Civil Defence Supply MP5-224

     Notes: Civil Defence Supply (commonly known as CDS) is a company most often associated with the kind of products its name suggests – various (nonlethal) supplies and devices for civilians and police to use in survival, personal defense, and riot control situations.  However, one of their lesser-known projects are modifications of already-existing weapons using the .224 BOZ round they invented – basically a 5.56mm NATO round in a necked-down 10mm Colt case, making it look like a sort of “short magnum” type of round.  The MP5-224 is also essentially what it sounds like: a modified MP-5/10A2, with a fixed stock using a the Heckler & Koch S-E-3-F trigger group (allowing for semiautomatic, automatic, and 3-round burst fire), as well as the modification applied to FBI MP-5/10s that holds the bolt open after the magazine is emptied.  Most of the modifications are to the magazines, chamber, and barrel, but the MP5/224 has the same dimensions and largely the same parts as a standard MP-5/10A2.  It is unknown who is using the MP5-224, if anyone.

     Twilight 2000 Notes: Few examples of the MP5/224 exist in the Twilight 2000 timeline (less than 40), and they are generally found only in England.  (The personal bodyguards for the members of the Royal Family still in England are known to use them on occasion, as do the bodyguards for the Prime Minister.)  Rounds generally have to be handloaded, though there is a government facility that makes small lots.

Enfield Sten

     Notes:  After the Battle of Dunkirk, the British High Command faced a possible cross-Channel invasion of Britain by the Nazis, and a severe shortage of effective small arms for the troops that would need to be raised and the Home Guard that would need to be equipped.  They needed an automatic weapon that was simple to use, maintain, and build.  The answer was the Sten submachinegun (named for its designers and manufacturer, Shepard, Turpin, and Enfield Firearms).  It was a simple design, stamped out of any grade of steel available.  It’s a cheap, nasty-looking weapon, and troops hated it because of it’s sheer ugliness, but there is no doubt about it’s effectiveness in its intended role.  It should be noted that while the Sten is an Enfield design, most of the production was carried out by the Royal Ordnance Factories.  Some production was spread out between several commercial contractors.  Production of the different parts were also often spread out between a myriad of contractors, similar to production in the US of the M-1 Garand, M-1 Carbine, M-1A1 Thompson submachinegun, and M-3 Grease Gun. Mark 2s and later were also manufactured by BSA.

     And let’s face it: the Sten is butt-ugly, and it looks as cheap as its (RL) price tag.  It acquired several nicknames when it was being used, such Woolworth Gun (a reference to its cheap-and-dirty construction), Plumber’s Delight (because it looks like several pipes fit together), and the Stench Gun (carrying the butt-ugly looks to their conclusion), as well as at least a dozen others.

     The first version was the Mark 1; this weapon had a metal skeleton butt (non-folding), a simple steel tube with the inner workings of the weapon, a side-feeding magazine, and simple spoon-shaped muzzle brake.  The barrel length is 7.7 inches, a length which would become standard for all Stens. There was also a folding wooden foregrip.  About 100,000 Sten Mark 1’s were built. A simplified version, the Mark 1*, was later produced, with all wooden parts replaced by metal or eliminated and the muzzle brake eliminated.

     The Sten Mark 2 was by far the most common Sten, with over 2 million being made in about three years of production.  The front foregrip, indeed the entire front stock, was deleted.  The skeleton stock was replaced with a simple steel tube with a very rudimentary thumb grip.  The magazine housing could be disengaged and rotated through 90 degrees, for stowage during parachute drops.  Unlike other Stens, the Mark 2 is selective fire, capable of semiautomatic fire. The Mark 2 is the second most-commonly seen Sten, though it is still rare compared to the Mk 3.

     The problem with the Mk 2 was that it was over-simplified.  Virtually every part was of sheet or tubular metal, and every possible shortcut and workaround was used to make the weapon easier and cheaper to construct.  As a result, bolt holes were sometimes too small or too large or not quite in the right place and had to be drilled out or fixed with a washer, parts sometimes didn’t meet properly in the measurement department and had to be crudely fixed, barrel rifling could be uneven – the trigger group housing was sometimes even too small, requiring a hasty widening of the housing.  The Mark 2 could be encountered with any of five cocking handle designs. Nonetheless, the Mk 2s were needed, and were issued – but were quickly recalled and replaced or fixed into Mk 3s.

