiment.
 
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