     The Sten Mark 2S is a silenced version of the Sten.  It is basically a Sten Mark 2 with threaded muzzle for a silencer, and a short integral barrel.  The loudest noise was the bolt moving back and forth.  The drawback was that it was imperative that the Mark 2S be fired at no faster than the semiautomatic rate of fire; firing on automatic is possible, but the silencer will be destroyed before you can get through an entire magazine (with the silencer blowing off the end of the barrel eventually). 

     The Sten Mark 3 was by far the most common Sten, and is a Mark 1 modified for ease of manufacture and to correct the problems with the Mark 2.  The receiver and barrel jacket are in one piece, made out of a single sheet metal tube.  The barrel is fixed, and cannot be removed, nor can the magazine housing.  The Mark 3 also has a small projection in front of the ejection opening to stop the firer’s hand from straying over the muzzle of the weapon.  This was done because Sten users were emphatically told to hold the barrel jacket with the off hand, and stop holding the magazine, since doing so tended to cause stoppages. It should be noted that while one of the reasons for the development of the Mark 3 was to correct deficiencies with the Mark 2, most soldiers who used them felt that the Mark 2 was the superior example of the Sten.  One of the biggest problems with the Mark 3 is repair; since most of the gun is either made in one piece or is welded to another part, repair of the Mark 3 is virtually impossible in the field or by rear-area armorers, and even depot-level repair and maintenance is difficult.  Most damaged or malfunctioning Mark 3s were discarded or turned in and eventually scrapped.

     The Mark 4 was an abbreviated version for paratroopers, sort of an assault pistol.  It never went beyond the prototype phase, but is presented below as an interesting “what-if.”

     The Mark 5 was an attempt to “give the Sten some class.”  The finish on the metal is very well-done, and a wooden butt and pistol grip are fitted.  The sights are adjustable, and a No. 4 rifle bayonet can be fitted.  It unfortunately retained the magazine defects, and the troops were not fooled, though the Mark 5 was ergonomically superior.  It was also more expensive and took longer to make.  The Mark 5 has a slightly faster cyclic rate of fire, making automatic fire somewhat smoother in feel, compared to the somewhat choppy feel of most Stens in automatic fire.  The difference in rate of fire, however, cannot be simulated using the Twilight 2000 v2.2 rules. Early Mark 5s had a hinged plate in the butt for a cleaning kit; this was later eliminated, and the buttplate made one piece of brass.  The Mark 5 had an adjustable front sight, identical to that of the Enfield rifle.

     The Mark 6 is a Mark 5 with the same silencer (and defects) as the Mark 2S.

     During World War 2, the Nationalist Chinese Army received a number of Sten Mk 2s from Canadian stocks as foreign assistance, which had been manufactured at the Long Branch Arsenal.  After World War 2, the Nationalist government began manufacturing their own Sten Mk 2s, calling it the Type 38.  These versions differed from the standard Sten Mk II in that they had no feature for semiautomatic fire, a front sling swivel was added, and the sheet metal housing covering the trigger pack was triangular rather than rounded in shape.  After the Communist takeover of China, the Chinese still used the Stens for a time, but rechambered it for the standard Chinese pistol cartridge at the time – 7.62mm Tokarev.  The modifications were minor, the biggest of which is that the magazine housing was redesigned to take the 35-round Type 54 magazine (the Chinese version of the PPS-43). The bolt was also modified to work with the feed pattern of the Type 54 magazine, though no bolt face modifications were actually necessary.  Of course, a new barrel was required. Though most of these Stens were out of service by the mid-1950s, in the 1990s, the Chinese and other parties began selling kits to convert the Sten to 7.62mm Tokarev.  These used modified 9mm Sten magazines.  It should be noted that while these converted Stens will chamber a 9mm Parabellum round, the round will immediately explode the chamber when fired, as the bullet will not fit down the new barrel.

     Sometimes, you will still encounter the odd individual armed with a Sten, usually in some backwater or Third World country.  Most of them, however, are in museums or the hands of collectors.

Parker-Hale Bushman IDW

     Notes: This is a new SMG designed to be cheap and easy to manufacture. The weapon is made entirely of steel stampings. The Bushman also has an easily variable rate regulator and can vary its ROF from 100-1400 rpm with a simple switch. (Its factory-set ROF is 450, corresponding to the ROF of 5 listed below). 

     Merc 2000 Notes: This is a popular bodyguard weapon, particularly in its smaller incarnations.

 (Note: These are typical ROF, but the Bushman can fire at any ROF from SA to 10.)

Parker-Hale IDW

     Notes: This is an improved version of the Bushman IDW above.  The ability to adjust the rate of fire has been removed, but an adjustable folding stock and a MIL-STD-1913 rail atop the receiver are fitted.  There is only one caliber available, 9mm Parabellum, though several barrel lengths are available, ranging from machine pistol to carbine lengths.  The Parker-Hale IDW is said to be popular with the bodyguard community.

Royal Ordnance Sterling L-2A3/L-34A1

     Notes: This weapon was until recently the standard submachinegun of British forces (it was replaced, mostly by the L-85A1 and A2 assault rifles, but also by the MP-5 series).  It is still used by a number of armed forces, such as India (where it is still produced), and several African and Arab countries.  It is an outgrowth of the Sten gun of World War 2, but is highly upgraded, and far more ergonomically-designed and reliable.  It was designed during World War 2 (and then known as the Patchett Machine Carbine), and prototypes were used starting during the Arnhem airdrop in 1944, but it was not officially issued to troops until 1953.  Like the Sten, it is a very easy and cheap-to-produce weapon.

     The L-34A1 is a silenced version of the standard Sterling; it was not produced until after World War 2.  It is very light for a silenced submachinegun of the era, and more importantly, very reliable, even when fired on automatic.  It is also designed for standard ammunition, rather than special subsonic ammunition.  It is still used by Argentina and Australia, and is held in reserve by Great Britain.

     Twilight 2000 Notes: These weapons were still issued in large numbers to British forces during the Twilight War. 

     Merc 2000 Notes: As with many such weapons, the L-2A3 was sold in great quantities on the international market.  The L-34A1 usually was not.

Sterling Lanchester

     Notes:  This is basically a British copy of the German MP-28, and is sometimes considered the “Rolls Royce of Submachineguns,” due to the extremely high quality of construction.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t what Great Britain needed in 1940; Britain needed weapons quick and cheap, and the Sten took the role that the Lanchester was supposed to fill.  Produced only from June 1941 to October 1943, the Lanchester ended up mostly in the Royal Navy, and served officially until the early-1970s; however, a few were even used during Britain’s recapture of the Falkland Islands!

     The Lanchester had accouterments such as brass fittings that could be highly polished, a bayonet lug, and fine beechwood stock similar to that of the SMLE’s stock.  The stock had a brass buttplate, with a hinged portion enclosing a compartment for a cleaning kit.  (Later production models used an alloy buttplate.)  The bayonet lug is designed for the long British No. 1 sword-type bayonet.  Sights consisted of a protected front post and a tangent rear flip type, adjustable for windage and elevation.  Field-stripping and cleaning are said to be exceedingly simple and quick.  The Lanchester was designed to be used with a long 50-round straight magazine, but the Sten magazine could also be used, and usually was, since the 50-round magazine was a bit clumsy. The Lanchester is of extremely robust construction; as one pair of firearms experts of the period said, “It was built like a battleship.”  Unfortunately, this also meant that the Lanchester was heavier than even most full-sized rifles of the period.

     The original version, the Mk I, had a selective fire capability.  It was soon decided that selective fire was unnecessary in a submachinegun, and the Lanchester was modified into the Mk I* version.  Perhaps less than 200 of the original Mk I design with selective-fire capability were ever built.  (For game purposes, the two versions are identical, as the Lanchester’s cyclic rate of fire is low enough for single shots to be squeezed off by a properly-trained shooter.) 

     The Lanchester, though unnecessarily expensive, did lead to the Sterling submachinegun listed abobe.